Do you speak a rare language?

[petrushka]

I think if only 1 country or residents only of a certain province/place in a country speak a certain dialect,then it is already considered rare in my book.

I don't know if that's necessarily true, though. I mean, even if it's a language that only one country speaks, if it's a country that has 20+ million population, then that's not really rare, is it? That's still 20 million people.

I think rare languages are those that a normal person wouldn't have even heard of, or a language with less than 1 million speakers.

I speak a language that about 28~ million people know how to speak though so I don't think it's rare, myself.

[JessiFox]

While I don't speak a rare language yet, I'm very interested in them. I'm interested in "dead" languages as well, I've studied Latin and Sumerian.

[Kaffi]

Do you consider Elven found in THe Lord Of The Rings and the writings of JRR.Tolkien to be a language ?

I speak a rare old dialect of Vest-Telemark, that no-one seems to know today except a few hundred in that area, its  more similar to Old Norse. And a bit of Old Norse, and a bit of Icelandic .

These are similar, as well as the dialect they speak in Upper part of Setesdalen, just across the mountain from that part of Vest-Telemark. They all contain structure from Old Norse and when spoken people from these areas can understand each other.

It is considered a language? Well, it might well be in linguistic circle's in the near future.

I would like to know more languages, and I guess that several of them is rare, like Sami, and Inuit.

[petrushka]

Do you consider Elven found in THe Lord Of The Rings and the writings of JRR.Tolkien to be a language ?

I would consider that a language, actually, since Tolkien was a linguist who knows the characteristics of languages and created an entire sprawling universe basically so that there is a world for his created language. I just think that because his constructed languages follows certain rules from names to places, etc., that it is as true a language as something that can be used and learned.

@ your dialect - are you sure it's simply a dialect and not a language in itself? Dialects are the varied ways a language can be spoken/used but the overarching similarities makes them under a common language. If your dialect is different enough from the surrounding areas, it might be a language in itself, might it not?

[byeeeeeeee]

No, I am not dare enough enough to speak.

I don't want anyone to laugh at my accent. :sweating: :sweating:

Also, who can I speak a rare language to??

[elenamarie]

My native language is Rinconada Bikol which is only spoken in my side of town. Our population is around a hundred thousand, most of which are migrants from different areas and even countries during pre war of world war 2. My grandfather is pure Chinese and my grandmother has some Spanish blood. Their children were all born here so all of us are fluent in speaking Rinkonada.

[Meerkat]

No, I don't sadly. But if you want to get rare, check out these two articles;

http://listverse.com/2013/04/07/10-bizarre-languages-still-spoken-around-the-world/

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-rarest-languages.php

Cant believe there are languages with only 1-8 speakers...

[elles-belles]

I am not very sure what language would be considered as a "rare" language but yes I think that I do speak a few "rare" languages.

I am from Gaborone, Botswana but have lived in Johannesburg, South Africa most of my life so I speak languages such as Setswana, Zulu and Xhosa to mention but a few. Xhosa would probably classify more as a "rare" language because it has a lot of clicks and funny sounds that feel like your vocal chords are screeching and sometimes even popping :confused:.

Do any of you know of any of the languages I have mentioned above? I find them rather intriguing and lovely to know, they may also sound very funny to someone who has never heard of them before!

[Arzy_]

Here where i live (Majorca) aside from learning Spanish they teach us in school to speak ''Mallorquin''. It is a local language which is alike to ''Catalán''... well, actually it's the same thing though there are some different words and the pronuntiation is also a bit different but i'd say it's almost the same thing.

[linguaholic]

On 20.1.2016, 09:59:16, Arzy_ said:

Here where i live (Majorca) aside from learning Spanish they teach us in school to speak ''Mallorquin''. It is a local language which is alike to ''Catalán''... well, actually it's the same thing though there are some different words and the pronuntiation is also a bit different but i'd say it's almost the same thing.

Wow, that's interesting. Are there some Audio Clips of Mallorquin? I would love to hear some samples.

[kimseokjin]

I speak a little Chinese dialect called Hainanese, which comes from the Hainan province. I believe it's only really used by rural villagers. In my lifetime, I've only come across a handful of other Hainanese folks, but unfortunately they don't know how to speak it like I do.

[111kg]

What exactly do you call a rare language? Because my language, Romanian, is spoken only by 20 million people and we are more than 7 billion people on this Earth. However, I highly doubt that Romanian is considered to be a rare language.

[lushlala]

The only rare language I speak and am interested in is my own, Setswana LOL I feel that it's a rare language because it's only spoken in Botswana, population 2.4 million! And even then, not everyone speaks it fluently. Plus I have a sinking feeling it's a dying language because a lot of the younger generation can barely speak it, and prefer to communicate solely in English. It's similar to Se-Sotho (spoken in Lesotho) and Tswana (spoken in South Africa).

[reverserewind]

On 27.07.2014 at 8:51 AM, Archangelos said:

Is greek considered to be a rare language?

Nope, as long as it's considered an official language of the whole country known as Greece. However, I don't think it's as widespread as, let's say, Spanish.

[Mereloshn]

Yeah my main language other than English is Yiddish which is a very rare language.  It's the language of Ashkenazis, the white Jews of Germanic and Eastern Europe and it's a language that is 1,000 years old and nowadays it's practically a dying language because of assimilation and replacement by other languages.  Only a small number of Hasidic Jewish families still use it, mostly confined to New York City and small pockets of Jewish communities in Europe.  The majority of the language, about 75-80% of it, is actually Medieval German (Old German) and about 15% Hebrew, and 10% Aramaic.  There is a separate type of Yiddish called Litvik which is a Lithuanian dialect that uses more Slavic words but the type I am learning is the one that leans more towards Hebrew/Aramaic.  So yeah my main second language is very rare. 

[LeesaJohnson]

I rarely speak Latin language.

[Wanda]

I don´t know if Dutch is considered a rare language. It´s definitely EXTREMELY useful to know a language few people speak when you want to have a private conversation in public. I live and have raised my kids in the U.S. and it's been a wonderful experience to do all my parenting in "private". All those discussions where my kids were whining about stuff.... 

[宇崎ちゃん]

@Wanda

Depends on where you live really.
Of course over here, Dutch is the most common language.
However, Dutch isn't nearly as widely use outside our national borders, though it does expand itself all the way to Suriname, Belgium, and perhaps some of the Caribbean islands.

I was raised to be a native speaker in Dutch and Polish, so I know this private conversations in public thing is a very great asset, until you realise my city consists of lots of Polish people too.

[jsmith78]

I speak Maltese, which is spoken by around 400,000 people. You can learn it here for free:

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alpha.android.maltese

[宇崎ちゃん]

Welcome, and don't bump to spam.