# Little known languages & dying languages



## talmid

190210 1126


Hi !

I enjoy making myself aware of and learning about less well known information.

On the linguistics front, I recently read in the press about the death of an elderly lady in the Indian Andaman Islands, whose native language was called Bo.

According to the article, Bo was both an ancient tongue and one of the world's oldest languages and the death of the woman was significant, because with her death Bo ceased to be a spoken language.

Other languages of which I have learned & which are not too well known, at least in the UK are, for example, Xosa and Ndebele (both, I believe, spoken in Africa).

I wonder whether other members would be interested in adding to my brief list the names of further languages, together with the names of the countries where they are, or once were, spoken, and, if they feel inclined, brief details about the languages, their origins and their speakers:

with special regard to :
~those tongues which are less well known 
~ those tongues which have recently died out 
or which may presently be on the verge of extinction 

Thank you


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## Agró

In the UK alone
Cornish
Manx


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## XiaoRoel

El *córnico* y el *manés* están siendo "resucitados" por una minoría culta, consciente de lo que significó la muerte de la lengua que en su día fue la dorma de expresar el mundo, sus reaidades y las relaciones humanas. El _córnico_, muerto en el XVIII (sabemos incluso el nombre de su última hablante), está siendo recuperado con fuerza, dentro de una cierta corriente nacionalista que está floreciendo en los países de lengua propia céltica del Reino Unido. El _manés_ no llegó a desaparecer del todo, aunque ya llevaban dos o tres generaciones con pérdida de transmisión familiar, pero también se está recuperando.
otras lenguas desaparecidas en fecha reciente en Europa, fueron el *dálmata* (s. XVIII) y el (antiguo) *siciliano*, también por la misma época.
Otro fenómeno que se debería comentar es la *pérdida territorial* de dos lenguas europeas en los últimos dos siglos: el *bretón* y el *vasco*. Aunque también hay un fuerte movimiento de recuperación, especialmente del vasco, amparado por las instituciones propias de la parte española de Euskadi. El bretón tiene más difçicil la lucha por la supervivencia. También en Francia languidecen las lenguas ddel diasistema *occitano*, mientras el _catalán_, gracias a contar con instituciones propias los pueblos que lo hablan, florece de nuevo, tal como el _gallego_. Pero fueron lenguas que nunca llegaron a estar en peligro ni perdieron territorio, sólo estuvieron fuera de la escritura (el gallego) o reducida a lo privado (el catalán).
Caso aparte es el de las *lenguas amerindias*. Desaparecen a un ritmo escalofriante. Muchas no llegan a los 100 hablantes, con lo que su muerte está asegurada. Desde la clasificación de Tovar de hace unos _50 años hasta hoy, han desaparecido cientos de lenguas propias en América del Sur, especialmente en las zonas selváticas_. La muerte de estas lenguas también supone la muerte de la sociedad que las creó y de su cultura.


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## Hakro

The last native Livonian speaker, Viktor Berthold, died in 2009.

Livonian is a Finno-Ugrian language spoken in Latvia. Nowadays Livonian is taught in universities in Latvia, Estonia and Finland, and there are some 500 people who speak Livonian and maybe 1500 who can understand it.


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## talmid

200210   1332

Saluto,  XiaoRoel !

No hablo Espagnol.

Io he probado entiender lo que Usted  escrito - solamente de mis estudias en la escuela despues muchos anos- de la lengua Latina  - pero senza succeso para mi y no posiblile para mi comprender totalmente

Me interese mucho lo que Usted escribe

??   Existe posilibildad que Usted o otro Forum-Membro-Participante sera gentile y provisarme  una traduccion de lo que Usted ha escrito ???

Muchas gracias Y apologias para mi "Espagnol" !!


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## palomnik

Ayoreo.

It's a language spoken by about 3-5,000 people in the Chaco in Bolivia and Paraguay. Unlike some South American tribes, they live in relative proximity to Europeans, but they have generally refused integrate into the national cultures or to accept conversion by missionaries. Their land is under constant encroachment, mainly by soybean farms in the area.


