In Wales Cymraeg users demand it being pushed to the fore - this leads to hugely disproportionate spending relative to its economic worth, and a focus on it in schools in preference to use of languages that would foster Xenophilia (languages of other cultures, other countries).
I've no problem with Cymraeg, it's interesting, part of my ancestry, part of British history, half of its fluent speakers prefer it. But if the government stopped putting it up, and supported more learning of major World languages in its place, then I think Wales as a whole would be better off.
Just because something is old, arose in one's own country, etc., doesn't mean it's automatically more valuable (not even culturally) than other things. [And vice-versa of course.]
A world in which culture is discarded in a pursuit of optimizing for 'economic worth' is not a world I want to live in. Nor I think is it a world you would want to live in, if you really gave it some careful consideration.
Handwriting is giving way to typing and other means of writing (I'm swyping this), should we make computing lessons include handwriting in order not to let that "culture" die out. Sure, support those who choose it, but don't hobble those who don't.
Propping up a language at great expense is costly. I don't wish Cymraeg to be discarded (far from it, historic languages are fascinating), I wish other languages - ones suitable for widespread communication - to be fostered.
As a statistic 19% of the population is in the 20-30 year age bracket and so will have had 6 or more years of compulsory Cymraeg (it's been compulsory for 20 years). The number of adults in total that can _speak_ any Cymraeg is <15%. The response to this natural move to using English - spend more and more money on Cymraeg, make it compulsory within every other primary school lesson.
Pushing Cymraeg in this situation has a great cost directly, but indirectly there's an economic cost in the damage to children's education (our numeracy and literacy scores have dropped relative to the rest of the UK).
Culture changes and "progresses", spending more and more to try and halt that progress is misguided.
If you can communicate with more people through a language you can trade, you can create cultural artefacts and people will support that creation.
Trying to prevent the natural decline of one language in the face of a populations preferred use of another costs time and money. There's a cost involved directly and indirectly in not having those resources to spend elsewhere.
I've no problem with Cymraeg, it's interesting, part of my ancestry, part of British history, half of its fluent speakers prefer it. But if the government stopped putting it up, and supported more learning of major World languages in its place, then I think Wales as a whole would be better off.
Just because something is old, arose in one's own country, etc., doesn't mean it's automatically more valuable (not even culturally) than other things. [And vice-versa of course.]