Personally I think the schools should be encouraging these languages vs the big ones. English, French, German and Spanish will be around for a while. The others are less likely because there seems to be little interest from people in minority languages when everything these days is economically driven. But the school system can change that. By making them a prerequisite they way they have been with the mentioned more established languages. The whole point of requiring a foreign language was based on cultural literacy (the liberal arts ideal), a broadening perspectives. Learning another language was seen as a primary vehicle for understanding different worldviews, historical traditions, and social structures.
In the past perhaps the problem is finding teachers that can teach the smaller languages. But with online classes these days they can do this virtually.
The way I see it, most of the midwest is pretty boring here. It's only about 175 years old in terms of starting to become populated and buildings and such going up. Compare that to Europe where people have lived for a very long time, and you'll see some really old pieces of history like castles and such.
The one thing we could have kept here in America as living history was the languages all the people brought.. but we dropped that culture ball in favor of a default language. :-( One not ever decreed by the government, but more or less pushed unto everyone by the school systems.
I'd like to see them change their tune.
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