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What is a non-mainstream language for you | ||
Tags: Rare Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5101 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 57 of 71 25 December 2012 at 4:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I live near the US capital.
Spanish - Practically everyone wants to study, did study it, or wished they'd studied it French - Many studied it in school, few speak it Italian - I don't actually run into many people who speak or have studied it, but it is still kind of a familier hold-over from back in the day when it was more trendy. At least that is my perception, but I'm just one person. Arabic - I'd say it's the most popular up and coming study option ASL - I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing you're looking for, but I'll throw it in anyway. I also know people who are/have studied Japanese, Chinese 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mashmusic11235 Groupie United States Joined 5500 days ago 85 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese | Message 58 of 71 25 December 2012 at 5:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I live in Pennsylvania, in the northeastern United States. In school at least, Spanish,
French, and German are considered more or less equally mainstream. Other Romance languages, such as Italian or Portuguese, and larger "exotic" languages like Russian aren't taught in school, but are still considered more or less mainstream. Larger Asiatic languages, like Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, or even Cantonese, are considered more impressive and exotic, especially if one speaks them well, but a serious (or not-so-serious) student of any of these should not have his or her motives questioned. Anything beyond that is considered out of the mainstream, with departure from the mainstream happening in degrees by exoticism and perceived difficulty (Polish is more mainstream than Indonesian, which is more mainstream than Cambodian or Xhosa). Exceptions, of course, being made if one's family has a connection to the language. Locally, we have Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch (Pennsylvania German), now-a-days spoken predominantly by the Amish. It gets surprisingly little prestige or notice by most people, but using the few available resources to learn it to fluency as a non-native speaker with no connection to the language (few if any people have ever done this, that I am aware of) would almost certainly come with fame and awe. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NC181818 Tetraglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 4350 days ago 17 posts - 24 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 59 of 71 29 December 2012 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Hong Kong, (my personal opinion)
1. Cantonese - Native language 2. English, Mandarin - Everyone is required to learn them 3. Japanese 4. Korean 5. French, German 6. Spanish 7. Anything else 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rosen93 Diglot Newbie Denmark Joined 4401 days ago 34 posts - 42 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 60 of 71 29 December 2012 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm Danish and have never met anyone who studies Greenlandic, not even people with Greenlandic ancestry. Your statement made me curious, so I went on a search to learn more about the languages of Greenland. The quotes below are from Wikipedia's article about Greeland, and, I think, confirms your theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland#Languages): "Both Kalaallisut (Western Greenlandic) and Danish have been used in public affairs since the establishment of home rule in 1979; the majority of the population can speak both languages. Kalaallisut became the sole official language in June 2009.[70] In practice, Danish is still widely used in the administration and in higher education, as well as remaining the first or only language for some people in Nuuk and the larger towns." "About 12% of the population speak Danish as their first or only language, many of them filling positions as administrators, professionals, academics, or skilled tradesmen. While Kalaallisut is dominant in smaller settlements, a part of the population of Inuit or mixed ancestry, especially in towns, speaks Danish as their first language. Most of Inuit population speak Danish as second language. In larger towns, especially Nuuk and in the higher social strata, this is a large group." Edited by Rosen93 on 30 December 2012 at 2:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Theodisce Octoglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5887 days ago 127 posts - 167 votes Speaks: Polish*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Czech, French, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Portuguese | Message 61 of 71 30 December 2012 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, Latin hasn't been mainstream here since the commies ruined education system in Poland after WWII. Still, Ancient Greek is much less mainstream than that. The same goes for all even less known dead languages (Coptic, Syriac, Ge'ez, Old Armenian etc.).
People here are shocked if someone is learning something other than English, German, French, Italian and, perhaps, Spanish and Russian, although the popularity of Spanish is rising steadily. Portuguese isn't mainstream. My private criterion of "mainstreamness" is based on the availability of easily accessible native resources. Thus, for example, I do not consider neither Slovene nor Croatian to be non mainstream (in my understanding of the word), simply because there is much free legal on-line content available in those languages. On the contrary, I deem a language that has no on-line broadcasting in it to be a highly unlikely choice for a language learner like myself. Edited by Theodisce on 30 December 2012 at 12:54pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kounotori Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5345 days ago 136 posts - 264 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 62 of 71 30 December 2012 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here in Finland, English and Swedish are the absolute rulers. English because it's useful (it's even been called "the third domestic language") and Swedish because it's the second official language and so everyone is required to study it from the seventh grade up until university. Then comes the "big four," i.e. French, German, Spanish, and Italian, which you can study in practically all high schools (smaller rural ones excepted) and many middle schools.
Russian is an interesting case and I'd say it's borderline mainstream. I'm using the word "borderline" here because it's not as nearly as popular as it should be, especially considering how much influence Russia has on modern Finland. In fact, Helsinki alone is expected to host up to 130,000 Russian tourists this New Year's season. This should give you some idea of Russia's importance. People in southeastern Finland have even been talking about dropping Swedish and making Russian a mandatory school language there (an idea which I fully support). But still, Russian isn't a popular language among young Finns. Even Spanish has more young learners. Actually, at the biggest bookstore in Finland, the Akateeminen kirjakauppa in Helsinki, Spanish language materials have twice as much shelf space devoted to them as Russian materials have, which is pretty regrettable. There's already a shortage of competent Russian speakers in Finland, and I don't see the situation improving any time soon. I guess all other languages could be regarded as exotic. The popularity of Japanese and Mandarin has certainly exploded during the last few years, but they still have a long way to go before they could be considered mainstream. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 63 of 71 30 December 2012 at 6:54pm | IP Logged | ||
When I was in Lappeenranta not too long ago, I was initially surprised by the amount of Russian that I heard - no doubt all of those tourists. I guess that what hinders Russian's wider progress in Finland is its association with the the USSR (Winter War) and the established and overarching use of English as the most common intermediary language. Another thing that I initially found interesting in Finland was the number of signs in Japanese at Vantaa (it was later explained that many East Asians (not just Japanese) use Helsinki as a stopover point because of considerations of Great-Circle navigation). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kounotori Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5345 days ago 136 posts - 264 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 64 of 71 30 December 2012 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||
You'd be surprised how much Russian you can hear in Helsinki right now. I was out today and it felt like I was back in Moscow... But it's always fun to listen to random snippets of Russian tourists' conversations. Today at a supermarket, for example, a few of them were wondering where to weigh the fruit they wanted to buy... Anyway, I think that the reason why Finns aren't learning Russian probably has more to do with a simple lack of interest. English is usually enough when you're talking with foreigners, and if you don't have any sort of personal interest in a language or its culture and speakers, then it's easy to not even think about learning it. What Finns have learned through their interactions with Russian tourists, however, is that the average Russian doesn't really speak English. More people have realized the benefits of knowing Russian and so are taking Russian courses, especially in the university. So the situation probably isn't as hopeless as I made it sound like in my earlier post. And if there's any sort of antipathy towards Russians, then that's probably more due to negative national stereotypes than any lingering memories of the USSR or the Winter War (which, I'd argue, isn't as important to Finnish youth anymore). Many people here also dislike Russia because of its current state. Reasons can be simple, too. Take my friends as an example: many of them have told me that they don't want to learn Russian simply because they don't like the way the language sounds. I was really happy, though, when a couple of my friends decided to sign up for a Russian class starting this January! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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