Troll.

What do you mean by "adapt it to modern times?" Do you mean just update the lexicon to include modern words like "computer" and "mobile phone?" That rarely is the problem. Adapting it isn't the issue usually, finding a way to teach it to a large number of people however is. The Israelis managed it with Hebrew because they needed a common language, otherwise people couldn't speak to each other. When there isn't such a pressing need, e.g. when there is already a language that is dominant and common (i.e. few monoglot minority langauge speakers exist), it's far more difficult to increase the numbers of genuinely fluent individuals.

None I know of, but there have been many colonialist/imperialist countries which have imposed their languages onto the countries they colonialized/invaded, thus robbing the people a LOT of their cultural identity and history. This happens/happened also in countries that have several languages where govt. has decided to use one language as official language and the use of other languages, e.g. the former Soviet Union, Turkey; in India, at least, other languages than Hindi and English are not deprecated, they’re just not official, AFAIK.

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For adapt I mean the following: If a word from a foreign language is recognized by a large enough number of people and used in the context of their native language on a regular basis, then I see no problem to make the word part of the native language.

I don't think teaching it is an issue, native speakers usually just pick up new words as they talk with people who use them, its not like people actually sit down and actively learn those new words(like a student would learn words for a second language for example)

You miss my point. I'm talking about when the number of native speakers has been nearly reduced to the point of extinction, e.g. by famine with Irish speakers, Government policy with speakers of Corsican and so on.

Ah, k, thats what you meant.

I think in that case it probably comes donwn to personal opinion.

I think you should let a language like that just die, but I also said that I think of language more as something practical.


I wouldn't know anything about preserving a language in that state you described, is it even reasonably possible?

Yeah it's complicated. In Ireland there's quite a division over to what extent we should try and help the Irish language. In France the Government blocks any attempts of bilingual life (signage, education etc). They're doing pretty well with Welsh though from what I've heard.

Not sure about the Welsh thing. I was there at a student exchange, and while they had to learn it in school for a few years hardly any of the students were capable of having a conversation in Welsh.

Same for the adults, the only people who were fluent with it seemed to be the ones that were raised essentially bilingual. But then this was 10 years ago and only a small sample of personal experience, I don't really know about the grand picture there.

But all this seems to me that for a language to sustain itself you need a large enough number of native speakers that are raising their kids with that language. (Or the language needs to be usefult e.g. in the business world, but that seems to be the case for languages that fulfill the above criteria in the first place)

Are there any languages that have a (relatively) small number of native speakers but a lot of people who try to learn it?

Yes, Scots. Most Scottish people attempt, sometimes embarrasingly, to speak it on Burns Night, and many but increasingly fewer at Hogmanay. But for the rest of the year, thanks to what is known as the Scottish Cringe, they are forced, or try, to speak like English people - or, worse, like Edinburgh intellectuals.

Scots is not officially supported in Scotland, I believe, yet Ulster Scots receives government grants in Northern Ireland, and Gaelic gets subsidies in both countries.

(I am not a Scot and am not taking sides.)

Well, it depends which part of Wales you're in and the work they're doing won't really bear fruit for another while (there's been a decent push towards monolingual Welsh education starting crucially at pre-school level in some areas which will do wonders for fluency in the long term).

The issue with Scots is that linguists tend to define it as a dialect of English and more politically inclined people call it a language. Really if you see Ulster Scots written down it's little different than if I took the dialect of English spoken in the rural part of Ireland I came from and wrote it down phonetically as per the Munster accent. Some of the phrases and terms and the spelling would throw you but it's still clearly English. Gaelic and Gaeilge on the other hand have more in common with the Slavic languages than English.

Personally though I think calling Ulster Scots a language and giving it subsidies solves a lot of issues politically in the North so I'm fine with it.

Latin!

There are parents (language nerds ) out there who are raising their children monolingually through Latin until school age and only then introducing the language of the country they live in. I don't think it'll work without Latin being a community language but it's interesting.

Montesquieu claims he was raised that way.

Wow, I feel sorry for those kids, having to learn a dead language XD

I learned latin myself, but it was mandatory in school and after the 4 years I had to take it I immedeately forgot almost everything, same with my friends, I guess thats more the norm than an exception.