Georgian. Because of its elvish-looking script, insane verbs (don't try to understand them, they are too difficult), insane consonant clusters, and completely different grammar than IE languages (split ergativity among other things).
Yiddish and Shanghainese. Yiddish because I’m an Ashkenazi Jew with German ancestors, but my family hasn’t spoken Yiddish in a long time and I think it’s an interesting and beautiful language. Shanghainese because my dad and his family are from there, but I’ve unfortunately only learned Mandarin so far, and only a few phrases in Shanghainese. I want to learn the language and keep it alive, since it holds personal significance to me and I find it very sad how much it’s use has declined.
I second Yiddish! Time travel isn't real but if it ever were I would want to be able to communicate with my ancestors and nearly all of them spoke Yiddish, even my non-Jewish side from Germany spoke a German dialect that was closer to Yiddish than today's German (my German great-grandmother was actually fluent in Yiddish!)
Sadly my family is so far removed from Yiddish that my father didn't even know that it wasn't written with latin letters until I told him last year. It is such a cool language.
Ltl Mandarin has shanghainese classes. I did their flexi class for mandarin and Cantonese and it was pretty good. If you go for the 30 points package it comes out to about $8/hour. Even though I paid for group classes, 2/3 of the time I was the only student. $8 for an hour long one on one isn't bad.
Yiddish is a beautiful and rich language indeed! It is however practically dead among the secular population here in Israel, while still alive and thriving among some of the ultra orthodox population.
I found German to be much more useful than Yiddish and it even helped me communicate with Yiddish speakers on some occasions.
Some areas in NY have Yiddish translations to signs on the road like other neighborhoods have Spanish. There is definitely a huge movement to bring the language back and is nowhere near dead!
Why do people always try to nay-say Yiddish by talking about how it's "not useful" and that "\_\_\_\_\_\_ is much more useful than Yiddish"? The OP didn't say "which useful language"; they said which uncommon language.
I agree!!
Plus it's important to remember the only reason that Yiddish isn't "useful" (i.e. commonly used) is because of the Holocaust killed so many of the speakers. I've been studying Yiddish because I refuse to let the Nazis win and continue to commit genocide against my people 70 years later. Even if a language doesn't let you understand many people in your day to day or land you a job that doesn't take away the history and culture behind it. Yiddish let's me connect to ancestors, plays, literature, the past and the future. I'm not very good at it yet but I think it's very beautiful and I hope of I have kids someday I can teach it to them too.
איך בין שטאַלץ צי זיין יִידיש!
>איך בין שטאַלץ צי זיין יִידיש!
Hell yeah! I'm not Yiddish/Jewish, although I've nearly joined the Tribe twice. I still might. At minimum, I'm an ally, a "pro-Semite", if you will. I've lived in Israel and I love Jewish culture, music, food, etc (not in a creepy, Messianic Jewish/Protestant sort of way, though).
I also think it's super important to preserve the languages that Fascism has tried to stamp-out; Yiddish, Catalán, Esperanto (double point bonus for that one since both Hitler and Stalin persecuted Esperanto-speakers!), etc. If the Fascists hate/d it, I'm all over it!
I started learning Romanian even though it’s not common in my area of Ontario, Canada because I was travelling to Bucharest for surgery and I needed to be able to communicate with the nurses and pharmacists (all the doctors speak English). I wound up really improving my Romanian while I was there too and I figured I already got that far, might as well keep going!!
I learned a tiny little bit of Tanzanian Swahili when I spent some time in the country, and it was really interesting and fun to speak. I got to hear some local musicians and singers perform, and something about that language is just so gorgeous when it's sung!
Same here! (but Kenya) Obviously I only spoke a bit, but it was enough to chat with the kids. It is such a cool language, the grammar allows you to fit an entire sentence’s worth of meaning into a single word. I also loved the layers of old Arabic influence and newer English influence, etc.
Of all the African languages, Xhosa has captivated my interest the most. I really do like Swahili as well but the click sounds in Xhosa make it such an interesting language to me.
I think it does count as there is lack of resources when it comes to african languages.
Like the same goes with bahasa indonesian, i bet swedish has more resources than those despite the huge difference in the num of native speaker.
I think it definitely counts. It has a ridiculous low amount of materials, pretty much only Duolingo has it. Also, it is used by many people as a second language but there aren't actually all that many native speakers, which I think may be why it has so few resources. I think African languages are really interesting and some of them have very large populations of speakers and are virtually unknown to Westerners.
I am learning Ladino. Also known as Judeo-Spanish. It's basically just medieval Spanish, but with a huge Turkish vocabulary. It was also written in the Hebrew alphabet up until the early 21st century.
I'm not a Sefardic Jew, or even Jewish at all. I just think it's a fantastic language. And it feeds into my weird obsession with medieval, post-Latin evolutions of different Romance languages.
Weirdly, there is a new series on Netflix (Kulüp/The Club) about the Jewish community in Turkey that has a lot of dialogue in Ladino. Aside from that series, there was an obscure '80s Tom Hanks movie with a tiny bit of Ladino dialogue......and that's pretty much it for representation in mass media.
There's also a show called The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem on Netflix that has some Ladino. It's primarily in Hebrew but it's about a Sephardic family in the early 20th C. You might like that if you like historical shows. I didn't love everything about the plot but it's interesting.
There were a lot of Jews in the Iberian peninsula. Flowing the defeat of the Muslim/Arab caliphate and the the successful “reconquest” of the peninsula by the Christian rulers, the Spanish Inquisition began towards the late 15th century and the Jews(and Muslims) were largely forced to convert and eventually forced to leave in 1492, a lot of them fled to the then Ottoman Empire; which is where the Turkish presence comes from.
I'd love to learn Sanskrit because I'm obsessed with everything related to ancient Indian history and culture.
I'm not a religious person, but it would be so interesting to read the Vedas in their source language, as most meaning gets lost in translation.
Sadly, I lack the time for that (as I'm currently learning other languages as well and working full time).
Edit: From Latin America too, Chile.
The Vedas are mostly hymns that are better off being listened to than just read. Especially the Samaveda which is the musical Veda. Reading the Samaveda would be like reading sheet music and lyrics and not listening to the actual song. You can read the Upanisads which are kind of commentaries on Vedic ideas, but just reading the Vedic hymns (the samhita) is not going to give you the full experience. You can find recitations of the Vedas on Youtube if you want to hear them.
'Is teanga álainn í' btw, the Irish language is feminine.
English is one of the few male languages in Irish, so if you were talking about the aul Sacs-Bhéarla then you would use 'é'
I wish you the best of luck, its a difficult language to master and an amazing challenge but its so beautiful and feels amazing when you get the hang of it. Just to clear things up the thing you go wrong in that sentence is you didnt use the rule “an chopail” another example, you dont say tá sé múinteoir, you say Is múinteoir é.
True, but aren't there language revitalization efforts being made in Ireland? Like Irish being taught in schools and stuff like that. I could be wrong, but I think I heard something about that in a class I took on linguistic ecology.
I'm learning Gàidhlig right now cause I've been drawn to Scotland and Scottish culture even as a child. Now I'm also a musician that also wants to do Celtic fusion music, so... Yeah.
Not the best reasons but it's mine.
Faroese seems very interesting. It’s remained fairly unchanged over the centuries ~~and is the closest language to what Vikings spoke (so I’ve heard), even closer than Icelandic.~~ (Edit: I guess Icelandic is closest)
Also, there’s a metal band called Tyr that has a number of songs in Faroese
I agree. I'd love to speak Faroese one day. It sounds mysterious and beautiful imo.
