Replace all the languages you are learning with ones that have less than 2 million speakers

[emk]

All the languages you are learning, you have to abandon for let's say 5 years. You have to replace them with languages that have less than 2 million speakers. What language(s) do you pick?

I would refuse the premise entirely, because French is the language I normally speak with my wife and her family, and I'm not going to stop learning it, any more than I'll ever stop working on using my native English better. I don't learn languages for ideological reasons. I learn them to communicate with specific people, or to enjoy specific bodies of literature and art.

And honestly, I personally wouldn't bother to learn a language spoken by fewer than 2 million people unless (1) I needed to communicate regularly with speakers of that language (and they were willing to speak it to outsiders), or (2) I was especially interested in the literature or art of that culture, or (3) I fell massively in love with the language itself. Even then, it would be hard to personally justify spending 500 to 2000 hours on a language that I would rarely get to use. Even Middle Egyptian, which was once the lingua franca of an empire, has only a few hundred pages of really interesting literature. So the reality is that Egyptian has to remain a hobby. And even then, I love it because it allows me to hear the voices of people who were ancient history even when Athens was young. For me, it's still all about the people that spoke it. (And the delightfully weird verbs. But that wouldn't be enough by itself.)

I have a lot of admiration for people that fall madly in love with an obscure language, and who put vast effort into learning it. But if I had to give up my languages that are (or were!) spoken by more than 2 million people, then I'd probably mostly give up on language learning.

[Hank]

Even then, it would be hard to personally justify spending 500 to 2000 hours on a language that I would rarely get to use.

I know the feeling. For me this was a big argument against learning Welsh. That and the fact that 100% or nearly 100% of all Welsh speakers also speak English.

I guess I would get to keep Welsh. Do I get bonus points because it has less than 1 million speakers?

To replace Spanish I would probably go for Gaelic, even though Breton is an interesting language.

[Tillumadoguenirurm]

I don't at all learn languages for ideological reasons either btw, but out of curiosity or interest in the language or the place or culture where it's spoken.

Learning a language for ideological reasons sounds exhausting.

[DangerDave2010]

I guess that would be a propitious moment to unshelve my dead languages.

[Iversen]

I would just redefine English, German, French etc. as languages I already have learnt so I can still keep using them. Just keep away from grammars and don't do wordlists, then everything is fine.

I would have a problem with a number of Slavic languages, Greek, Indonesian and Albanian, since they all are spoken by more than 5 million people, but I could continue with Icelandic, Latin and Esperanto. During the five year black out I would be able to keep a connection with the Slavic languages by studying Macedonian, which hovers right around the 2 mio. bar (new on the list, but closely related to Bulgarian), and I could have a second look at Irish Gaelic, which hardly is spoken by anyone. And Greek? Well, I have so far ignored its older phases so there is a lot of work to do which definitely would take 5 years.

Or I could choose to disregard the rule ...

[nooj]

And honestly, I personally wouldn't bother to learn a language spoken by fewer than 2 million people unless (1) I needed to communicate regularly with speakers of that language (and they were willing to speak it to outsiders), or (2) I was especially interested in the literature or art of that culture, or (3) I fell massively in love with the language itself.

I understand, but.

And it's a big but.

Your argument is perfectly applicable to a massive language, like French. As an English speaker, I don't need to learn French, unless I needed to communicate regularly with speakers of that language or I was especially interested in the literature or art of that culture. So whatever got you into learning French (or some other big language) is just as applicable to a language of 2 million. Yours is a special case because you're married to a speaker, but I imagine if you were married to a speaker of Icelandic, you would also learn Icelandic, no?

Also why not think of it the other way around? Learn a language first, and then in order to practice, or in order to not feel bad about spending so much time learning a 'useless' language (if you're feeling pessimistic), seek out people and places to communicate regularly with speakers of that language.

I'll give you a real life example, I don't need Catalan in Australia, but because I'm learning it, I sought out people who speak it in my city, and because I am learning it, then I got interested in the literature and culture. Before I started, I really knew nothing about Catalan culture. So you learn why you should be learning this language along the way.

See, this is one of the reasons why the original incarnation of my post included a billionaire dangling a million dollars for each language you learned.

[Ogrim]

I don't learn languages for ideological or idealistic reasons either. The fact that I've learnt a language spoken by around 50.000 people in some remote valleys in Switzerland is, as emk points to, because I fell in love with the language and I discovered an intersting culture and some very good writers who I believe would have been famous had they written in English, German or French instead of Sursilvan and Vallader. Romansh won't survive because foreigners like me learn it, nor will it die if people like me don't bother to learn it. It will live for as long as the native speakers use it, not only in their home, but also in business, in politics and in culture.

I also did not start learning Russian or Arabic because "they have a lot of speakers". Again it was the culture, and in part the language itself, which attracted me to them. In short, it's never been the number of speakers, one way or the other, that has been decisive for me learning a language. On a purely practical level though, it is clear that it is much easier to find learning material and access to media in a "big" language like Spanish, French, Russian or Arabic, than it is to find material for Breton, Alsatian, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic or Friuli.

[Chung]

If I want to turn my current but faintly hipsterish choice of languages into an expression of full-blown linguistic hipsterism / posturing / grandstanding / virtue-signalling / "anti-imperialism" (???), then I'd learn Meänkieli (*wink and nudge to my Finnish friends*), Northern Saami (I want payback for Norwegianism!), Meadow Mari (I'll show them Russkies!), Latvian (I'll show them Russkies! Again), and Rusyn (I'll show them Banderists!).

***

To add to Iversen's and emk's posts, it's naïve (and even rather arrogant) to go in thinking that one's longstanding studying of lower-profile languages regularly and genuinely inspires others similarly to go off the beaten path linguistically. Furthermore, who am I to needle someone, even subtlely, for digging into just FIGS, Mandarin, Russian, MSA or some other big, bad colonial language, while I happily plow through less commonly-taught languages?

What you learn is an asset to yourself and a liability to no one.

[peter]

See, this is one of the reasons why the original incarnation of my post included a billionaire dangling a million dollars for each language you learned.

Money changes everything. I'ld be happy for the billionaire to tell me which language to study, if after 5 years I get the money and am left alone. Where's the catch?

But if I have to choose, Cornish is the only minority language on my list. Or Latin, if that's an option.

[reineke]

What languages are there to choose from?

The Endangered Languages Project
A project by the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/#/3/ ... ng/unknown