What are some endangered languages?

Question

I want to learn another language like Spanish or French but then i was thinking...why not an endangered one? Why not one on the brink of being lost? So if you know of any endangered/rare languages then Please tell me! (websites greatly appreciated!)

Answer 1

Aramaic is a dying language. There's only a single small town remaining that speaks Aramaic.

Aramaic might be difficult to learn, because you need to learn an entirely new set of characters, but I can write in twenty "alphabets," so I cannot really gauge the difficulty of Aramaic. It was rather easy for me to learn it, personally.

The characters aren't complicated, in fact, they're probably as simple or more simple than English characters.

The grammar is very similar to Hebrew, as its root language. The grammar, and even the alphabet, might be intimidating at first, because it does not contain any vowels, only two silent characters thatare used for emphasis or when a word begins with a vowel.

Here is a dictionary I found if you do plan to begin Aramaic. I hope it's helpful:

http://www.peshitta.org/lexicon/

And if you want to observe the Aramaic "alphabet," that is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet


I hope that I helped. Aramaic truly is a dying language.

Answer 2

If you live in a country like the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand which have indigenous populations with rare and endangered languages, it might be an interesting experience to learn one of them. It will also be easier for you to find a teacher in a language that is native to your local area and it would teach you many things about your country that you would otherwise never have the chance to learn.

Answer 3

As others have pointed out, there are countless endangered languages throughout the world. Languages often die when communities no longer perceive their traditional language's value in the modern world (they will switch to a dominant world language instead). Many projects attempt to prevent this outcome through educating community members about the importance of linguistic heritage and the beauty of linguistic variability. Here is one such project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuJxY0-8II0

Answer 4

such a sweet thought, however to learn a language you have to find a teacher, and you can only find a teacher if there are more people that speak the language and you can use it as a means to communication. to conserve a language you have to write it down, but without speakers it is a dead language scientifically interesting, but not for real people.

Answer 5

Another moribund language is Ainu, still spoken
by a few people on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Answer 6

Dear WesthillsGarage,

Why not look into Gaelic? It is spoken in Ireland and is probably one of the most confusing and beautiful languages you will ever put your mind to. Go to: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/irish.htm

Where you will find the following AND MORE:

Irish (Gaeilge)
Irish is a Celtic language spoken in mainly Ireland (Éire). There are also Irish speakers in the UK (Ríocht Aontaithe), the USA (Stáit Aontaithe Mheiriceá), Canada (Ceanada) and Australia (an Astráil). According to the 1996 census, 1.43 million people in Ireland claim to have some knowledge of Irish, 353,000 of whom speak it regularly. The main concentrations of Irish speakers are in the Gaeltachtaí, which are scattered mainly along the west coast of Ireland and have a total population of 82,715, 76.3% of whom speak Irish.

Names of the language
Irish is known as Irish, Gaelic or Irish Gaelic in English. The official standard name in Irish is Gaeilge /'geɪlɪk/. Before the 1948 spelling reform, this was spelled Gaedhilge. In Middle Irish the name was spelled Gaoidhealg, and it was Goídelc in Old Irish.

Other regional variations of the name in modern Irish dialects include Gaedhilic, Gaeilic, Gaeilig or Gaedhlag in Ulster and northern Connacht, and Gaedhealaing, Gaoluinn or Gaelainn in Munster.

Relationship to other languages
Irish is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages, also known as Q-Celtic. It is closely related to Manx (Gaelg/Gailck) and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig), the other Goidelic languages. There is some degree of mutual intelligibility between them, particular between the Scottish Gaelic of Islay and Argyll, Ulster Irish, and Manx. The grammar and vocabulary of these languages are quite similar, but the spelling and pronunciation are different, especially Manx spelling.

Here is an illustration of some of the differences between Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic using the phrases 'How are you?':

Irish (Standard) - Conas tá tú?
Irish (Munster) - Conas taoi?, Conas tánn tú?, Conas tá tú?
Irish (Connacht) - Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú?
Irish (Ulster) - Cad é mar atá tú?
Scottish Gaelic - Ciamar a tha thu? (informal) Ciamar a tha sibh? (formal)
Scottish Gaelic (Lewis) - Dè mar a tha thu?
Manx - Kys t'ou? (informal) Kanys ta shiu? (formal)

Have fun!! :)

Answer 7

Manchu. Very interesting, yet very hard to learn, village of about 50 or so people know how to speak it in Heilongjiang Province, NE China.

Answer 8

Hebrew and Yiddish are slowly disappearing, you can only find them in areas of Poland and Israel, but you'll have to be willing to learn a new alphebet that is rather confusing.

Answer 9

latin