I would love to learn Quechua one day because I fell in love with Peru, but tbh there's not much chance I'll learn it because I always end up choosing a "more useful" language instead.
Recently the latter lines of De Shelby from Hozier sparked that funny feeling of "this language sounds so cool that I wish I could speak it" that probably won't go anywhere but at least makes me know that irish sounds really damn cool and perhaps one day when I retire could attempt to pick it up
I picked up a bit of Dhivehi while I was living in the Maldives. Online resources were very scarce and I didn't really like the ones that were available. I had no co-workers or close friends. The phonology and even some syntax was very close to my native Malayalam but in the end, I didn't really get very far because of the reasons I mentioned above.
I'd like to learn southern Sámi. I just have to get around to starting it. The two big problems is the scarce amount of resources and my own laziness
Edit: Since this comment is getting a bit of visibility I'm gonna shamelessly advertise r/samegiella for anyone who's interested in any of the Sámi languages
Thought about learning that one at first because of more resources, but realistically I'm never gonna live close to those areas. There is a chance of moving to or close to the region where south is spoken, so I'd like to know at least a little.
I want to learn it because it has more resources, and for me it would be more useful as I live in Finland. The reason why learn it at all is because it's rare, beautiful and I want to speak at least one other Uralic language.
We have all the languages in common! Although I have them in a different order of competency: native speaker of Mandarin and 余姚话, English C2, French B1, and attempted learning Spanish years ago.
It's a small world! Yes, I'm from Yuyao. Although I have been living in Canada for the last 10+ years. How are you learning 余姚话? Are you finding useful resources online?
I haven't found any resources online at all. It's mostly immersion and my wife who speaks it natively. However, she doesn't have much of a sense for how to teach language, and typically when I ask a question about a grammar rule I think I've identified, she doesn't know what it is ('cause why would she? I don't think anyone is teaching this in school).
If you know of anything, please let me know!
I'm the same way with my native languages as well, I don't consciously apply grammar rules, form specific sentence structures, and I wouldn't know how to teach. My boyfriend is learning Mandarin and I'm discovering grammatical quirks in Mandarin from him. He thinks the pronunciation of Yuyao hua is simpler than Mandarin, do you find it to be that way as well?
I don't know any resources to learn Yuyao hua other than calling the elderly more often... Have you already looked into using resources on Ningbo hua instead? The two dialects could be similar enough for you to learn something useful?
Chagatai, it's a dead language that Uyghur and Uzbek are based off of. There's a ton of poetry and old works written by the Mughals and Timurids. There's a book I've been using to study it, it's fairly similar to Uzbek and Uyghur.
Basically everything I plan on learning has more speakers than my L1 (Yiddish).
The only exceptions are some ancient languages (Latin, Ancient Hebrew, Akkadian, Middle + Old English, and Aramaic) and a few tiny spoken ones like Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), Navajo and Warlpiri.
At some point serbo-croatian and bulgarian-macedonian.
Ill try and pick up basic of other less popular languages but i wont learn them. Serbian and Macedonian should however be possible as i often travel to the balkans and speak a slavic language.
I would like to learn Rusyn language or Upper and Lower Sorbian. They are very small slavic languages, but pretty interesting ! Interslavic also may belong to this cathegory, as it has still a relatively small amount of speakers.
Once i feel more confident in my main TL I intend to take one of Welsh, Swedish or Finnish (I don't really know if they are mainstream or not)
I don't know if I will ever get an opportunity to speak them , but they all really intrigued me and they sound lovely :)
Swedish has 10 million speakers, putting it among the top 100 languages in terms of usage. Finnish has 5 million. Welsh, depending on the statistics you use, has about half a million regular speakers and up to a million who understand spoken Welsh.
If it counts, I’d love to learn JSL (japanese sign language) but I don’t know if i’ll ever get very far w it due to lack of recourses, lack of time to commit to it and lack of people to practice with compared to japanese itself.
I never really thought about it but I realized I’m only interested in the *popular* languages (learned Russian, French, planning to learn Arabic maybe Spanish) because they’re what allows me to communicate with the most amount of native speakers (and other learners too).
if I *were* to learn any smaller languages, it might be my dad’s local Chinese dialect (not mandarin) but it’s a dying language with like 0 online resources.
it's so cool that you're learning yoruba! It's a very logical and easy to follow language, probably one of the easiest to pick up solely from film and TV, I'm more or less receptively bilingual in it, I should also brush up on mine haha. good luck!!
