The Skype-Out: Nothing butt sex. Or so they say.

[Elin]

It's possible Scots and Irish Gaelic might end up being mostly academic, even if dual language signs etc are still all over the place. It is kind of sad but there are historical reasons why those languages have ended up in their current state.
Certain indigenous languages are dying in other places too, I would guess plenty have died off here but at least there has always been a tradition of oral history...although plenty of tribes simply don't exist now. Pretty much all indigenous people that are still here have European blood mixed in at some point.

I could definitely see that happening with Scots Gaelic in particular. There are only like 60000 speakers out there, and I'd wager a good number of them are in the latter part of their lives now. Not sure there are enough new speakers of the language in the next generation to fill that void. I think according to a census a couple of years ago, there were 3000 or 4000 fewer fluent Gaelic speakers in the country compared to back in 2000, but also a lot more young people who said they were studying it. So really it becomes a question of how many of those young learners continue with the language.

Yeah, there are going to be a lot of languages that die out completely over the next 100 or 200 years. Probably a very sizeable chunk of the world's languages when you add them up, actually. Sad, but like you say, kind of one inevitable result of the march of history. Particularly in the case of languages like Scots Gaelic where you didn't only have linguistic natural selection at play, but also a concerted effort over many years to suppress and destroy the language.

[deadlegion]

I attempted Irish Gaelic when I was in primary school, for a couple of months. Mum had little hand written signs on things around the house.
I'm lazy about languages tbh. Dad is fluent in 3 languages but I only ever spoke a little broken German when I was small, still understand some of it but can't read at all really.
Did 6 months of French in high school and the same for Latin.

That's about it. Did I mention I'm lazy?

[Elin]

Well it was a whole lot of small countries before unification by the first emperor and I guess plenty of the rural areas haven't progressed as rapidly as other parts of the world.
Not saying that Asia is a backward place though...certain times in history Asia, India and even middle eastern countries were scientifically and culturally more advanced than the west.

Yeah, I guess, but I'm still surprised at how distinct the various regions have remained post-unification. I mean Japan was basically cut into pieces until the end of the sengoku period too, and short of traditional Okinawan culture and what remains of Ainu culture (at the furthest reaches of both ends of the country), you'd be hard pressed to find the kind of regional diversity you get across China. I suppose Japan has been the subject of two very concerted, disciplined modernisation efforts throughout recent history, though, while China's history in that regard has been a lot more stop-start. There's also the fact that China's just a whole lot bigger.

[deadlegion]

Japan is a bit different though. Smaller geographically and a different mentality (generally historically speaking, I'm not talking about young people now).

[Warrior]

Missed my post eh?

[deadlegion]

Missed my post eh?

No I just forgot to quote you when I posted.

[Elin]

Kinda wish I knew how to speak/read Gaelic , Irish roots & all that.

Million times better than having spanish as a secondary language.

I think Spanish is a great choice for a first foreign language, though. Your first foreign language is usually the most difficult, and Spanish is relatively friendly in several areas (pronunciation isn't so bad, grammar isn't hugely complex, it uses the same alphabet as English save for a few characters, lots of familiar word roots...), so I think it's a good choice to ease you into learning foreign languages. It's also a really good springboard to other languages. Particularly Italian, Portuguese and French, but it also gives you knowledge of certain grammatical concepts and shared word roots that can be applied to lots of other languages. French seems to be favoured in schools here, but I always thought Spanish was a much better choice, even putting aside its utility for travel and communication.

[Elin]

French seems to be favoured in schools here, but I always thought Spanish was a much more useful choice, even putting aside its utility for travel and communication.

And that's coming from someone who speaks French and doesn't speak (all that much) Spanish.

[deadlegion]

I really didn't like French. Well, except for the teacher

[Elin]

I really didn't like French. Well, except for the teacher

I'm not hugely keen on French either, but by the time I stopped studying it in formal education I had come far enough with it that there didn't seem to be much sense in stopping. It wouldn't be first on my list of languages to learn if I were starting now, but I liked it well enough that it seemed worth the relatively minimal amount of effort it took to keep going with it.

[Tassadar]

I attempted Irish Gaelic when I was in primary school, for a couple of months. Mum had little hand written signs on things around the house.
I'm lazy about languages tbh. Dad is fluent in 3 languages but I only ever spoke a little broken German when I was small, still understand some of it but can't read at all really.
Did 6 months of French in high school and the same for Latin.

That's about it. Did I mention I'm lazy?

I'm pretty awful at languages too, I have more interest in practicing German however than I do in Irish, in school I never liked languages because they never came as easily to me as the Sciences did so I didn't put as much effort into them.

Another thing about Irish however is that the stories and poems that were written in Irish by Irish authors are IMO inferior to the poems and stories written in English by Irish authors.

[kirov]

Particularly in the case of languages like Scots Gaelic where you didn't only have linguistic natural selection at play, but also a concerted effort over many years to suppress and destroy the language.

The joys of having England as a neighbour. I hear that the Welsh are very keen on speaking Welsh, they got to be doing something right.

[Elin]

I'm pretty awful at languages too, I have more interest in practicing German however than I do in Irish, in school I never liked languages because they never came as easily to me as the Sciences did so I didn't put as much effort into them.

Another thing about Irish however is that the stories and poems that were written in Irish by Irish authors are IMO inferior to the poems and stories written in English by Irish authors.

I remember reading someone saying the same thing about Esperanto. Since pretty much everyone is coming at it as a second language and so few people writing in the language have the extremely high level of fluency and linguistic understanding necessary to pen good poetry, nothing they write really reads as nicely as it would in their native languages anyway. There's also the issue of there being a much smaller canon of literature in the language for aspiring authors to draw upon and learn from. Very few writers are going to be able to write a good book without having read plenty of books in the language they're writing in, and when there aren't that many books in the language to begin with... :'D

[Nemkoon]

whats a language

[Elin]

whats a language

Beats me. I'm just slamming my keyboard right now and hoping that someone understands the mess of characters that pops up on the screen.