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## Maurice92

talmid said:


> Other languages of which I have learned & which are not too well known, at least in the UK are, for example,
> Xosa and Ndebele (both, I believe, spoken in Africa).
> 
> 
> I wonder whether other Members  would be interested in adding to my brief list the names of further languages, together with the names of the countries where they are, or once were, spoken, and, if they feel inclined, brief details about the languages, their origins & their speakers:
> 
> with special regard to :
> ~those tongues which are less well known
> 
> ~ those  tongues which have recently died out
> or which may presently be on the verge of extinction
> 
> Thank you



There is about 6,000 tongues spoken in the world, so a great number of them are not well known.
You may have an idea of not well known languages by checking the following web site : 
http://www.omniglot.com/

You may also check the following web site : 
*List of languages by number  of native speakers*

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


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## Maurice92

talmid said:


> Other languages of which I have learned & which are not too well known, at least in the UK are, for example,
> Xosa and Ndebele (both, I believe, spoken in Africa).
> 
> 
> I wonder whether other Members  would be interested in adding to my brief list the names of further languages, together with the names of the countries where they are, or once were, spoken, and, if they feel inclined, brief details about the languages, their origins & their speakers:
> 
> with special regard to :
> ~those tongues which are less well known
> 
> ~ those  tongues which have recently died out
> or which may presently be on the verge of extinction



Xhosa and Ndebele are far from extinction, even if not known by european people; Xhosa is ranked 84 th in the list of languages by number of speakers.
I have myself learned (a little) the (Se)tswana language ( ranked about 124 th)  which is the official language of Botswana ( and almost the only one spoken in Botswana but also spoken in Sud Africa.


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## XiaoRoel

Estimado Talmid. Mi inglés es muy pobre. Ahí va una traducción en la que me ha ayudado una amiga. Espero que la entiendas.


 The Cornish language and the Manish are currentli being “being relived” by a cultured minority, conscious of what the death of a language that was used to describe a reality, human relationships and reality means. The Cornish, which died in the XVIIIth century (we even know the name of its last speaker), is being recovered at a fast pace by some nationalistic currents that are blooming in the counties of Celtic origin in language the United Kingdom. Manish did not disappear completely, although for two or three generations there has been loss of family transmission, but it also is recovering.
 Other languages which disappeared in recent dates in Europe, were Dalmatian (XVIIIth century) and tht Old Sicilian, approximately at the same time.
 Another phenomenon that it worth mentioning is the loss of territory two languages have suffered these last two centuries: the Bretón and the Basque. Although there is also a strong reaction, specially from the Basque language, supported by the Spanish institutions in the Basque Country. Breton is having a more difficult fight for survival. As in France the system does not finance the study of the Occitan languages, while the Catalonian language, thanks to the support of the Institutions is flourishing again, and the same can be said of the Galician language. But thse two languages never suffered a loss of territory, even if they were reduced to familiar use, and in the case of Galician, the loss of its writing form.
 The situation of the Amerindian languages is widely different. They are disappearing to a chilling rate. Many have less than 100 speakers, so their death is almost certain. Since Tovar´s classification 50 years ago, hundreds of native languages in South America have disappeared, specially in the rainforests. The death of these languages also means the death of the society that created them and their culture.


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## talmid

200210 2139

Good Evening !

I wish to express my sincere thanks to all who have replied so far.

All the responses are extremely interesting and I hope that other Members will also come forward and add yet more information.

I especially wish to thank Maurice92 for the link he has provided and which I will later research and XiaoRoel for the very prompt and careful translation he has offered.

Best wishes to all Forum Members


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## Fer BA

Talmid,

Try this
http://www.ethnologue.com/nearly_extinct.asp

There are more than 473 endangered languages over more than 7350 identified languages.


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## Ajura

Aragonese is one of them because it is losing it's individuality with it's neighboring languages.