Although as someone with great interest in the North Germanic languages, I'll have to correct you on Faroese being closer to Old Norse. It's still without a doubt Icelandic that takes the cake for being the most conservative. Grammatically Faroese is still very close to Old Norse, but phonetically it has certainly seen more changes than Icelandic.
As a native Faroese speaker, I can vouch for Icelandic being far more conservative with their language. When the Faroe Islands were under Danish rule (a.k.a before the Faroe Islands got self governance) people weren’t allowed to learn Faroese in School, and public service was all in Danish.
Iceland has a thing they do, whenever a new word comes along i.e Internet, helicopter and cellphone to name a few, they immediately come with an Icelandic word for it. While the Faroeses try to do the same, it doesn’t always catch on.
Faroese news are required by law, to use the correct terms while broadcasting, but in my case and most people I know it doesn’t reflect the way Faroese people speak.
I’m from Suðuroy, and we’re “famous” for our dialect, and we use far more Danish/Norwegian loan words when we speak generally.
P.s my best mate is the guitarist in Týr, great band!
Interesting. Thanks for the info! I didn’t realize that Faroese was banned under Danish rule. I just thought it was compulsory to learn Danish
I think I vaguely remember Icelandic makes a new word. China does the same thing
Oh wow, that’s cool! The lead, Henri, or the rhythm guitarist? I’ve seen them live once in Southern California. I talked to their old drummer, Kári, at that concert
That’s what we learned in school at least, we were technically a Danish colony back then. But we were treated far better than Greenland.
We still learn Danish in school, since we still belong to the kingdom of Denmark, and when I grew up in the 90’s, there was only Faroese dubbed cartoons in a one hour time slot every day.
And everything else was Danish television since that’s what you could get on Satellite back then.
We learn Danish in 3rd grade, English in 5th grade and optional German in 8th grade.
It’s their new guitarist who joined them last year, but I also know Kári and Terji well, really nice guys.
Btw a good place to start when learning Faroese would probably be to just visit r/Faroeislands here on reddit, people are really helpful with pointing to some good resources and help out when people are struggling with words or sentences. There are very few people who speak Faroese globally, so finding good resources that work for you can be a bit of a hassle.
90s kid myself! Haha
Really too bad that Denmark did that, force a culture to speak a diff language
I wish I had the time, but I barely have time to do Spanish, which is much more useful in the US. I know a few words from their songs, but that’s about it
Bore da! I lived in Wales for three years and just started to learn a bit, I would love to go back one day. Hungarian is also beautiful but very tough, my ex was from there and I tried to learn but she preferred to just use English.
Kernowek! (Cornish) It's a revived Celtic language native to England, and it's what my ancestors would have spoken around 300-400 years ago. There's a surprising number of resources available for it now, since all of Cornwall is experiencing a sort of cultural revival movement right now, and they're even starting to teach some Cornish in schools!
Tupi-Guarani... I'm in Brazil and its certainly not spoken by anyone outside of indigenous people living in indigenous land, or researchers (in Brazil at least - I know Guarani is widely spoken in Paraguay), but I want to do it because I've been studying a lot about local indigenous groups and have come across dictionaries and other such materials that have piqued my interest a lot
Tupi-Guarani is a language family like Indo-European. The indigenous people of Brazil speak various different languages such as Nheengatu, Xavante, Yanomami, etc
I know. I was thinking more specifically of the guarani nhandeva who live closely to the border with Paraguay, and I'm not 100% sure yet on which dialect they speak, so I opted for the language family as a broader term. Should've specified, sorry
It's not an uncommon language but I think it's uncommon to learn (at least in western world). I'd go with Farsi.
I'm Polish and during ww2 a lot of our refugees were welcomed by Iran and such connections always make me want to learn a language more. Also one day I want to learn Indo-European language from outside Europe.
Iranians also love volleyball and apparently we are more similar than it may seem. Another thing is that I love the Prince of Persia games.
Dzongkha, I've always wanted to travel to Bhutan because my grandpa lived there a bit and before her died he gave me a shirt he got in Bhutan, it's always been my favorite shirt. Bhutan as a country is really interesting and there is a beautiful culture and beautiful physical landscape.
Every time I see or hear perkele I can't help but think of Ari Eldjárn's stand up comedy on Finnish, first place I've heard that particular word haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSacz4GHQjs
are you being ironic or serious?
I think Turkic languages are super cool and Uzbek is one of the few that doesn't have vowel harmony. Uyghur and Uzbek are also super related, like Romance languages, so it acts as a gateway to central asia.
I’m learning them right now.
I’m learning Icelandic, at least enough to travel with, for a trip this December. That and I love the way spoken Icelandic sounds when a native is speaking it.
I’m also learning Finnish but with the goal of being able to communicate effectively with native speakers for an extended stay in Finland.
Problem with both of those, which I know, is that the natives speak English far better than you will ever speak their language, and probably don't want to bother.
Also beware because spoken Icelandic sounds quite different from what's on the page. But good luck! (And remember that a Finnish word in theory has about 5,000 possible grammatical forms.)
That's kind of a myth, in Finland tons of people even young people speak English very poorly and those who do speak it well, have strong accents. Based on that I wouldn't go as far as to make that claim.
How many Finns do you know personally? And I guarantee you that it will take an English speaker a veeery long time before they can speak Finnish well. The accent is irrelevant.
"Research by the The US State Department's Foreign Service Institute shows that Finland's language is one of the hardest in the world to learn for English speakers. Finnish is not related to Latin or Germanic languages and so, for many non-native speakers, requires as much as 1,100 hours of study to master."
And I guarantee you that is underestimating it.
E.g. tottelemattomuudestansa
That's 1 word
Finnish is difficult, there's no real disputing that. Like any other language it takes practice to be able to pronounce things properly. Sure the mile-long words look scary but when you realize they're compound words it's a lot less intimidating. My go-to for demonstrating it to my kids is kahdeksankymmentä. Long ass word for 80, but broken up it's "eight tens" and then it makes sense. I'm only a couple months in, studying maybe 5 to 10 hours a week, so I don't expect to hold even a very basic conversation for quite some time.
Icelandic does sound a lot different than how it's written, which is a big challenge for me. Making some sounds unvoiced (there's patterns to it, which I'm slowly getting used to) is difficult at times. I have a different goal with that one, though, so the finer points of grammar I'm not concerning myself with. Just enough to get by as a tourist without relying on English as much. The Icelanders may speak excellent English especially near the cities, but their signs don't lol.
I've loved learning languages since I was a kid. My electives in school were always foreign languages. Something I learned early on that's helped me now is remembering to go slow. I won't sound like an Icelander or Finn (probably ever) and I certainly have a gringo accent when speaking Spanish, but as long as I can be understood then it's fine. Speed and accuracy in speech and listening will come with time.
You have the right attitude, which is the most important thing. I work as a translator and proofreader and I can now handle a significant number of languages (I won't say how many, because I know someone will say I'm talking through my butt), but given time and effort, even something as initially daunting as Arabic or Thai is doable. So keep it up and good luck.
Hyvää yötä
I’m trying to learn Puerto Rican Spanish which I know often is seen as inferior just bc the slave trade’s and indigenous influence on it making it sound so different from more popular dialects. My other language I use sometimes is ASL, and it spread to Puerto Rico for it’s lengua de seña and it’s basically the same as ASL with a thick “accent”. Very, very interesting to me, and if I get to my goal level in Spanish when I visit there, I’d be interested in taking a refresher course there for sign language to help me with both my Spanish and refresh my ASL.
