Some people have argued that the language itself is not as important as the culture behind it
Their argument for learning endangered languages it to preserve the culture.
That I find a little tough. How exactly is a culture of an endangered language of some obscure island preserved because some Danish guy in Europe decided to learn it?
I just don’t see it.
Language and culture are obviously highly connected, but I believe that while you can keep a language artificially alive it is only the descendants, or at the very least, geographically close people who can actually maintain the culture.
Academics should study the language, we should document it as much as we can, but I believe it is next to impossible to actually keep a dead culture alive artificially.