Languages you have never had any interest in learning ??

[mick33]

I'm not really interested in conlangs either . Well, maybe I'll learn Toki Pona someday, but I doubt it will be very soon.

As for everything else, I would say that there are many languages I may not get around to learning such as Arabic, Cantonese, Swahili, Latvian, Navajo and Tamil.

[Whodathunkitz]

Completely naive...

I'd love to learn ANY language to a conversational standard, but particularly one that I could use regularly.

Plus Esperanto as it was the first language that helped me understand grammar terms. I might one day return to it with fresh eyes.

I'd like to learn as many as possible, but I've got a 10 year queue as it is. I've tried to learn various languages for 20 plus years but only recently have I managed to make ANY decent progress (yet I remember snippets from these attempts).

Progress has come from taking charge of my learning and not relying on courses; using apps and learning about how to learn (HTLAL, here). Other key aspects have been to find activities that lead to me having a high workrate and to not worry about precision, following courses exactly etc.

If I had new neighbours, friends etc that would make the effort worthwhile I would consider it.

Holidays, relocating for a job, workmates, any good reason.

The problem I now have is too little time, I need to control my wanderlust.

The plus is that I've got a lifetime hobby which really appeals and satisfies me.

So I'll say a big thank you to all of you who have inspired me here and elsewhere.

[IronMike]

Paraphrasing Will Rogers: I never met a language I didn't want to learn.

[Elenia]

This time last month I thought I'd never want to learn Spanish - and now I'm thinking 'oh, but I might just have to!'

Apart from Spanish (and Italian, to a lesser extent) I can't think of any language I've never wanted to learn. I can think of plenty languages I will probably never care to make time for, but that list will take far too long...

[Josquin]

Conlangs for me. I have trouble enough staying focused without a need on studying natural languages; conlangs would just be even worse as there isn't the literature/media/culture to interest me.

Seconded. I could never be bothered to deal with Esperanto, Volapük, Klingon, or the like. When there's no actual culture behind it, I'm not interested. And yes, I know there is a kind of culture at least for Esperanto, but it just isn't the real thing for me.

Weirdly enough, I used to be interested in Quenya and Sindarin when the LOTR hype was at its height (I must have been 18 or so. God, I'm old...), but then Tolkien put a lot of work into inventing a culture with its own history, mythology, etymology and so on. I've never really studied any Tolkien language, but I learnt the Tengwar script, which I've totally forgotten by now.

I can still remember iconic phrases in Tolkien's languages though, like "Ash nazg durbatulûk..." and "Et eärello endorenna utúlien...". I lost interest in fantasy literature when I grew up though, so I really wouldn't consider learning a conlang today.

[Tristano]

I can make a list now and discover in few years that I changed my mind but I try:
before I get assaulted: all the languages are beautiful and no language is less than others.
- Japanese, it's true that I contemplated learning it because of a travel in Japan, but please, nope. It has all the characteristics of a language that I hate: language isolate, 3 alphabets, one of which is not even an alphabet but a set of ideograms, so weird and alien and strictly culture dependent that if you don't live in the country you basically have no chance whatsoever.
- native american languages. I'm not American and I will never meet a Navajo person or read Navajo books (do they even exist)? Plus they're difficult as fuck.
- languages that are extremly endangered and extremely isolated.
- Basque. How was the thing? The devil created Basque and then tried to get fluent in it, failing big times? Or was it Japanese?
- Most of the conlangs, especially the ones that have too less in common with natural languages, because they're not useful as a bridge. Esperanto and perhaps Slovio can be interesting for me (but I don't have to speak them or learn how to write them). Yes, I had some fun with Toki Pona.
- Judeo Español and Yiddish, unless I studied Hebrew first.
- Faroese, unless I studied Icelandic first.
- Urdu, unless I studied Hindi first.
- Thai and Vietnamese don't score particularly high in my language wishlist, but I reserve myself the right to change idea.
- Turkic languages written with the Arabic alphabet, although I can always learn all the others first and those only by listening.
- Dialects. A waste of time unless I live in the area where the dialect is spoken - and often it is a big waste of time anyway.
- Neapolitan dialect. If I have to decide which languages sounds more lovely between Klingon and Neapolitan, I would certainly vouch for Klingon.
- Frisian. Friesland doesn't exist: it's an invention of the communists. Unless they send me in Frisia to work
- Limburgish: a big who cares. Same for Luxembourgish.
- Swiss German: bleah.
- Romansh: a huge who cares.
- Ancient Egyptian and all the extinct languages that don't have any related modern language.

I'm sure there are many more to add, but this is a short representative list.

[Saim]

- Urdu, unless I studied Hindi first.

You don't really have to differentiate them much until, say, upper B1. Especially if you focus more on speaking and listening than reading and writing, as I did. Actually at earlier levels it can be damaging to work too much on Urdu's "unique" vocabulary that's not present in Hindi because you can end up sounding like a book.

[Tristano]

Saim, the point with this duo is that Urdu is written in Arabic Script, thing that I try to avoid like the peste bubbonica.

[lichtrausch]

- Japanese, it's true that I contemplated learning it because of a travel in Japan, but please, nope. It has all the characteristics of a language that I hate: language isolate, 3 alphabets, one of which is not even an alphabet but a set of ideograms, so weird and alien and strictly culture dependent that if you don't live in the country you basically have no chance whatsoever.

The situation isn't quite that dire. Although technically a language isolate, its grammar and to a lesser extent phonology are quite similar to Korean. The two syllabaries are very straightforward, and the Chinese characters are of course shared to a large extent with Mandarin and to a much lesser extent with Korean. That's not to say it isn't a huge challenge, but it's also not xenolinguistics.

[galaxyrocker]

=
The situation isn't quite that dire. Although technically a language isolate, its grammar and to a lesser extent phonology are quite similar to Korean. The two syllabaries are very straightforward, and the Chinese characters are of course shared to a large extent with Mandarin and to a much lesser extent with Korean. That's not to say it isn't a huge challenge, but it's also not xenolinguistics.

Japanese isn't an isolate, but part of the Japonic family along with the Ryukyuan languages of which Okinawan is the most famous. Still, a relatively small family. Korean is an isolate, however, though there are some attested languages on the Korean Peninsula that could have been related to it.