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## spulp

I think you might find the following essay very interesting:
Daniel Nettle, Suzanne Romaine "Vanishing Voices: the Extinction of the World's Languages", Oxford University Press, 2000


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## hindupridemn

Mati Ke .... 3 speakers in northern Australia


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## talmid

040310   0419

Hi !

Thanks for the additional responses


I have also noted both the link and the OUP book suggestion


Best Wishes


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## mugibil

Personally, I'm especially sorry for:

1. the Massachusett language: an Algonquian language. The first North American Indian language to have books published into it (starting in 1669) and to develop mass literacy, there are lots of old documents and letters in it. The orthograghy was not created by linguists but was based on English conventions (<ee>, <oo>, etc.). As the name shows, it should have been the official language of the State of Massachusetts if there were justice in this world , but instead it went extinct in the 19th century.

2. The Chuvash language: still spoken, but Russian dominates media, public life and urban environments, so fewer and fewer ethnic Chuvash learn it as children. The only representative of the most deviant branch of the Turkic languages: r-Turkic, which has /r/ where other Turkic has /z/. It is believed to be the closest surviving relative, and probably a descendant, of the extinct language of the ancient Bulgars who founded the state of Bulgaria (I am Bulgarian myself).

3. Dari (Zoroastrian) - an Iranian language traditionally used by the Zoroastrians of Iran. Similar, yet fairly distinct from standard Persian, or Farsi. Will probably be lost as children don't learn it and seek integration in the larger Farsi-speaking society; even now a small minority of Iran's Zoroastrians speak it, and even Iran's Zoroastrians themselves are a small minority in Iran. Don't get me started on endangered religions.

4. Welsh - along with Cornish, the descendant of the language of the original Celtic Brits. If there were any justice in history, it would have been the official language of the whole of Britain. Instead, it is endangered even in its more recent restricted territory.

5. Norman - various varieties of the Norman language, a language with a great history and a significant influence on English, spoken in Normandy and various islands in the English channel. Displaced by French and English.

6. Manchu language - once again, a language with great history, used by the Manchus who conquered China and ruled it from the 17th to the early 20th century. Now completely displaced by Chinese and extinct except for a couple of very old people (out of 10 million ethnic Manchus, Wikipedia says) A Tungusic language, with a script of its own.

7. Romani, in particular the Sofia Erli dialect

Romani is universally receding for the same reasons as Chuvash and Brooklynese: speakers associate loss of it with social advancement. Unlike the Chuvash, even national pride is difficult to maintain for the Romani people. What little hope remains seems to be reserved for the Kalderash dialect, which is the most populous one, is prominent in the richest countries and is the one most used by international Romani activists. Other varieties such as the one native to my home city of Sofia, which are often more archaic, are even more endangered.

8. Yiddish - the language of the Ashkenazi Jews for many centuries. Displaced by Hebrew in Israel and by majority languages elsewhere.

9. Sign languages 

Sign languages, a very unique linguistic phenomenon, are likely to eventually die as cochlear implants and other treatments make a limited degree of hearing possible, and doctors recommend children not to learn to sign in order to make hearing habits more efficient. 

10. New York dialect

Stereotypically portrayed in the media and ridiculed by the public as a "mafia accent" or "uneducated speech", this classic traditional dialect is blending into General American and will probably be completely gone in a while. Already more a feature of Staten Island than of New York City.


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## Frank06

Hi,

I personally deplore the passing of Sumerian. But don't we all miss it?

But anyway: a list of little known languages can be found on www.ethnolgue.com: It contains +/- 7000 languages. I guess 90+% of them are "little known" to most of us.

Apart from the ethnologue website, which deals with little known languages, there are also countless websites dealing with endangered languages: e.g.
UNESCO has devoted quite some pages to this issue.
SIL (home of ethnologue.com) has some pages and articles.
Wikipedia (yeah!) has an article and loads of links.

Groetjes,

Frank

*PS: Since this is a multitpic thread which aks for two separate lists (of a few thousand possible items each), we closed this thread. More information than generously provided by other members can be found via the links.*
*Frank, moderator EHL*


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