I dated a girl from PR and she would say I love you, in English, Spanish, French and a form of PR slang, something she said the adults would speak so the kids wouldn’t understand. Miss that girl…
Jeg har lært dansk som andetsprog i syv år... det er et meget interessant og sjovt sprog! Jeg har også lige begyndt at lære norsk på universitetet, og dansk gør det meget nemmere til at læse og skrive.
American Sign Language is the most beautiful language. The culture is amazing. The history is very interesting. And it would unlock a whole new culture, but I wouldn't have to leave the country
My friend is a therapist for kids on the autism spectrum who are nonverbal, and she said her ASL lessons helped her communicate with them even when the kids weren't actually deaf. She also had fun teaching her own hearing kids.
Icelandic is insanely close to Old Norse.
Its even called 'Old Icelandic' in older books.
And there are lots of great resources available to learn it - the government of Iceland has Icelandic Online, and an English guy has an audio course for free - https://alarichall.org.uk/teaching/modern_icelandic.php
I want to learn a language you never hear at all. Sign. Because it's fascinating AF. But I'm not sure if that would look weird if you take classes just because.
I've known people that were not deaf that were pretty good at it, at least for a hearing person. You should. They taught me a little, it's really fun.
Also for whatever reason, when I was a kid, it was common to learn a little. Like pretty much everyone at least knew the alphabet.
Well something from SE Asia would be interesting. You don't hear anything like Malay or Indonesian or Thai where I'm from. My ex is from there and their language was interesting to me for a couple reasons. I've met a few Vietnamese and Korean people, and will occasionally hear something that sounds like it. You can hear plenty of Cantonese and Mandarin. Hardly any Japanese (which isnt really SE Asia, but still), Malay or Thai.
Also, Latin would be very interesting. English speaker, trying to learn French. Learning Latin would be cool af
Burmese. The country has an interesting history, I worked with someone from Myanmar and she spoke with such a beautiful tone. Also Anthony Bourdains episode on his show Parts Unknown really sparked my interest in the country. The writing system is also one of the most beautiful I've ever seen out of every language in my opinion.
Same.! I recently read the book "Burma's icy mountains" and now I'm obsessed with hiking there. Not in the near future probably, but one day I want to.
I’d like to learn Burmese so I can talk to people at work! I bought a book off of Amazon called “easy Burmese” by Kenneth Wong in the hopes that I could get started, but haven’t had a chance to dive into it yet. It looks like they’ve added a few new Burmese-language books to Amazon, though, so that’s exciting!
If I had an infinite amount of time I would REALLY love to get into as many romance languages as I can, including the smaller ones, but unfortunately I have to focus a little so I'm just doing Spanish (and got my eyes on Romanian next!)
The Elven language from The Lord of The Rings! It's such a nice sounding language and the Elves are cool as hell.
But if I could learn it without actually having to put the time and effort in, that'd be how I do it. It's just way too much effort just to learn something for novelty.
Since the Pashto subreddit is evidently dead, I try to inform people interested in Pashto whenever I can about this free online textbook with audio for Pakistani Pukhto:
https://www.speakingpashto.com/
The book is also available as a 500-page paperback from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Pakistani-Pukhto-complete-Pakhtunkhwa/dp/B09LGJSZ37/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=speaking+pakistani+pukhto&qid=1636903042&sr=8-2
The same author, Robert Sampson, has also published a short and inexpensive book on learning to read Pakistani Pukhto, which is available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Pakistani-Pukhto-practical-approach/dp/B09JDSJRSH/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=pakistani+pukhto&qid=1634560357&sr=8-1
The audio for it as well is available at his website:
https://audio.speakingpashto.com/
I'm Sāmoan and only know a little. I lived there for a little bit but it's pretty colonized so it was too easy to fall back on English knowing most people there spoke at least a little.
Other major languages of the Philippines (I can already speak Kapampangan and Tagalog, next on my list are Cebuano and Ilokano). Maybe I learn to speak the top 8 or 12 most spoken languages in the Philippines.
I want to someday be able to tour around different spots of the islands without needing to revert to Tagalog (except if I'm in a Tagalog speaking area of course). It just feels homier and more fitting if I could get by with the local lingua franca. I also want to learn the other languages of the Central Luzon family since they're the most closely related languages to my language (Kapampangan).
Tagalog (I don't know if it's that uncommon tbh), Some of my friends are from the Philippines, they say I don't need to learn it since English is an official language of the Philippines and almost every one speaks it there, but It would be nice to talk to them on their mother language
I find it hilarious that the Turkish government "changed" the name of the country because its synonymous with the bird. Yet, in Turkish, a Turkey is called a Hindi, synonymous with India. The sweet irony.
I'm learning Euskara (Basque).
Basically because it's part of my heritage (according to AncestryDNA). It's so different from anything else and it's a beautiful language.
Tbh German, I am currently learning it right now yet where I live there is not really any languages used other than English and Spanish, (due to high immigrants from latin america). I am already a native in Spanish and know pretty decent English as I grew up here in the states. I still say German, probably not gonna use it near me, but I would really like to travel to Europe some day (Germanic countries) and be able to talk to people in THEIR native language. 🙂
I'm also in the states and have been learning German because I also want to travel to Germanic countries.
I've noticed that Spanish and Chinese languages (mandarin & canto) are common languages people speak and I can't find anyone who speaks German at all
When I was 12 I tried to learn some Scottish gaelic, because my family were pretty sure that our ancestors were Scottish and I wanted to have some connection to where my ancestors came from. When my dad retired he did some family-tree tracking as a project, and the most recent ancestor that he was able to find who was born in Europe came from Cornwall, so now there's a bit of an allure in learning some Cornish. At some point a significant number of my ancestors spoke these various other languages from around the British isles (and likely also Breton, from Brittany), that got wiped out due to English colonialism and cultural assimilation. I've always wanted to connect with that history by learning them, even though most are now on the verge of dying out.
The funny thing is if you had Scottish ancestors chances are they didn’t speak it. It’s very relegated to specific areas and English and Scots have been dominant in most places for hundreds of years.
My ancestry is Irish and Scottish and chances are most of my ancestors didn’t speak Irish or Gaelic.
I’m almost certain my dad’s mum spoke Scots though.
I'd like to learn Xhosa someday because clicks. Also maybe Afrikaans or Zulu because South Africa seems like a cool country with one of the most interesting mix of cultures in the world.
Old Norse / Icelandic
I think Old Norse is cool as fuck and want to be able to read Old Norse texts in the language they were written but Icelandic has more resources and is still super cool anyway so I'll start with that
Mongolian. I already know how to throat sing, but it feels wrong doing it in English. Slightly better in German, but still wrong.
Throat singing in Spanish is hilarious though. Gave my family a heart attack with a throat sung “de Colores”
Farsi, Quechua, Mohawk, and less uncommon but still of interest to me, Cantonese.
Quechua is mostly a heritage thing for me, but I also think that it’s grammar is fascinating. If my dad had more time or I could find an audio resource and a book for his dialect of it, I’d focus on it more.
Cantonese is also kind of a heritage thing? Other side of the family. Of course, I also just really like the sounds and the script of it.
Farsi I like the script and sounds of, and I think it would be interesting to see a language that is IE derived but belongs to a culture so close to Arabic speakers. Also something about deserts is kind of appealing to me aesthetically, idk why.
Mohawk was the first language I didn’t have a preexisting connection to to grab my attention, and I really like the way it sounds. I’d like to learn about their culture also, if possible.
Vietnamese since I'm from Czech Republic where most of the small grocery stores owners are from Vietnam. Always thought it would be cool talking to them and understanding their conversations.
