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Native American Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| kottoler.ello Tetraglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5806 days ago 128 posts - 192 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese, German | Message 1 of 45 28 August 2009 at 6:38am | IP Logged | ||
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So, I've always been pretty interested in Native American languages, and I'd really love to learn one, but I don't know much about them. I've looked some at Nahuatl and Quechua and would be interested in learning either of those, but are there any other relatively vital Native American languages I should know about, or anything I should know about what would be a good Native American language to learn or why? I live in Texas and a trip to South/Central America on which I would be able to practice the language would certainly be possible.
Thanks in advance, and happy learning! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5707 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 2 of 45 28 August 2009 at 8:33am | IP Logged | ||
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In North America Navajo has the most speakers, followed by Cree languages.
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| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5883 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 45 28 August 2009 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I had a brief look at the NA languages while I was doing (an extremely interesting) module on "The American West" ... and I found that it seems that Lakotan is one of the wider spoken languages, and certainly the one I can find most resources for.
Also, I've heard that Blackfoot is a good choice. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Louis Triglot Groupie Italy Joined 5533 days ago 92 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish | Message 4 of 45 28 August 2009 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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A lot of state governments actively promote the learning of Native American languages. Here in Massachusetts, I was able to join a Wampanoag class at no charge and even though I was considerably younger than everyone else there, it was a great experience. Wampanoag is one of those languages that is being revived and there are only a few native speakers left.
Regardless of which language you choose, you should be prepared for an entirely new method of thinking. A copy of the grammar book that I used is available here, if you're curious. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5707 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 5 of 45 29 August 2009 at 5:00am | IP Logged | ||
Lakota at 6,000 is reasonable, but in terms of speakers Navajo lists over 100,000 as does Cree. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| karaipyhare Tetraglot Groupie Paraguay Joined 5388 days ago 74 posts - 150 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 45 29 August 2009 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Guarani is spoken by 6.000.000 people... And I'm almost sure it's the only native
american language mostly spoken by non indigenous people. 88% of the population of Paraguay talk in Guarani, so, finding someone to practice with won't be difficult 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| spykel Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5630 days ago 40 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Scottish Gaelic | Message 7 of 45 29 August 2009 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Inuktitut only has around 30 000 speakers, but it is by far the dominant language of the Canadian arctic, and closely related to Greenlandic. It's tough, but the grammar is free of irregularities. This site gives a taste: http://www.tusaalanga.ca/
Quechua has the most number of native speakers, very roughly 10 million across its dialects, and is official in Peru and Bolivia. Guarani probably comes in second. Navajo would be a good local choice considering that you live in the southwest US, but it is supposed to be damn hard. Learning Maya, spoken by around 800 000 people in southern Mexico and Central America, might help you discover the very unique worldview of the ancient Mayans. Whatever language you pick, you'll be in for a pretty exotic experience. For example, I've studied Ojibwe before. Nouns are separated into animate and inanimate classes, which are not always intuitive. Verbs are conjugated in completely different ways depending on the class of the subject (for intrasitive verbs) or object (for transitive verbs), leading to four verb systems that have little in common. The third person is divided into two classes, one for relavant objects and another for irrelavant ones. There are no adjectives, their role is taken over by verbs with adjectival meaning built-in. It's highly agglutinative too, as I'd assume all native American languages are. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kottoler.ello Tetraglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5806 days ago 128 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese, German | Message 8 of 45 31 August 2009 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Great suggestions here, thanks guys, lots of languages I wouldn't have thought of. I'll have to take a look at these, Navajo sounds fun (the Wikipedia article on it makes it sound deliciously difficult and interesting). One of the things I like about Native American languages is they all seem to have really interesting, complex features that are vastly different from Indo-European languages, so difficulty isn't necessary a bad thing.
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