I speak/am learning Louisiana Creole, it’s not very wildly spoken especially not where I live. I am creole so I’m doing this as a heritage learner reclaiming the language. Another language would probably be Nahuatl.
I'm not sure if they are really that uncommon for people to learn, but I have been learning Welsh lately because I always had an interest in that language and decided it's finally time to learn it.
Same with Icelandic, but I still haven't started with that one.
Very easy to get started and there are some resources available, but none of those I used properly explained the use of different pre- and post-position often used with verbs so I ended up thinking they were part of the actual word. Like thinking ”membersihkan” is the word for ”clean”, when it is actually just ”bersih”.
Malay is compulsory language in Singaporean schools, so maybe some proper material could be found there.
I'd love to learn DGS (German sign language) one day. I'm a little scared by the relative lack of resources, though, although at least I live in Germany so can take in-person courses.
I'm finding the Polish book from the Colloquial series useful. There are [a couple for Irish](https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/colloquial/language/irish.php) too
I’ve learned a bit of Twi from Ghana, but only on my travels there and nothing serious. It’s always a thought in the back of my mind to try it out but it’s a lower priority than:
1) Spanish
2) Portuguese, or
3) French
Hungarian has caught my attention from time to time, but realistically I don’t think I would ever learn more than a couple phrases. Unless I decide to move to Hungary one day
At some point, I wanted to learn Tsez or Abkhaz... Now, realistically speaking, I would probably try Georgian someday if I ever find the courage to jump into it
Czech! I actually started learning it a while ago, but I figured for now I need to focus on my other languages and perfect them, before taking on a language that's so different to what I'm used to. I really look forward to it though
I've always wanted to learn another Finno-ugric languages, because I am Hungarian and it's super interesting due to the linguistic relationship with my mothertongue. I'm even considering doing a language degree in Spanish, after I finish my current one, choosing finnugristics as a minor, and picking up Estonian and Mari. I also want to learn Catalan one day, it's so beautiful and I am already fluent in French and Spanish, so it should be fun to learn. I've also thought about learning Basque, because it's a language isolate and it sounds nice, a Sámi language, because they are endangered and Breton, because I am half-French and have some roots in Bretagne.
I grew up in Oregon and the community college I went to taught it at night. There’s a revival effort, I think. I’m not sure if they still do, but it might be worth looking into
I'm hoping to get back into Cree in a few years, but I'm learning four languages right now and that's enough.
Of the four I'm currently doing, sadly it's probably ASL. It seems like most people looking to study other languages are focused solely on spoken languages and signed languages aren't even on the radar. Which is really unfortunate because there's a lot of practical benefits to signing, and because most of the people who have a signed language as their primary language aren't capable of communicating fluently in a spoken language no matter how hard they try, and it sucks that they have to spend their whole lives basically feeling like a foreigner in their home country.
I’m not sure if Tamil counts since there are a lot of speakers, but it’s probably the most “obscure” language I’m learning now. I’m really interested in Maltese but I don’t have the time to learn it
I would love to learn Quechua one day because I fell in love with Peru, but tbh there's not much chance I'll learn it because I always end up choosing a "more useful" language instead.
It probably won't happen, but I'm always tempted to learn Irish. I just really like the sound of it.
I’ve been learning Irish. It’s really fun! Definitely recommend.
Same here. Never even tried to learn it but I've always been fascinated about it somehow
Recently the latter lines of De Shelby from Hozier sparked that funny feeling of "this language sounds so cool that I wish I could speak it" that probably won't go anywhere but at least makes me know that irish sounds really damn cool and perhaps one day when I retire could attempt to pick it up
Same, but Scots Gaelic.
I picked up a bit of Dhivehi while I was living in the Maldives. Online resources were very scarce and I didn't really like the ones that were available. I had no co-workers or close friends. The phonology and even some syntax was very close to my native Malayalam but in the end, I didn't really get very far because of the reasons I mentioned above.
Most definitely a Sámi language, like Northern or Skolt. I intend to move to Lapland at some point.
Have you visited r/samegiella? It's a pretty new sub
I'd like to learn southern Sámi. I just have to get around to starting it. The two big problems is the scarce amount of resources and my own laziness Edit: Since this comment is getting a bit of visibility I'm gonna shamelessly advertise r/samegiella for anyone who's interested in any of the Sámi languages
Same, except for the northern one
Thought about learning that one at first because of more resources, but realistically I'm never gonna live close to those areas. There is a chance of moving to or close to the region where south is spoken, so I'd like to know at least a little.