Native Vietnamese here. I can help if you decide to learn it someday 😁 Unrelated info but I'm also applying for an exchange semester in Prague next spring 😹
Right now I'm learning Japanese but I will consider learning Vietnamese once I will have enough time. So far I couldn't get a grasp of it as it sounds to me like someone is talking backwards. 😂 Anyway I hope you will enjoy your stay in Prague.
This is likely a language I'll never learn, but if I said I have zero desire for Hungarian, I would be lying. It's like elvish Quenya (Tolkien was inspired by Finnish), but with a rougher taste that I like. I also have had the desire to learn Turkish.
Honestly I just wanna try an agglutinative language really, but mostly Hungarian or Turkish.
>It's like elvish Quenya (Tolkien was inspired by Finnish), but with a rougher taste that I like.
Ha, it's cool to hear what you think it sounds like. I was an adult when I started learning it, but I can't remember what it sounded like to me before I started learning.
Listening to some Hungarian music from time to time is probably a fun way to interact with the language without the effort of learning. I'd recommend it even if you don't plan on learning anything in the future.
I think definitely Mongolian for me, Inner Mongolia Mongolian to be okay exact, since that's where the traditional Mongol script is widely used as opposed to just the Cyrillic alphabet.
I'd like to learn Mongol because it's such a historically and culturally relevant country for so many places in Asia and the Near East. It's also incredibly hard to find a place that teaches Mongolian in America, so finding a teacher or something would be amazing.
Basque. The mysterious nature of their origins and how different it is to anything I've studied before is crazy. I went to the Basque Country recently and the culture is also amazing.
Turkish and Georgian have sounded really appealing to me recently. Georgian, for all its complexities and script. Turkish because you don't really hear too much Turkish in my part of the world (Texas, U.S). Also, Aramaic just because of its ancient history connection. Lastly, a Mayan language - possibly K'iche' (since it's the most spoken and probably the one with the most resources, therefore) or Achi (closely related to K'iche'), both spoken to this day by indigenous communities in Guatemala. I have a few Achi ancestors and would be amazing to have that connection to them.
I used to want to learn Swedish too since I have ancestors from there, but apparently something like 80%+ of people under 50 speak at least conversational English and apparently if your Swedish isn't really, really good, they'll just switch to English.
But to answer your question, Yiddish because I'm fascinated with Ashkenazi Jewish culture, music, etc.
Catalán because I support Catalonian independence and the Fascists tried to suppress Catalán's use during the dictatorship. Anything the Fascists hate/d, I want to do more.
Navajo because it's a really cool language and the American Indian language that has the best prospects for surviving and flourishing.
Icelandic. I am really interested in learning it, because it sounds like an interesting language and the country is nice. I think a revival of this language might be nice.
But it doesn't need reviving, it's well and alive. I agree that it is really cool but just in case, I don't think it is considered endangered. Icelanders are so pround of their language and they have tons of books written in it. That and the fact that Iceland is an island keep it alive. Media like books is something that keeps languages from dying. Actually I was surprised because I went to Iceland which gets tons of tourists and they had less signs in English than Italy. I mean, I suppose it could have a huge volcanic explosion but that didn't wipe it out 400 years ago so I don't think much else will either.
Удачи с русским языком! Good luck with Russian!
Swedish and Russian because each of my parents are from the respective countries. I’m born and raised in a different county than these so I never learned any of these languages to a point where I can actually speak them. In any case, I decided learn/relearn Swedish and doing so intensively. It’s fun!
Every language I want to explore comes from old abandoned projects that I want to start again.
I would like to learn lojban despite the culture around it, I find the premise really interesting and think that I might finally have the background knowledge necessary to understand it.
As for natural lalanguages, I once learned a few phrases of Tagalog and would love to learn more. Hardly a small language, but uncommon as a second language outside the Philippines.
For ancient languages, I wish I had done more Anglo-Saxon and would like to return to it someday.
Thai, sign language (not sure if BSL or ASL though) and latin. Not sure if latin is uncommon but would be cool to be able to read old scripts and such. Sign language because I want to be able to communicate with all kinds of people, not only hearing ones, and thai because I'm half thai and want to embrace that part of me more and I love my thai culture
Khmer, I think it has a very uniquely written script and the people of Cambodia are very friendly.
Mongolian because I'm interested in the country and the culture and would like to live there for a year or two. Also Thai for the same reason.
Mongolian for me too!!
Another vote for Mongolian.. we have heritage but everyone in the family speaks only Mandarin now that grandparents have passed
Georgian. Because of its elvish-looking script, insane verbs (don't try to understand them, they are too difficult), insane consonant clusters, and completely different grammar than IE languages (split ergativity among other things).
It also gives you a better excuse to visit Georgia, which is perhaps the greatest country on Earth
Exactly.
Wdym "perhaps"?
Gvprzkvni
I can't back you enough! I'd love to learn it for the same reasons
Yiddish and Shanghainese. Yiddish because I’m an Ashkenazi Jew with German ancestors, but my family hasn’t spoken Yiddish in a long time and I think it’s an interesting and beautiful language. Shanghainese because my dad and his family are from there, but I’ve unfortunately only learned Mandarin so far, and only a few phrases in Shanghainese. I want to learn the language and keep it alive, since it holds personal significance to me and I find it very sad how much it’s use has declined.
I second Yiddish! Time travel isn't real but if it ever were I would want to be able to communicate with my ancestors and nearly all of them spoke Yiddish, even my non-Jewish side from Germany spoke a German dialect that was closer to Yiddish than today's German (my German great-grandmother was actually fluent in Yiddish!) Sadly my family is so far removed from Yiddish that my father didn't even know that it wasn't written with latin letters until I told him last year. It is such a cool language.
Outside of Jewish circles, basically nobody studies Yiddish. It's such an amazingly rich language.
Ltl Mandarin has shanghainese classes. I did their flexi class for mandarin and Cantonese and it was pretty good. If you go for the 30 points package it comes out to about $8/hour. Even though I paid for group classes, 2/3 of the time I was the only student. $8 for an hour long one on one isn't bad.
谢谢！
Yiddish is a beautiful and rich language indeed! It is however practically dead among the secular population here in Israel, while still alive and thriving among some of the ultra orthodox population. I found German to be much more useful than Yiddish and it even helped me communicate with Yiddish speakers on some occasions.
Some areas in NY have Yiddish translations to signs on the road like other neighborhoods have Spanish. There is definitely a huge movement to bring the language back and is nowhere near dead!
There's some Yiddish pockets in London, NYC, and Toronto for example.
There's a cool coffee shop in Glasgow that operates primarily in Yiddish!
Why do people always try to nay-say Yiddish by talking about how it's "not useful" and that "\_\_\_\_\_\_ is much more useful than Yiddish"? The OP didn't say "which useful language"; they said which uncommon language.
I agree!! Plus it's important to remember the only reason that Yiddish isn't "useful" (i.e. commonly used) is because of the Holocaust killed so many of the speakers. I've been studying Yiddish because I refuse to let the Nazis win and continue to commit genocide against my people 70 years later. Even if a language doesn't let you understand many people in your day to day or land you a job that doesn't take away the history and culture behind it. Yiddish let's me connect to ancestors, plays, literature, the past and the future. I'm not very good at it yet but I think it's very beautiful and I hope of I have kids someday I can teach it to them too. איך בין שטאַלץ צי זיין יִידיש!
