The Language Most in Need of a Good Course?

[honey]

Khmer, Berber, Georgian, Burmese

[Teango]

I agree with Deinonysus and Jaleel10, it would be great to see more contemporary courses for Zulu. Apart from some dated classroom tomes that are as scarce as hen's teeth, I guess we're pretty much stuck with TY for now...

[Whodathunkitz]

I think like others mentioned, Bengali. I feel like a lot of the giant Indian languages are too little taught for the number of speakers they have and media impact and literary output: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi and so on. I even think Urdu could do with a lot more emphasis.

I'd also put in a word for languages in the Phillipines: Cebuano, Hiligaynon etc.

I've said it all before, but in this context - Cebuano / Bisaya (Philippines). Also applicable to other smaller languages (are advice columns universal in minority newspapers?).

20 million speakers - Lingua Franca in the centre, south - so spoken by many more people regularly over a wider area than Tagalog/Filipino/Taglish. Many Pinoys learn Tagalog as a foreign language AFTER they already know English. But Tagalog is the TV language (drama, soap operas, news) for most with just news in local languages. Lots of Pinoys in many countries (passenger / cargo ships, hotels, but mostly medical) who would be delighted to practice.

Best written course (in my opinion):-

Cebuano Language Objectives - Mormon Training Centre. No audio.


Others:
Magbinisaya kita
Tom and Cathy Marking
Peace Corps (use with a native speaker).
Cebuano, Beginning - Part I (Wolff)
Cebuano Affixes SIPL_1-2_073-109
Advanced Cebuano for Beginners by Scott Robertson (web, free, unconventional)
Ava Tattleman Parnes ("Ang marks the what?")
A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40074/40 ... 0074-h.htm

Native Material:-
Audio / Video:-
Youtube
- Bugti
- Mindanao Documentaries BY JOHN PAUL SENIEL - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs4gyk ... I0NR51CU4A by the way - I have been told that this is NOT Cebuano as spoken in Cebu City. This is Mindanao (hence Bisaya) - potentially more conservative, older style/vocabulary and also missing some verb affixes, but Cebu City speakers seem to think it's ok to learn from. Slow, excellent audio, very clear male voice (preferable to me as I hear female voices more often and want more male voice exposure to even it up).
- Bible audio - previously used 1920s audio - but 1970s language at best - avoid the drama one as it's 1920s language.

Written:
Previously I read 3 or 4 Bible books (listening-Reading) - but this was in 1920s Cebuano and quite perplexing to modern native speakers at times (even 60+ years old). I was given a more modern book version but no audio.

I've been searching for years, I don't like Philippine news (violence, sport, celebrity, senseless of most of rest, depressing) - I wanted something MODERN colloquial, conversational, at least a bit interesting. I think I've found it in advice columns.

From my log:-

http://kalingawan-collections.blogspot.co.uk

List of advice columns without the stuff around them (adverts etc) for use in readlang etc. Potentially good - colloquial Cebuano, similar themes, language.

Tambagi ko Noy Kulas
Talk to Papa Joe
Tambagi ko Noy Tikyo
Sugilanon
Kalingawan
Heartline
Vallena
Daclan
Basil
Tita Heart

Search for "site:www.sunstar.com.ph Tambagi ko Noy Kulas" on google gets hundreds of results, probably similar for all others - so I think I now have thousands of colloquial Cebuano articles around 4-600 words. Much better than the Bible which is very formal and old fashioned language.

Also Wikipedia - but that is quite deep (archaic) too.

[kanewai]

Of the languages I'm familiar with, Arabic is the easiest choice. I'm surprised how little good material there is compared to other world languages. Part of the problem I've found is that, when you find a course, you never know if it's Egyptian, or Modern Standard, or Levantine, or some mix that the books call "modern spoken."

But if I could give a grant to a developer to create a good course, Hawaiian would be my choice. There are a fair number of textbooks, but they all - even the 'learn Hawaiian at home' books - seem more suited for the classroom than for the autodidact.

[BOLIO]

Uyghur Gets my vote.

[IronMike]

Cornish, Lakota, Mohawk, Tlingit, Choctaw, I could go on...

[FyrsteSumarenINoreg]

Tamil, Malayalam, Assamese and Nynorsk.