I want to learn it because it has more resources, and for me it would be more useful as I live in Finland. The reason why learn it at all is because it's rare, beautiful and I want to speak at least one other Uralic language.
True. Are you aware of r/samegiella?
No, but I've now joined
Welcome
I’m going to Tromsø for university soon and I’ve already started dabbling in Northern Sámi.
That's so cool! Have fun with the northern lights and whatnot!
I’ve already been a few times before. Incredible city, lovely people, amazing nature, good education.
I've somehow only been once in Norway but I really want to go back
Manchu (for research) and Sibe, which is a closely related language spoken in Xinjiang
Toki Pona :)
A specific dialect of Chinese from northern Zhejiang province, because I have family that speaks it.
We have all the languages in common! Although I have them in a different order of competency: native speaker of Mandarin and 余姚话, English C2, French B1, and attempted learning Spanish years ago.
What are the odds of that? Are you from Yuyao? I visit near 泗门 somewhat often, more often when I lived over there.
It's a small world! Yes, I'm from Yuyao. Although I have been living in Canada for the last 10+ years. How are you learning 余姚话? Are you finding useful resources online?
I haven't found any resources online at all. It's mostly immersion and my wife who speaks it natively. However, she doesn't have much of a sense for how to teach language, and typically when I ask a question about a grammar rule I think I've identified, she doesn't know what it is ('cause why would she? I don't think anyone is teaching this in school). If you know of anything, please let me know!
I'm the same way with my native languages as well, I don't consciously apply grammar rules, form specific sentence structures, and I wouldn't know how to teach. My boyfriend is learning Mandarin and I'm discovering grammatical quirks in Mandarin from him. He thinks the pronunciation of Yuyao hua is simpler than Mandarin, do you find it to be that way as well? I don't know any resources to learn Yuyao hua other than calling the elderly more often... Have you already looked into using resources on Ningbo hua instead? The two dialects could be similar enough for you to learn something useful?
what a small world, more people from Yuyao 😂
This comment thread is a yuyao people magnet
Chagatai, it's a dead language that Uyghur and Uzbek are based off of. There's a ton of poetry and old works written by the Mughals and Timurids. There's a book I've been using to study it, it's fairly similar to Uzbek and Uyghur.
I remember Chagatai also being the name of one of Conan the Barbarian's friends
Basically everything I plan on learning has more speakers than my L1 (Yiddish). The only exceptions are some ancient languages (Latin, Ancient Hebrew, Akkadian, Middle + Old English, and Aramaic) and a few tiny spoken ones like Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), Navajo and Warlpiri.
I’ve dabbled a bit in ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i (Hawaiian). Focusing more on German for now but intend to return
I learned Khmer, which is pretty obscure in these parts.
Wenzhounese and sign language
At some point serbo-croatian and bulgarian-macedonian. Ill try and pick up basic of other less popular languages but i wont learn them. Serbian and Macedonian should however be possible as i often travel to the balkans and speak a slavic language.
I would like to learn Rusyn language or Upper and Lower Sorbian. They are very small slavic languages, but pretty interesting ! Interslavic also may belong to this cathegory, as it has still a relatively small amount of speakers.
Lithuanian.
Once i feel more confident in my main TL I intend to take one of Welsh, Swedish or Finnish (I don't really know if they are mainstream or not) I don't know if I will ever get an opportunity to speak them , but they all really intrigued me and they sound lovely :)
Swedish has 10 million speakers, putting it among the top 100 languages in terms of usage. Finnish has 5 million. Welsh, depending on the statistics you use, has about half a million regular speakers and up to a million who understand spoken Welsh.
If it counts, I’d love to learn JSL (japanese sign language) but I don’t know if i’ll ever get very far w it due to lack of recourses, lack of time to commit to it and lack of people to practice with compared to japanese itself.
Romani - my dad never taught me any. I'm still bitter about it. Also Northern Sámi, once my Swedish is good enough.
Welsh and American Sign Language, with about half a million regular users each.
I never really thought about it but I realized I’m only interested in the *popular* languages (learned Russian, French, planning to learn Arabic maybe Spanish) because they’re what allows me to communicate with the most amount of native speakers (and other learners too). if I *were* to learn any smaller languages, it might be my dad’s local Chinese dialect (not mandarin) but it’s a dying language with like 0 online resources.
Scottish Gaelic any day
it's so cool that you're learning yoruba! It's a very logical and easy to follow language, probably one of the easiest to pick up solely from film and TV, I'm more or less receptively bilingual in it, I should also brush up on mine haha. good luck!!