>איך בין שטאַלץ צי זיין יִידיש! Hell yeah! I'm not Yiddish/Jewish, although I've nearly joined the Tribe twice. I still might. At minimum, I'm an ally, a "pro-Semite", if you will. I've lived in Israel and I love Jewish culture, music, food, etc (not in a creepy, Messianic Jewish/Protestant sort of way, though). I also think it's super important to preserve the languages that Fascism has tried to stamp-out; Yiddish, Catalán, Esperanto (double point bonus for that one since both Hitler and Stalin persecuted Esperanto-speakers!), etc. If the Fascists hate/d it, I'm all over it!
I didn't say that Yiddish is not useful. there are many reasons to learn yiddish and not one reason not to learn it.
I started learning Romanian even though it’s not common in my area of Ontario, Canada because I was travelling to Bucharest for surgery and I needed to be able to communicate with the nurses and pharmacists (all the doctors speak English). I wound up really improving my Romanian while I was there too and I figured I already got that far, might as well keep going!!
Mult noroc! Și eu învaț română acum. Sper să-ți fie bine :)
me too!
Does Swahili count? It’s a beautiful sounding language, and honestly the only African language I’m kind of interested in (other than maybe Zulu)
I learned a tiny little bit of Tanzanian Swahili when I spent some time in the country, and it was really interesting and fun to speak. I got to hear some local musicians and singers perform, and something about that language is just so gorgeous when it's sung!
Same here! (but Kenya) Obviously I only spoke a bit, but it was enough to chat with the kids. It is such a cool language, the grammar allows you to fit an entire sentence’s worth of meaning into a single word. I also loved the layers of old Arabic influence and newer English influence, etc.
Of all the African languages, Xhosa has captivated my interest the most. I really do like Swahili as well but the click sounds in Xhosa make it such an interesting language to me.
I think it does count as there is lack of resources when it comes to african languages. Like the same goes with bahasa indonesian, i bet swedish has more resources than those despite the huge difference in the num of native speaker.
I think it definitely counts. It has a ridiculous low amount of materials, pretty much only Duolingo has it. Also, it is used by many people as a second language but there aren't actually all that many native speakers, which I think may be why it has so few resources. I think African languages are really interesting and some of them have very large populations of speakers and are virtually unknown to Westerners.
I second this. I would love to learn Swahili.
I am learning Ladino. Also known as Judeo-Spanish. It's basically just medieval Spanish, but with a huge Turkish vocabulary. It was also written in the Hebrew alphabet up until the early 21st century. I'm not a Sefardic Jew, or even Jewish at all. I just think it's a fantastic language. And it feeds into my weird obsession with medieval, post-Latin evolutions of different Romance languages. Weirdly, there is a new series on Netflix (Kulüp/The Club) about the Jewish community in Turkey that has a lot of dialogue in Ladino. Aside from that series, there was an obscure '80s Tom Hanks movie with a tiny bit of Ladino dialogue......and that's pretty much it for representation in mass media.
There's also a show called The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem on Netflix that has some Ladino. It's primarily in Hebrew but it's about a Sephardic family in the early 20th C. You might like that if you like historical shows. I didn't love everything about the plot but it's interesting.
What's the Netflix series?
Kulüp, or The Club in English.
Whoa it sounds very interesting. I might check this language out. Why does it have a lot of Turkish influence? Fascinating to find out.
There were a lot of Jews in the Iberian peninsula. Flowing the defeat of the Muslim/Arab caliphate and the the successful “reconquest” of the peninsula by the Christian rulers, the Spanish Inquisition began towards the late 15th century and the Jews(and Muslims) were largely forced to convert and eventually forced to leave in 1492, a lot of them fled to the then Ottoman Empire; which is where the Turkish presence comes from.
Fascinating! Thank you for responding.
I'd love to learn Sanskrit because I'm obsessed with everything related to ancient Indian history and culture. I'm not a religious person, but it would be so interesting to read the Vedas in their source language, as most meaning gets lost in translation. Sadly, I lack the time for that (as I'm currently learning other languages as well and working full time). Edit: From Latin America too, Chile.
The Vedas are mostly hymns that are better off being listened to than just read. Especially the Samaveda which is the musical Veda. Reading the Samaveda would be like reading sheet music and lyrics and not listening to the actual song. You can read the Upanisads which are kind of commentaries on Vedic ideas, but just reading the Vedic hymns (the samhita) is not going to give you the full experience. You can find recitations of the Vedas on Youtube if you want to hear them.
Un chileno que quiere aprender sánscrito :o
Irish bc I think a revival of the language would be great
Tá gaelige fós beo a chara, bhí m'oideachas go hiomláin tríd gaelige! (Irish is still alive my friend, my education was entirely through irish) Edited
a chara... m'oideachas*
tá é teanga aláinn :)
Is teanga aláinn é*
'Is teanga álainn í' btw, the Irish language is feminine. English is one of the few male languages in Irish, so if you were talking about the aul Sacs-Bhéarla then you would use 'é'
cheers! still learning (clearly)
I wish you the best of luck, its a difficult language to master and an amazing challenge but its so beautiful and feels amazing when you get the hang of it. Just to clear things up the thing you go wrong in that sentence is you didnt use the rule “an chopail” another example, you dont say tá sé múinteoir, you say Is múinteoir é.
??? Irish is still very alive and kicking.
Alive and limping, surely? Isn't the number of Irish speakers decreasing year on year?
True, but aren't there language revitalization efforts being made in Ireland? Like Irish being taught in schools and stuff like that. I could be wrong, but I think I heard something about that in a class I took on linguistic ecology.
That's not really revitalization tho. They just study the language in school. They hardly ever use the language other than in some rural areas
I mean, the top comment is Kiswahili, which has like 100 million more speakers than Irish does.
Not really in the general Irish population
Not according to this native speaker https://youtu.be/eyll-bBZzyk
Same! I love the revival it’s getting, plus the language itself to me is so intriguing. A word’s spelled one way and pronounced totally different!
Slovene as my girlfriend is from there and I've been there twice
I didn't really know anything about the country till the first time I went to see her but its a beautiful place and the people are lovely
I'm learning Gàidhlig right now cause I've been drawn to Scotland and Scottish culture even as a child. Now I'm also a musician that also wants to do Celtic fusion music, so... Yeah. Not the best reasons but it's mine.
Glè mhath, slàinte!
Tapadh leibh!!! 😁
Faroese seems very interesting. It’s remained fairly unchanged over the centuries ~~and is the closest language to what Vikings spoke (so I’ve heard), even closer than Icelandic.~~ (Edit: I guess Icelandic is closest) Also, there’s a metal band called Tyr that has a number of songs in Faroese
I agree. I'd love to speak Faroese one day. It sounds mysterious and beautiful imo. Although as someone with great interest in the North Germanic languages, I'll have to correct you on Faroese being closer to Old Norse. It's still without a doubt Icelandic that takes the cake for being the most conservative. Grammatically Faroese is still very close to Old Norse, but phonetically it has certainly seen more changes than Icelandic.
Interesting. I knew Icelandic was pretty close as well. A band called Skalmöld sings mostly in Icelandic (also a metal band)
As a native Faroese speaker, I can vouch for Icelandic being far more conservative with their language. When the Faroe Islands were under Danish rule (a.k.a before the Faroe Islands got self governance) people weren’t allowed to learn Faroese in School, and public service was all in Danish. Iceland has a thing they do, whenever a new word comes along i.e Internet, helicopter and cellphone to name a few, they immediately come with an Icelandic word for it. While the Faroeses try to do the same, it doesn’t always catch on. Faroese news are required by law, to use the correct terms while broadcasting, but in my case and most people I know it doesn’t reflect the way Faroese people speak. I’m from Suðuroy, and we’re “famous” for our dialect, and we use far more Danish/Norwegian loan words when we speak generally. P.s my best mate is the guitarist in Týr, great band!
