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Learning rare or dying languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| aricarrot Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5718 days ago 20 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish | Message 1 of 24 14 September 2010 at 2:34pm | IP Logged |
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Hey everyone!
I'm writing a paper on language revitalization movements of endangered or extinct languages and the thought struck me-- why aren't language lovers learning more rare languages? We could probably be the most appropriate group to invigorate a language with our self-motivation to study. Yet, most people concentrate on French, Spanish, German, or Chinese (and with good reason, since they're useful). I was watching a video on the very last speaker of Wichita (in the United States) and there are classes to teach locals the language. Unfortunately, adult learners tend to learn the very basics from these classes and can't be identified as fluent. As adults who learn languages as a hobby, we would have the study methods to learn these languages and perhaps add to the population of speakers, even if it's just a little bit. Have any of you toyed with the idea of learning a rarer language? Should we be using our language learning powers to keep languages alive as well as for learning world languages? Please share your thoughts! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 24 14 September 2010 at 2:48pm | IP Logged |
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Would Latin, Low German and Irish qualify? I learn languages partly for travels, but also for fun, and I want to make them active even there isn't anybody around to speak to. So the problem isn't really motivation, but the access to suitable materials - which includes interesting texts (preferably non fiction), interesting spoken sources, good dictionaries and good dictionaries.
But as second language learners we can't save languages if the native speakers die out. Edited by Iversen on 14 September 2010 at 2:49pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jon1991 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5365 days ago 98 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 3 of 24 14 September 2010 at 2:50pm | IP Logged |
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It depends on what you classify as rare.
To me rare languages are Native American languages, African tribal languages and some European languages such as Manx, Jerrais, Occitan etc. But it can also mean studying languages which are quite unusual for English speakers to study such as Finnish, Icelandic, Georgian, Nepali etc. To me learning these languages are pointless unless you are going to live in these places; however, it doesn't mean I don't respect people's decisions to study these languages as I know as a fact, languages that you love are easier to learn. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 24 14 September 2010 at 3:08pm | IP Logged |
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I have toyed with the idea several times, but there are two big unanswered questions here:
1: How would I learn a rare language with no materials? 2: What good would it do Wichita if some guy in Sweden speaks it? If there was a focused effort by several people, for example on this forum, to all learn an endangered language and set up a community for speakers and learners to use the language online and keep it alive, it might be interesting, but then again, all that would accomplish if successful would be to turn the language into a difficult-to-learn version of Esperanto. The sad fact about revitalizing languages is that there's pretty much nothing outsiders can do if the speakers aren't interested in keeping the language alive. And that's the reason languages die. Well, apart from genocide or linguistic oppression. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 5 of 24 14 September 2010 at 3:18pm | IP Logged |
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Rare languages are limited in geographical scope and usually present no written or pedagogical material whatsoever. So you'd need to learn a language spoken close to home and make a significant social investment -- IF anyone would care enough to have you pry into their lives for that purpose.
Second, what about the emotional implications? I am ready to take on the responsibility of reviving a language? If members of that community don't care enough to keep the language alive, how is that my responsibility? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aricarrot Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5718 days ago 20 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish | Message 7 of 24 14 September 2010 at 5:43pm | IP Logged |
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Iversen: I would definitely count the languages you're learning. Except for Latin, your other two languages have a low number of speakers but I wouldn't consider them "endangered" even if they are rare. And even if all the native speakers die out, if the language is restored to the point where it is used as spoken communication, it's considered revived (for example, Modern Hebrew was at one time a second language for those who learned it).
I realize that there may not be people to talk to but I'm suggesting the possibility of learning these languages for mostly posterity's sake... maybe even just to say you know it. I also don't know if I'm saying that it's necessarily our responsibility to learn these languages, but perhaps just a motivation to keep a particular language alive for just a little longer. Also, the "difficulty" of a language is largely relative to our perceptions based on our native languages, so I don't know if that would deter me, at least. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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