Introduction: It has been argued that it is the responsibility of governmental authorities to allocate funds to conserving languages not spoken by the majority of people in a country. Others, however, have proposed an opposing viewpoint which stipulates that resources would be better used elsewhere. My views align with the former.

P1: The main reason why I support the opinion that the government ought to invest in the preservation of minority languages is due to the strong connection between language and culture. If people lose their language, they can lose a part of their culture which may have a negative impact on future generations. For instance, in Canada efforts were made to assimilate native Americans into the dominant culture; part of this involved only speaking English and this caused serious disruption to native American culture which has lasted to the present day.

P2: There is an opposing belief that there are better avenues of investment that do not involve protecting minority languages. This is based on the idea that the government should prioritize more essential services to cater for the majority of people such as more funding to national health care systems or national defense. In some cases this might be important, but most countries are not in a state of crisis where these aspects have an overriding priority.

Conclusion: On balance, the argument that the government has to invest in maintaining minority languages has more weight than the proposed alternative. The conservation of language and subsequently culture is of greater import than focusing on other priorities especially in a time of general stability in the world.