Why do I have fetish for "useless" languages?

Question

I don't know why but I'm really interested in Irish, Finnish, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian ?
I think they're just so unique <3
now I'm only learning Swedish :P (Swedish is not that useless, it's spoken by 9 million people) out of these "useless" language :P

I'd rather learn Finnish than Spanish!

do you think that I'm having some kind of problem? like Useless-phile ? haha
and also I have some kind of phobia towards Arabic and Chinese
and I hate Esperanto ? not only it's useless but it's also unnatural :/

Answer 1

Hej! Trevligt att du gillar "mitt" språk :)



I also think small languages are more interesting than big, widely spokena ones like English and Spanish (even though these two happens to be the only ones I speak besides Swedish). I have always wanted to learn Finnish, or even one of the Sami languages (talk about useless, they're only spoken by maybe 60 00 people in the north of Sweden).



I think small language feel more special since you're not very used to them or know very much about them. English is very "normal" to me even if I've never been to an English speaking country, while Sami is exotic to me even if it's spoken in my own country. So yeah, I understand how you feel :)



Säg bara till om du behöver hjälp med din svenska!

Answer 2

I know how you feel, and there is nothing wrong with it. I try to learn Irish, Welsh, Latin, Icelandic, Low German and other small or not so useful languages, but I don't do it that much for the ability to speak, but to read, and to be awed by the one thing that makes us truly human.

I agree, Swedish is not useless, I am one of those 9 million, and if I had wanted to I could probably have got by without learning any other language. But, what a dull world that would have been. ;)

Answer 3

The language spoken by Ancient Egyptians changed a bit over time. Basically, the Egyptian language came from the languages spoken to the east of Egypt, Semitic languages like Hebrew, and languages spoken to the south, Hamitic languages like Somali. The words in this language are mostly made up of consonant sounds, unlike the vowel sounds we use today in English. Old Egyptian is the language that scientists believe was being spoken at the time when the pyramids were built. Middle Egyptian came a bit later and has been found on many recently discovered business and government documents. Coptic is the last known stage of the Ancient Egyptian language. It used a lot of the Greek alphabet, with only a few additional letters from the older Egyptian languages. Coptic was mainly used by the Egyptian Christians toward the end of the time of the Ancient Egyptians. Now they speak in Arabic, not to be mistaken with Farsi though. Hieroglyphs is the written language during the ancient times.

Answer 4

There are many people who are interested in languages, it's an incredible fascinating way into a new world of ideas and people. It can be very cool to see different ways of saying things. I speak three languages fluently myself: English, French and Esperanto and I have studied but wouldn't say I'm totally fluent in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Mandarin, Ukrainian, Spanish and German. It's a fun hobby.



I'd argue with what you said about Esperanto. Esperanto although it is grammatically precise, I feel it gives more freedom as a language. You can create and mould new words on the fly using its grammatical rules. It has an interesting culture and allows a speaker to feel multiple cultures and ideas at once, tied to many different places. You say that it is useless, but as someone who explored languages I am sure that you have seen some of difficulties of language learning. I'm a slow learner of languages a friend of mine learns languages incredibly quickly but I can't. Most people are like this, and Esperanto provides a way for them to communicate. Say you run a business, are a journalist, or a diplomat and you want to speak with someone from Syria. You don't speak the language and the person you want to speak to doesn't speak your language. What if in stead of one of you spending years learning a new language, you both spend a few months learning a common language? Then you can both communicate in a fraction of the time. It's a powerful tool.



Esperantists themselves are a very interesting group of people. As a speaker, through the Pasporta Servo, I can travel anywhere in the world and stay with an Esperantist. It means that I can feel the local culture and live it with a local even if it is incredibly foreign to me.



You also say that it is unnatural. I have heard that from some who love languages and I can never understand that. It's a love of imperfection and I can see that but there are so many things to be made of Esperanto. It is a bridge to most European languages and is even taught to middle school children in Australia so as to allow them to move into the study of a natural language with more ease. Studies in Germany found that students who studied one year of Esperanto and three years of French scored better on the final exam than students who studied four years of French. Does this sound like a useless language to you?

Answer 5

Perhaps useless to you, since you cannot communicate in those languages. They are clearly not useless languages to those who practice and use their mother tongue, or those who learned them as a second language and are now fluent.



Once an individual is fluent in a foreign language, he can read poetry, history, culture, art, etc. in the original language, and how wonderful is that?



Languages are never, ever useless, allow your imagination to dwell into the magnificent world of languages, have fun!

Answer 6

Irish Gaelic, Latin, Sumarean, Aramaic.



I'm the same way. It's not a "problem" it just makes you awesome!!