|
 |
What makes you learn a minority language? | ||
Tags: Rare Languages | Motivation | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6120 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 25 of 35 01 September 2007 at 2:26am | IP Logged | ||
|
Like Sluggy says, speaking several "important" languages, the rest is just learning for pleasure.
I am from Spain so I speak Spanish, I live in Canada and speak English and French, I doubt that as computer specialist I'll need any other language here to get a new job, which I'm not willing to do now. Besides I speak Russian at an intermediate level, and can read German (the language of the software on which I work), plus some Mandarin. So, that's for the "great" languages. Therefore, I don't see any economic profit in learning other languages. So I just pick them up depending on several factors: interest in the culture they are attached to (Uyghur, Hebrew), linguistic interest (Georgian, Native American languages, Vietnamese...), ... Then, as I start to know more about the culture of its natives, I get more interested, not only linguistically, and my motivation increases. And the more material available, the better. That would be perfect if it was not for the TIME, always scarce, but that's another story. Edited by joan.carles on 01 September 2007 at 2:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| momtomany Newbie Canada Joined 6126 days ago 18 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Dutch, German | Message 26 of 35 08 September 2007 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I am learning a minority language (Dutch) because I want to speak to people I care about who can't speak english very well. Sure, with a little bit of english and a little bit of Dutch you can have a nice visit and 'understand' each other..... but how do you describe how you feel about things or talk about topics that you don't have the vocabulary for? When you have to substitute so many specific words with easier, more common, words, then so much of your meaning is lost. Communication is such an integral part of having a deeper relationship. I love my relatives in the Netherlands, but I don't know them well.... I don't know what they are passionate about, I have no sense for how educated/intelligent they are.... if I can tell that one of them has a sense of humour (from seeing others laughing and smiling a lot), I don't know if it's a polite or rude sense of humour. The little children they have don't speak any english yet, and so I can't even enjoy spending time getting to know them. To ME learning Dutch is the most important language of all, because some of the people I love speak Dutch.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6405 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 27 of 35 09 September 2007 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
If you're not planning on going there someday, not interested in the literature, don't have friends in that language, don't really care to talk to natives, you won't learn it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6555 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 28 of 35 10 September 2007 at 12:35am | IP Logged | ||
|
I agree with Linguamor, although I can imagine a rare sort of person who learns a language purely because of intellectual fascination. JRR Tolkien is almost an example of this; he learned Finnish partially for his fascination with its grammar, and partially so he could read Finnish mythology.
Although he made up many of his own languages, Tolkien had this to say about other conlangs (minority languages in every way): "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends". Edited by Captain Haddock on 10 September 2007 at 12:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6039 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical) | Message 29 of 35 06 April 2009 at 5:33am | IP Logged | ||
|
At first, I thought that I agreed 100% with the "practical" people. I can't understand most of those who are fascinated with any type of Gaelic, Basque, Occitan or tribal dialects. I am dumbfounded as to why the academic community only seems to really value endangered languages.
Then I remembered that most people don't understand why Danish is on my list of languages to learn. They waste their time trying to convince me not to learn it or to at least learn Swedish instead. Danish is the language of many of my ancestors. I've been curious about it for more or less a decade now, ever since my mother and grandmother told me stories about some of my Danish forbearers. I realize that Russian and Hindi have more speakers than Danish but that's kind of irrelevant. If I go to St. Petersburg, will I talk to more people than if I go to Copenhagen? I don't have any more economic reasons to learn those languages than Danish and those people, although very impressive in their own right, do not interest me as much as the Danes. So there, those are my reasons for learning a language whose people tend to speak English well and are not large in numbers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 5817 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 30 of 35 06 April 2009 at 8:10am | IP Logged | ||
|
I've said many times before (and continue to say) that I intend learning Yiddish and am always looking at it in some shape or form. I think minority languages can be very exciting, especially one that is a part of a person's history and cultural heritage.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GibberMeister Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Scotland Joined 5595 days ago 61 posts - 67 votes Speaks: Spanish, Catalan, Lowland Scots*, English*, Portuguese | Message 31 of 35 07 April 2009 at 12:48am | IP Logged | ||
|
For me personally, learning a language as a hobby has absolutely nothing to do with its usefulness. I just learn them or investigate them in a superficial way to see how they work and to enjoy the peculiarities and beauty they possess in themselves. I just like a new challenge. And some languages just appeal to me. Simple curiosity made me learn Portuguese, Catalan and Scottish Gaelic, although the latter I do consider part of my heritage anyway, but it just seemed interesting. It was the first I learnt by myself.
Some I have actually more or less given up on, mainly due to a lack of passion for them or lack of decent resources/course (Rusiian, Basque, Arabic). But most others I do keep them going. It's all about curiosity for me. Then you just seem to get hooked on trying to learn more. to the poster who said this: ''At first, I thought that I agreed 100% with the "practical" people. I can't understand most of those who are fascinated with any type of Gaelic, Basque, Occitan or tribal dialects. I am dumbfounded as to why the academic community only seems to really value endangered languages. '' I don't know if this has to do with my own interest in languages or not: I suppose you COULD say that I speak 'tribal dialect' as a home language. Maybe that aroused my interest. My native Scots is to all intents and purposes moribund as a language and will eventually be just another accent of English - but I don't think that makes it any less valuable in today's world. Gaelic too has many wonderful things attached to it, music, folklore and even the nuance and comedy value that cannot readily translate into other cultural spheres or languages. This is true of all languages and cultures probably. I am glad to have been a part of this. I find it has been a worthy experience to have been a Scots speaker who learned Gaelic too. I see nothing demeaning in it. Maybe that is why I can see a point in learning minority languages just for the sake of it. I hold no linguistic prejudices or snobbery in that sense. Edited by GibberMeister on 07 April 2009 at 12:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Akipenda Lugha Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5525 days ago 78 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Swahili, Sign Language, Spanish | Message 32 of 35 07 April 2009 at 12:56am | IP Logged | ||
|
The only language I could speak about would be Swahili, which is definitely not a
minority language as it has upwards of 80 million speakers. However, many people who go to East Africa don't bother learning it because the people they need to talk to will speak English. For me, nothing compares to speaking to someone from a different culture in their own culture's language, and being able to relate to someone through their own language. While I was able to do my work entirely in English, I was able to enjoy bus stops, restaurant staff, security guards, people on the street, taxi drivers, etc. much more than I ever would have been able to without the language, and I made some good friends too. Culture comes through language, right? 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