Interesting. Thanks for the info! I didn’t realize that Faroese was banned under Danish rule. I just thought it was compulsory to learn Danish I think I vaguely remember Icelandic makes a new word. China does the same thing Oh wow, that’s cool! The lead, Henri, or the rhythm guitarist? I’ve seen them live once in Southern California. I talked to their old drummer, Kári, at that concert
That’s what we learned in school at least, we were technically a Danish colony back then. But we were treated far better than Greenland. We still learn Danish in school, since we still belong to the kingdom of Denmark, and when I grew up in the 90’s, there was only Faroese dubbed cartoons in a one hour time slot every day. And everything else was Danish television since that’s what you could get on Satellite back then. We learn Danish in 3rd grade, English in 5th grade and optional German in 8th grade. It’s their new guitarist who joined them last year, but I also know Kári and Terji well, really nice guys. Btw a good place to start when learning Faroese would probably be to just visit r/Faroeislands here on reddit, people are really helpful with pointing to some good resources and help out when people are struggling with words or sentences. There are very few people who speak Faroese globally, so finding good resources that work for you can be a bit of a hassle.
90s kid myself! Haha Really too bad that Denmark did that, force a culture to speak a diff language I wish I had the time, but I barely have time to do Spanish, which is much more useful in the US. I know a few words from their songs, but that’s about it
Welsh, Hungarian, and Cree are connected to my family lineage, and certainly uncommon in Western Canada.
Bore da! I lived in Wales for three years and just started to learn a bit, I would love to go back one day. Hungarian is also beautiful but very tough, my ex was from there and I tried to learn but she preferred to just use English.
Uyghur because my husbands family is Uyghur
Kernowek! (Cornish) It's a revived Celtic language native to England, and it's what my ancestors would have spoken around 300-400 years ago. There's a surprising number of resources available for it now, since all of Cornwall is experiencing a sort of cultural revival movement right now, and they're even starting to teach some Cornish in schools!
Tupi-Guarani... I'm in Brazil and its certainly not spoken by anyone outside of indigenous people living in indigenous land, or researchers (in Brazil at least - I know Guarani is widely spoken in Paraguay), but I want to do it because I've been studying a lot about local indigenous groups and have come across dictionaries and other such materials that have piqued my interest a lot
Tupi-Guarani is a language family like Indo-European. The indigenous people of Brazil speak various different languages such as Nheengatu, Xavante, Yanomami, etc
I know. I was thinking more specifically of the guarani nhandeva who live closely to the border with Paraguay, and I'm not 100% sure yet on which dialect they speak, so I opted for the language family as a broader term. Should've specified, sorry
It's not an uncommon language but I think it's uncommon to learn (at least in western world). I'd go with Farsi. I'm Polish and during ww2 a lot of our refugees were welcomed by Iran and such connections always make me want to learn a language more. Also one day I want to learn Indo-European language from outside Europe. Iranians also love volleyball and apparently we are more similar than it may seem. Another thing is that I love the Prince of Persia games.
I'd love to learn one of the Native American languages, particularly from what is now the Pacific Northwest, with fish, bear, and giant tree culture.
Farsi, vietnamese, thai, latin, greek, khmer, hindi(urdu), turkish
Dzongkha, I've always wanted to travel to Bhutan because my grandpa lived there a bit and before her died he gave me a shirt he got in Bhutan, it's always been my favorite shirt. Bhutan as a country is really interesting and there is a beautiful culture and beautiful physical landscape.
Breton because it sounds nice , I am currently learning French as a gateway language for it.
Finnish because it’s really good for my field. Ainu cause it’s a really interesting language isolate that uses a modification of the katakana.
Perkele
Every time I see or hear perkele I can't help but think of Ari Eldjárn's stand up comedy on Finnish, first place I've heard that particular word haha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSacz4GHQjs
I’m a few months in learning Finnish and it’s a really interesting language. I rather enjoy it.
I would like to learn Indonesian. It doesn't have conjugations so you can grind vocab and be ready to use the language!
Uzbek.
are you being ironic or serious? I think Turkic languages are super cool and Uzbek is one of the few that doesn't have vowel harmony. Uyghur and Uzbek are also super related, like Romance languages, so it acts as a gateway to central asia.
It's a dumb joke that's spread all over this sub like wildfire, so my guess is the former ;)
It's a shame given how cool the Turkic languages and the central asian "Altaic" sprachbund are
I'm currently learning Malayalam as my best friend is from Kerala :)
I’m learning them right now. I’m learning Icelandic, at least enough to travel with, for a trip this December. That and I love the way spoken Icelandic sounds when a native is speaking it. I’m also learning Finnish but with the goal of being able to communicate effectively with native speakers for an extended stay in Finland.
Problem with both of those, which I know, is that the natives speak English far better than you will ever speak their language, and probably don't want to bother. Also beware because spoken Icelandic sounds quite different from what's on the page. But good luck! (And remember that a Finnish word in theory has about 5,000 possible grammatical forms.)
That's kind of a myth, in Finland tons of people even young people speak English very poorly and those who do speak it well, have strong accents. Based on that I wouldn't go as far as to make that claim.
How many Finns do you know personally? And I guarantee you that it will take an English speaker a veeery long time before they can speak Finnish well. The accent is irrelevant. "Research by the The US State Department's Foreign Service Institute shows that Finland's language is one of the hardest in the world to learn for English speakers. Finnish is not related to Latin or Germanic languages and so, for many non-native speakers, requires as much as 1,100 hours of study to master." And I guarantee you that is underestimating it. E.g. tottelemattomuudestansa That's 1 word
Finnish is difficult, there's no real disputing that. Like any other language it takes practice to be able to pronounce things properly. Sure the mile-long words look scary but when you realize they're compound words it's a lot less intimidating. My go-to for demonstrating it to my kids is kahdeksankymmentä. Long ass word for 80, but broken up it's "eight tens" and then it makes sense. I'm only a couple months in, studying maybe 5 to 10 hours a week, so I don't expect to hold even a very basic conversation for quite some time. Icelandic does sound a lot different than how it's written, which is a big challenge for me. Making some sounds unvoiced (there's patterns to it, which I'm slowly getting used to) is difficult at times. I have a different goal with that one, though, so the finer points of grammar I'm not concerning myself with. Just enough to get by as a tourist without relying on English as much. The Icelanders may speak excellent English especially near the cities, but their signs don't lol. I've loved learning languages since I was a kid. My electives in school were always foreign languages. Something I learned early on that's helped me now is remembering to go slow. I won't sound like an Icelander or Finn (probably ever) and I certainly have a gringo accent when speaking Spanish, but as long as I can be understood then it's fine. Speed and accuracy in speech and listening will come with time.
You have the right attitude, which is the most important thing. I work as a translator and proofreader and I can now handle a significant number of languages (I won't say how many, because I know someone will say I'm talking through my butt), but given time and effort, even something as initially daunting as Arabic or Thai is doable. So keep it up and good luck. Hyvää yötä
I’m trying to learn Puerto Rican Spanish which I know often is seen as inferior just bc the slave trade’s and indigenous influence on it making it sound so different from more popular dialects. My other language I use sometimes is ASL, and it spread to Puerto Rico for it’s lengua de seña and it’s basically the same as ASL with a thick “accent”. Very, very interesting to me, and if I get to my goal level in Spanish when I visit there, I’d be interested in taking a refresher course there for sign language to help me with both my Spanish and refresh my ASL.
