The existence of a lingua franca is a very good thing. Still, the death of a language is not a good thing at all. Human languages are more than just communication protocols. Every one of them holds a lot of additional information - historic and cultural, for example.
Most things can be translated, some just can't ("Não sou, estou." == "No soy, estoy." != "I am not, I am."). And some are just not "interesting" enough to translate. So, when a language dies, much of that additional information it holds is just lost in translation.
Slashdot Mirror
The existence of a lingua franca is a very good thing. Still, the death of a language is not a good thing at all. Human languages are more than just communication protocols. Every one of them holds a lot of additional information - historic and cultural, for example.
Most things can be translated, some just can't ("Não sou, estou." == "No soy, estoy." != "I am not, I am."). And some are just not "interesting" enough to translate. So, when a language dies, much of that additional information it holds is just lost in translation.