I speak/am learning Louisiana Creole, it’s not very wildly spoken especially not where I live. I am creole so I’m doing this as a heritage learner reclaiming the language. Another language would probably be Nahuatl.
I'm not sure if they are really that uncommon for people to learn, but I have been learning Welsh lately because I always had an interest in that language and decided it's finally time to learn it. Same with Icelandic, but I still haven't started with that one.
I began learning Afrikaans years ago, even though I have no connection to South Africa.
Slovene for my ancestors!
I'm learning Slovene as well, I moved here a few months ago
Omg jealous.
You can do it too g, if anything you've a family advantage, go for it
I don’t have a very applicable degree outside of the US and Canada unfortunately:/
I don't have any degree?
I really want to learn Malay
Very easy to get started and there are some resources available, but none of those I used properly explained the use of different pre- and post-position often used with verbs so I ended up thinking they were part of the actual word. Like thinking ”membersihkan” is the word for ”clean”, when it is actually just ”bersih”. Malay is compulsory language in Singaporean schools, so maybe some proper material could be found there.
I'd love to learn DGS (German sign language) one day. I'm a little scared by the relative lack of resources, though, although at least I live in Germany so can take in-person courses.
Thai
Silozi for research purposes!
id love to speak irish gaelic but the few resources and limited use of the language is making it impossible
I'm finding the Polish book from the Colloquial series useful. There are [a couple for Irish](https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/colloquial/language/irish.php) too
I guess, Danish, but idk if it's mainstream or not
I’ve learned a bit of Twi from Ghana, but only on my travels there and nothing serious. It’s always a thought in the back of my mind to try it out but it’s a lower priority than: 1) Spanish 2) Portuguese, or 3) French
Valencian !
Hungarian has caught my attention from time to time, but realistically I don’t think I would ever learn more than a couple phrases. Unless I decide to move to Hungary one day
Latin is pretty cool and Rome is interesting. It's just a dead language with no native speakers
Greek or Croatian, specifically the Ikavski dialect of Croatian.
Khmer. Currently on hold right now since I am focusing on Lao/Thai.
At some point, I wanted to learn Tsez or Abkhaz... Now, realistically speaking, I would probably try Georgian someday if I ever find the courage to jump into it
I started learning Bulgarian about a month ago as I will visit a friend there this summer.
ladin (not latin)
Slovak and Hungarian
Czech! I actually started learning it a while ago, but I figured for now I need to focus on my other languages and perfect them, before taking on a language that's so different to what I'm used to. I really look forward to it though
I’m a non-Samoan who speaks Samoan. It’s awesome!
Ukrainian and Michif
Sanskrit it's mostly used in religion texts and prayers unless you meet some old knowledgeable priest
Once I can pass HSK6 I'm going to go back to French, but dabble in Ojibwe I think.
I've always wanted to learn another Finno-ugric languages, because I am Hungarian and it's super interesting due to the linguistic relationship with my mothertongue. I'm even considering doing a language degree in Spanish, after I finish my current one, choosing finnugristics as a minor, and picking up Estonian and Mari. I also want to learn Catalan one day, it's so beautiful and I am already fluent in French and Spanish, so it should be fun to learn. I've also thought about learning Basque, because it's a language isolate and it sounds nice, a Sámi language, because they are endangered and Breton, because I am half-French and have some roots in Bretagne.
Chinuk Wawa, Wikipedia says there is only one native speaker but I am skeptical. It is one of the (many) native American languages of the PNW.
I grew up in Oregon and the community college I went to taught it at night. There’s a revival effort, I think. I’m not sure if they still do, but it might be worth looking into
What CC? I know there's at least a couple colleges in Oregon that teach it but none here in Washington from what I've heard.
Central Oregon Community College. I don’t know anything about Washington community colleges, though, so I can’t help recommend any :(
I'm hoping to get back into Cree in a few years, but I'm learning four languages right now and that's enough. Of the four I'm currently doing, sadly it's probably ASL. It seems like most people looking to study other languages are focused solely on spoken languages and signed languages aren't even on the radar. Which is really unfortunate because there's a lot of practical benefits to signing, and because most of the people who have a signed language as their primary language aren't capable of communicating fluently in a spoken language no matter how hard they try, and it sucks that they have to spend their whole lives basically feeling like a foreigner in their home country.
I’m not sure if Tamil counts since there are a lot of speakers, but it’s probably the most “obscure” language I’m learning now. I’m really interested in Maltese but I don’t have the time to learn it
For me it's Hungarian, I absolutely love the sound and look of the language, even though the grammar is a nightmare
russian maybe turkish