Next year, 2006, has been nominated Year of African Languages by the African Union, which also launched the African Academy of Languages in 2001. This brief article on the BBC web site asks whether it matters that many indigenous languages are dying out, to be replaced by emerging new languages such as Kenya's Sheng, a mixture of Swahili, English, and local languages.
With over 300 African languages on the UN's endangered list, having fewer than 10,000 speakers, new languages won't come anywhere close to replacing them all. If the purpose of language purely for communication, as one respondent suggests, then does it matter if languages spoken by so few people disappear? Or does language also reflect culture and ideas which, once lost, cannot be replaced?
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