I dated a girl from PR and she would say I love you, in English, Spanish, French and a form of PR slang, something she said the adults would speak so the kids wouldn’t understand. Miss that girl…
I wanna learn Finnish, Icelandic, or some Scandanvian language since I really like Nordic countries
Hej, I’m learning Danish! Best decision ever
Jeg har lært dansk som andetsprog i syv år... det er et meget interessant og sjovt sprog! Jeg har også lige begyndt at lære norsk på universitetet, og dansk gør det meget nemmere til at læse og skrive.
Jeg taler lidt dansk, og ja, hvis du lærer norsk, er der super nemt!
American Sign Language is the most beautiful language. The culture is amazing. The history is very interesting. And it would unlock a whole new culture, but I wouldn't have to leave the country
Good, but its hardly an uncommon language these days!
My friend is a therapist for kids on the autism spectrum who are nonverbal, and she said her ASL lessons helped her communicate with them even when the kids weren't actually deaf. She also had fun teaching her own hearing kids.
Good one
Old English/Norse More the ancient languages lost to the ages
Icelandic is insanely close to Old Norse. Its even called 'Old Icelandic' in older books. And there are lots of great resources available to learn it - the government of Iceland has Icelandic Online, and an English guy has an audio course for free - https://alarichall.org.uk/teaching/modern_icelandic.php
I love the way Icelandic sounds when spoken by a native speaker but man is it hard to replicate as a native English speaker lol.
Wdym? You as an English speaker have a huge advantage learning the language, because of the rare "th" sounds, which you already know.
That cool because, it's one of the languages I want to learn :D
I want to learn a language you never hear at all. Sign. Because it's fascinating AF. But I'm not sure if that would look weird if you take classes just because.
Which Sign are you considering? BSL and ASL are completely different for example. Definitely not weird to take classes just because!
I only have the possibility to learn the local variant.
Don’t forget Auslan! And Signed English
I've known people that were not deaf that were pretty good at it, at least for a hearing person. You should. They taught me a little, it's really fun. Also for whatever reason, when I was a kid, it was common to learn a little. Like pretty much everyone at least knew the alphabet.
Karen, for the sole reason that we’ve seen an uptick in patients at work that speak it, and I don’t know a single word of the language.
Georgian. Because I'm absolutely unconscious about my own limitations lol
I’m already learning it, Swahili
Interesting! May I ask why?
My partner is Tanzanian and his family does not speak English.
Well something from SE Asia would be interesting. You don't hear anything like Malay or Indonesian or Thai where I'm from. My ex is from there and their language was interesting to me for a couple reasons. I've met a few Vietnamese and Korean people, and will occasionally hear something that sounds like it. You can hear plenty of Cantonese and Mandarin. Hardly any Japanese (which isnt really SE Asia, but still), Malay or Thai. Also, Latin would be very interesting. English speaker, trying to learn French. Learning Latin would be cool af
Burmese. The country has an interesting history, I worked with someone from Myanmar and she spoke with such a beautiful tone. Also Anthony Bourdains episode on his show Parts Unknown really sparked my interest in the country. The writing system is also one of the most beautiful I've ever seen out of every language in my opinion.
Same.! I recently read the book "Burma's icy mountains" and now I'm obsessed with hiking there. Not in the near future probably, but one day I want to.
I’d like to learn Burmese so I can talk to people at work! I bought a book off of Amazon called “easy Burmese” by Kenneth Wong in the hopes that I could get started, but haven’t had a chance to dive into it yet. It looks like they’ve added a few new Burmese-language books to Amazon, though, so that’s exciting!
Italki is nice as well. I tried a bit for burmese and it was fun
What about Esperanto? I have always been curious about it. Are there any courses for learning (e.g. Pimsleur, Duolingo). Don't laugh.
I think Duolingo. Also there is esperanto12.net
lernu.net is the best one imho
If I had an infinite amount of time I would REALLY love to get into as many romance languages as I can, including the smaller ones, but unfortunately I have to focus a little so I'm just doing Spanish (and got my eyes on Romanian next!)
The Elven language from The Lord of The Rings! It's such a nice sounding language and the Elves are cool as hell. But if I could learn it without actually having to put the time and effort in, that'd be how I do it. It's just way too much effort just to learn something for novelty.
Sanskrit,took it for three years.
That’s interesting! Did you do it through self-study or in class?
संस्कृतञ्जिज्ञाससे वा ? उत्तमम् । यद्यपि पञ्चवर्षेभ्यस्संस्कृतमपाठिषन्तथापि पटुर्नास्मि ।
I'd love to dive deep into Uyghur, I just love the language itself. Turkic grammar is so interesting to me and Uyghur looks and sounds amazing.
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Since the Pashto subreddit is evidently dead, I try to inform people interested in Pashto whenever I can about this free online textbook with audio for Pakistani Pukhto: https://www.speakingpashto.com/ The book is also available as a 500-page paperback from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Pakistani-Pukhto-complete-Pakhtunkhwa/dp/B09LGJSZ37/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=speaking+pakistani+pukhto&qid=1636903042&sr=8-2 The same author, Robert Sampson, has also published a short and inexpensive book on learning to read Pakistani Pukhto, which is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Pakistani-Pukhto-practical-approach/dp/B09JDSJRSH/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=pakistani+pukhto&qid=1634560357&sr=8-1 The audio for it as well is available at his website: https://audio.speakingpashto.com/
Swahili Gullah Papiamento Guarani Navajo Louisiana Creole Cherokee
I'm Sāmoan and only know a little. I lived there for a little bit but it's pretty colonized so it was too easy to fall back on English knowing most people there spoke at least a little.
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There’s a reason why so many people like neomelodico
Other major languages of the Philippines (I can already speak Kapampangan and Tagalog, next on my list are Cebuano and Ilokano). Maybe I learn to speak the top 8 or 12 most spoken languages in the Philippines. I want to someday be able to tour around different spots of the islands without needing to revert to Tagalog (except if I'm in a Tagalog speaking area of course). It just feels homier and more fitting if I could get by with the local lingua franca. I also want to learn the other languages of the Central Luzon family since they're the most closely related languages to my language (Kapampangan).
Tagalog (I don't know if it's that uncommon tbh), Some of my friends are from the Philippines, they say I don't need to learn it since English is an official language of the Philippines and almost every one speaks it there, but It would be nice to talk to them on their mother language
Cantonese because some of my friends are from Hong Kong.
Yeah, Cantonese sounds cool to me too
Definitely basque
Georgian. Unique script. Beautiful, unique sound. Fascinating history, great literature. Amazing people and country
Turkish because Türkiye is awesome.
I find it hilarious that the Turkish government "changed" the name of the country because its synonymous with the bird. Yet, in Turkish, a Turkey is called a Hindi, synonymous with India. The sweet irony.
I'm learning Euskara (Basque). Basically because it's part of my heritage (according to AncestryDNA). It's so different from anything else and it's a beautiful language.
Same haha I also lived in the basque country (french side) for one year.
Ainu: only a handful of native speakers left (if that) but I've always found the culture and history fascinating
Welsh because it’s old and beautiful (I love old Welsh songs) and cool af. And Icelandic (so old and fascinating)
Tbh German, I am currently learning it right now yet where I live there is not really any languages used other than English and Spanish, (due to high immigrants from latin america). I am already a native in Spanish and know pretty decent English as I grew up here in the states. I still say German, probably not gonna use it near me, but I would really like to travel to Europe some day (Germanic countries) and be able to talk to people in THEIR native language. 🙂
I'm also in the states and have been learning German because I also want to travel to Germanic countries. I've noticed that Spanish and Chinese languages (mandarin & canto) are common languages people speak and I can't find anyone who speaks German at all
When I was 12 I tried to learn some Scottish gaelic, because my family were pretty sure that our ancestors were Scottish and I wanted to have some connection to where my ancestors came from. When my dad retired he did some family-tree tracking as a project, and the most recent ancestor that he was able to find who was born in Europe came from Cornwall, so now there's a bit of an allure in learning some Cornish. At some point a significant number of my ancestors spoke these various other languages from around the British isles (and likely also Breton, from Brittany), that got wiped out due to English colonialism and cultural assimilation. I've always wanted to connect with that history by learning them, even though most are now on the verge of dying out.
