It seems counter to what you'd expect from their culture. Not only because as a military nation on the Blightborder, I wouldn't expect them to have the time to indulge in purely academic studies such as the use of a dead language, but from what I gather of Shienaran art and that poem Lan and Agelmar appreciated, they seem to favour the beauty of the ephemeral, rather than the enduring classics which would favour hanging on to the ancient things.