>It's sad, but how many languages have we lost over the centuries? I don't know about languages, but for dialects, I think the answer is the same as the number

>It's sad, but how many languages have we lost over the centuries? I don't know about languages, but for dialects, I think the answer is the same as the number of people who have died over the centuries. No one speaks a language exactly like anyone else, so ultimately, every person has a slightly different dialect. There's no way to preserve them all. Your analogy about preserving living trees in a book is apt.