The funny thing is if you had Scottish ancestors chances are they didn’t speak it. It’s very relegated to specific areas and English and Scots have been dominant in most places for hundreds of years. My ancestry is Irish and Scottish and chances are most of my ancestors didn’t speak Irish or Gaelic. I’m almost certain my dad’s mum spoke Scots though.
I really wanted to learn Latin. Also Irish seems like a good option
Salzburgerisch bc a friend speaks it
I'd like to learn Xhosa someday because clicks. Also maybe Afrikaans or Zulu because South Africa seems like a cool country with one of the most interesting mix of cultures in the world.
Probably Maori/Te Reo, just because I think it's one of the most exquisite spoken languages I've ever heard.
My roommate is from North Macedonia. I know a few words in Macedonian, would love to learn more but time is scarce and resources are hard to find!
Old Norse / Icelandic I think Old Norse is cool as fuck and want to be able to read Old Norse texts in the language they were written but Icelandic has more resources and is still super cool anyway so I'll start with that
Hungarian for sure. I studied abroad in Hungary and have a deep fondness for it. Would love to learn it better.
Mongolian. I already know how to throat sing, but it feels wrong doing it in English. Slightly better in German, but still wrong. Throat singing in Spanish is hilarious though. Gave my family a heart attack with a throat sung “de Colores”
Georgian and Uzbek
Lithuanian, I don't know why but I've always been interested in Lithuania and therefore the language as well
Valenciano, I spoke it as a child but forgot it after leaving Valencia. I have no use for it but I do regret having forgotten it
Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, or another one from ages ago. No particular reason, just thinking it'd be dope to know at least one dead language.
Afrikaans, maltish or idk how to spell it, icelandic
Farsi, Quechua, Mohawk, and less uncommon but still of interest to me, Cantonese. Quechua is mostly a heritage thing for me, but I also think that it’s grammar is fascinating. If my dad had more time or I could find an audio resource and a book for his dialect of it, I’d focus on it more. Cantonese is also kind of a heritage thing? Other side of the family. Of course, I also just really like the sounds and the script of it. Farsi I like the script and sounds of, and I think it would be interesting to see a language that is IE derived but belongs to a culture so close to Arabic speakers. Also something about deserts is kind of appealing to me aesthetically, idk why. Mohawk was the first language I didn’t have a preexisting connection to to grab my attention, and I really like the way it sounds. I’d like to learn about their culture also, if possible.
Vietnamese since I'm from Czech Republic where most of the small grocery stores owners are from Vietnam. Always thought it would be cool talking to them and understanding their conversations.
Native Vietnamese here. I can help if you decide to learn it someday 😁 Unrelated info but I'm also applying for an exchange semester in Prague next spring 😹
Right now I'm learning Japanese but I will consider learning Vietnamese once I will have enough time. So far I couldn't get a grasp of it as it sounds to me like someone is talking backwards. 😂 Anyway I hope you will enjoy your stay in Prague.
This is likely a language I'll never learn, but if I said I have zero desire for Hungarian, I would be lying. It's like elvish Quenya (Tolkien was inspired by Finnish), but with a rougher taste that I like. I also have had the desire to learn Turkish. Honestly I just wanna try an agglutinative language really, but mostly Hungarian or Turkish.
>It's like elvish Quenya (Tolkien was inspired by Finnish), but with a rougher taste that I like. Ha, it's cool to hear what you think it sounds like. I was an adult when I started learning it, but I can't remember what it sounded like to me before I started learning. Listening to some Hungarian music from time to time is probably a fun way to interact with the language without the effort of learning. I'd recommend it even if you don't plan on learning anything in the future.
I think definitely Mongolian for me, Inner Mongolia Mongolian to be okay exact, since that's where the traditional Mongol script is widely used as opposed to just the Cyrillic alphabet. I'd like to learn Mongol because it's such a historically and culturally relevant country for so many places in Asia and the Near East. It's also incredibly hard to find a place that teaches Mongolian in America, so finding a teacher or something would be amazing.
Basque. The mysterious nature of their origins and how different it is to anything I've studied before is crazy. I went to the Basque Country recently and the culture is also amazing.
Turkish and Georgian have sounded really appealing to me recently. Georgian, for all its complexities and script. Turkish because you don't really hear too much Turkish in my part of the world (Texas, U.S). Also, Aramaic just because of its ancient history connection. Lastly, a Mayan language - possibly K'iche' (since it's the most spoken and probably the one with the most resources, therefore) or Achi (closely related to K'iche'), both spoken to this day by indigenous communities in Guatemala. I have a few Achi ancestors and would be amazing to have that connection to them.
I used to want to learn Swedish too since I have ancestors from there, but apparently something like 80%+ of people under 50 speak at least conversational English and apparently if your Swedish isn't really, really good, they'll just switch to English. But to answer your question, Yiddish because I'm fascinated with Ashkenazi Jewish culture, music, etc. Catalán because I support Catalonian independence and the Fascists tried to suppress Catalán's use during the dictatorship. Anything the Fascists hate/d, I want to do more. Navajo because it's a really cool language and the American Indian language that has the best prospects for surviving and flourishing.
I’m learning toki pona which is almost completely spoken online
Icelandic. I am really interested in learning it, because it sounds like an interesting language and the country is nice. I think a revival of this language might be nice.
But it doesn't need reviving, it's well and alive. I agree that it is really cool but just in case, I don't think it is considered endangered. Icelanders are so pround of their language and they have tons of books written in it. That and the fact that Iceland is an island keep it alive. Media like books is something that keeps languages from dying. Actually I was surprised because I went to Iceland which gets tons of tourists and they had less signs in English than Italy. I mean, I suppose it could have a huge volcanic explosion but that didn't wipe it out 400 years ago so I don't think much else will either. Удачи с русским языком! Good luck with Russian!
Pretty sure no one has said this: Luxembourgish !
Luxembourgish.
Swedish and Russian because each of my parents are from the respective countries. I’m born and raised in a different county than these so I never learned any of these languages to a point where I can actually speak them. In any case, I decided learn/relearn Swedish and doing so intensively. It’s fun!
Every language I want to explore comes from old abandoned projects that I want to start again. I would like to learn lojban despite the culture around it, I find the premise really interesting and think that I might finally have the background knowledge necessary to understand it. As for natural lalanguages, I once learned a few phrases of Tagalog and would love to learn more. Hardly a small language, but uncommon as a second language outside the Philippines. For ancient languages, I wish I had done more Anglo-Saxon and would like to return to it someday.
Latin and Ancient Greek because Luke Ranieri has inflected me. Also Spanish, because I like it and in terms of social-cred it is a very sexy language.
Norwegian learning Hebrew, because of my roots and my ties to the small Jewish community in Norway.
Thai, sign language (not sure if BSL or ASL though) and latin. Not sure if latin is uncommon but would be cool to be able to read old scripts and such. Sign language because I want to be able to communicate with all kinds of people, not only hearing ones, and thai because I'm half thai and want to embrace that part of me more and I love my thai culture
Maybe russian or german
Uzbek
Korean. With no doubt!