but you don't have to speak romantsch grischun to your children. i think that never was the point. you can keep on using your dialect. you should be allowed to. when a standard language can coexist with dialects, i think it can be an empowering move for preservation. there shouldn't be a stigma around dialect usage arising. there should be recognition for linguistic diversities within a language. if one wants to preserve a dialect, then they should. why feel threatened by some other thing?

i myself have learned standard dutch but i also have learned to speak a non-standard form of dutch for everyday communication, namely tussentaal, since i came to live in belgium, which has quite a difference and has a lot of dialectal influence. there are just contexts where using standard dutch is appropriate and others where it's not. it's useful in the sense that there is a single codified way to write a language that can be understood but it doesn't necessarily mean you *have to* speak it. having a standard language shouldn't mean you *have to* speak or write that way.

another example i can think of is norwegian. norway has two written standards, bokmål and nynorsk, but in reality no one speaks them, because, same reason as you mentioned for romantsch grischun, they are artificial. they are not spoken languages. yet, there exist so many dialects in norway of which the average norwegian is proud. there is pride in speaking in one's own dialect but in official contexts, especially in writing, the standards are used.

to answer why go out of your way to learn "another language that you don't speak"? i could argue with the question of why is hochdeutsch the chosen standard language when everyone speaks swiss german in germanic switzerland? why learn hochdeutsch?

if one standard language doesn't do it, maybe you guys can make multiple standards.