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Near-extinct languages - Advise? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6371 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 27 12 November 2008 at 2:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey,
As a lover of languages and linguistic variation, I think it's a good idea to record as many languages as possible and keep them alive long enough. At least we should raise people in areas as bilingual in those languages. It's sad that a majority language would entirely whip out a smaller language. I know this is the nature of things but at least a small effort towards preserving some of the languages in the world is better than nothing. I feel compelled to learn a near-extinct language. When I'm done with all the others I wish to learn, I think it'd be a nice thing to do. In addition, I've always had a little nerdy want of a "personal language" that only I and a few other people speak. This goes against one of the main reasons I learn language, which is to speak to many people in the language and grow culturally and linguistically. But that's ok, I'm willing to make an exception. It's similar to learning Latin or Ancient Greek, there are other reasons to learn languages. Do any of you have any ideas which language I should learn? I ask out of curiosity. I was thinking of just going with any indo-european language. I've looked at Saami languages, that'd be cool Thanks in advance. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6079 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 27 12 November 2008 at 3:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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Okay.
I think you will know what language I am going to put forward (I am an activist for the language so what can you expect) Cornish This language is of the Brythonic Celtic languages (along with Welsh and Breton) and I believe an I-E language. Not only is Cornish spoken in Cornwall, but also in Australia! Cornish was the language of the great Cornish miners who spread all over the world - hence the phrase "Wherever in the World you see a whole in the ground, you will find a Cornishman at the bottom, digging for tin" - and took their language/dialect and national identity with them! The descendants of which have learnt Cornish, and make up a substantial amount. Here is a link to a page showing a wide variety of Cornish Australian Associations http://www.cornwall-online.co.uk/associat.htm#Aus Cornish has around 10,000 speakers around the world, of which about 1000-2000 are fluent and a few native. This language needs as much help as we can give it, so I ask you that you consider this language. I will post later about how to learn Cornish (if you want to) TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6147 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 3 of 27 12 November 2008 at 3:12am | IP Logged | |||||
Saami languages aren't Indo-European; they're Finno-Ugric. Why don't you try one of the aboriginal languages in Australia? Go into the bush and live with the people for a while and get a full immersion. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6469 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 4 of 27 12 November 2008 at 3:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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You may be interested in this thread on Unilang. It discusses various endangered languages and how to learn them. Edited by Sprachprofi on 12 November 2008 at 4:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6371 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 27 12 November 2008 at 3:48am | IP Logged | |||||
Ah yes well spotted. Sorry I really meant european rather than just indo-european. I'd prefer it be Indo-european or Finno-Ugric though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6371 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 27 12 November 2008 at 3:52am | IP Logged | |||||
Excellent. I was interested in Celtic languages. This looks pretty good. I'm interested in finding out more and how to learn it. I see it's been revived! That's very interesting indeed! I'll consider it for sure. ^_^ 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6453 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 7 of 27 12 November 2008 at 3:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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In fact almost all the Finno-Ugric languages (except Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian and a few others) are near extinction. You could try a language like Ingrian, Livonian or Votic (all of these have only 20-200 speakers each). Or how about some native American languages? I'm personally fascinated by the Sioux languages, but they are VERY difficult to learn..
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| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6371 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 27 12 November 2008 at 7:40am | IP Logged | |||||
Yeh. I noticed that. I think I'll choose either Cornish or a Finno-Ugric language. Why do you say Sioux languages are VERY difficult to learn? Edited by zerothinking on 12 November 2008 at 7:41am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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