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Your Most Unpopular Language | ||
Tags: Rare Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 48 03 December 2012 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||
And this, despite the mere 59 million (!) speakers (according to this list). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 26 of 48 03 December 2012 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||
Besides the major languages such as (English)/German/Spanish/French, most are regarded as very rare. A few exceptions might be Russian, Portuguese and Italian. The most exotic language in my personal collection is Kikongo (the textbook was written in 1912, in Swedish - how about that!). Related topic: What's a non-mainstream language for you? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4432 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 27 of 48 03 December 2012 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I recently picked up some books in German on the Mongolian language (Vietze's Lehrbuch der
mongolischen Sprache and two dictionaries) published in '83, which I don't intend to study until I've become proficient in Russian and conversational in Chinese, so in about a year and a half-from now. Otherwise it's clear from my language profile that my language with the fewest speakers is Malay, although I intend to get good at Indonesian after I've become proficient in Arabic and Malay could nearly be grouped with Indonesian since there is a one-way intelligibility between the two. During February 2013 I intend to study Czech which has few speakers. I want to study Marathi and Lithuanian in 2014 after I'm solid in Hindi and have more time and experience with far-flung languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 28 of 48 03 December 2012 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I guess it depends on the definition of study, but I looked at a few lessons of Icelandic, with 320 000
speakers. Not many who study it either, so I would think that would be the least popular of the languages I have dabbled in 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4638 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 29 of 48 04 December 2012 at 12:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Overall, my least popular language would be Aymara. I studied it for a few weeks before I started studying Arabic (in early 1999), and also had practice with it when I was a child and visited Bolivia for family trips from Paraguay.
I've also dabbled in Garifuna, particularly during the months I stayed in Honduras for work. After that, definitely Kurdish. I really liked the language, but there were few resources, and I didn't have anybody to practice with. I'd like to return to it (and Aymara) eventually. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4399 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 30 of 48 04 December 2012 at 1:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Mooringer Frasch (a north Frisian dialect), though I have also looked at other North Frisian dialects: Fering-Öömrang (Föhr-Amrumer Friesisch), Helgoländer Friesisch (Halunder), Sylterfriesisch (Söl'ring) and Halligfriesisch.
All the North Frisian dialects combined have around 10,000 speakers. These dialects are so uncool, they barely have English names (though Wiki gives them). I have a number of grammars, readers and dictionaries for these rare dialects. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordfriesische_Sprache Edited by limey75 on 04 December 2012 at 1:45am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4778 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian | Message 31 of 48 04 December 2012 at 2:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I studied Welsh (and failed) and then Armenian (succeeded), 2 languages considered "unpopular".
I notice that languages like Greek or Hebrew, with relatively few speakers are more "popular" than languages like Indonesian with tons of speakers. The "prestige" of a language apparently increases its "popularity". I would like to study to fluency any of the Finno-Ugric languages of Russia like Erzya, Moksha or Udmurt but it might be like an investment which pays no dividends in the long run. Edited by tanya b on 04 December 2012 at 2:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| limey75 Senior Member United Kingdom germanic.eu/ Joined 4399 days ago 119 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Norwegian, Old English | Message 32 of 48 04 December 2012 at 2:19am | IP Logged | ||
Welsh is currently on an upswing and is considered dead cool (at least, in Wales anyway ;) It has around 771,000 speakers (Wiki). Edited by limey75 on 04 December 2012 at 2:21am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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