Have you learned a lesser used language?

Although I speak several languages, they are all widespread and spoken by tens of millions of people. I'm curious if any of you have learned a lesser spoken language.

So, for the sake of this question, let's use these criteria as the measure: There are no more than around 1 million speakers (excluding dead languages) and the majority of them live in one region.

With those as criteria, what language did you pick up (no native speakers please) and why did you decide to learn it, and if you know, about how many people actually speak it?

Around 1 million speakers is setting the bar extremely high. I know we have some Irish speakers on SiT, and there could be some who know Icelandic or one of the various sign languages, but I'm guessing that will be it.

1 million out of over 6 billion people is less than 1 thousandth a percent. I don't view that as high. Obviously, the rarer the language, the more intriguing it is. As for Icelandic and Irish, are you refering to nationals from those countries? As for sign language, although they are valid languages, I'm curious about the spoken ones.

I wonder who wikipedia is talking about when it claims 900 native speakers of Ottoman Turkish. I suppose it may be people who are old enough to have learned Turkish by the time of the first language reform. Wouldn't there be more than 900 though?

1 million out of over 6 billion people is less than 1 thousandth a percent. I don't view that as high.

Viaggero, I think what zashibis meant was that 1 million is too low, not too high -- it's setting the bar high in the sense that it leaves us with only very obscure languages. If you're looking for speakers of "lesser spoken languages," there's a wide gap between Chinese, Spanish, English and Arakanese, Tharu, Bini.

Why is it that when I say "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb", it sounds more sinister than "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"..
Has it got something to do with the "learned" (one syllable) being more extracted (thought out) than the flippant "learnt"?

In any case, those in Papua New Guinea have reason to do what you suggest, viaggero, as do some in Australia with the "Aboriginal" languages...

I wonder how many people speak Elvish? ;)

Viaggero: since you don't seem to have received an explicit answer to your question yet, I'll volunteer this: I took a series of courses in Quechua, the major surviving indigenous language of the Andes, a few years ago, and though I can still hardly claim to be fluent, I enjoyed the study very much. My reasons were: an interest in languages in general (the essential reason); a desire to take on a language unrelated to English; a general interest in Latin America; and, shortly before, my first visit to Peru. It was interesting to see how this language worked, and especially to discover how logical and regular it is. (I realize that "logical" is a tricky adjective to use with reagrd to languages, but in the case of Quechua I think it can be defended. I know the French think their language is "logical," though I've never understood why -- and anyway, like most other European languages, it's quite a mess compared to Quechua.) It's too bad the Spanish cut the Inca empire short so early in its career -- had it continued to flourish, perhaps Quechua would have become an international language, and we would all have been better off for it!

(Incidentally, the estimated number of first-language Quechua speakers varies between 6 and 8 million, but I suppose by most standards you could still regard it as a "lesser-used" language.)

Yes, #4 is right; I did mean "making the task too difficult."

I myself devoted considerable time to studying what most people would consider a fairly obscure language, Georgian (< 5 million speakers). Less than a million native speakers excludes the majority language in most of the nations of the world (except for some of the island nations of the South Pacific) and most of the larger minority languages as well.

Icelandic is frequently studied for its rich literary tradition (particularly by those who already know one or more Scandinavian languages). As for Irish, it's a a required subject these days in Irish schools, but since all but a tiny percentage are taking it as a second language it would seem to qualify as "learning a lesser-used language."

Maltese would be a contender in the European area.

I've always been keen to learn a regional/minority/endangered/less well known/less frequently studied language (perspective is everything, of course) properly but have only ever dabbled. The trouble is, I find it hard to focus as there are so many I'd like to study (and don't have a strong motivation for any one in particular).

Icelandic is frequently studied for its rich literary tradition

That's true, but most people who do that (me included) have studied Old Icelandic as a dead language, i.e. without any attempt at learning hearing, speaking, or writing, and OP ruled out that sort of thing. My first teacher was eccentric in having us use Modern Icelandic pronunciation.

Although people will tell you it hasn't changed much, Old Icelandic won't help you a great deal with a modern Icelandic newspaper, and even less with Halldor Laxness etc. The things people write about are just too different.

My first teacher was eccentric in having us use Modern Icelandic pronunciation.

Would anybody actually know how it differed from Old Icelandic?

I mention this because there are cultural differences in pronunciation of Latin (if I'm not wrong, the French don't pronounce it like the British do), but there is no way of knowing whose pronunciation is closest to what Latin speakers ~2000 years ago used.

Without meaning to insult any one... and this doesnt qualify for the under I million mark.... as an anglo australian I have enjoyed learning Lithuatian and Khmer..

Oops Lithuanian

Would anybody actually know how it differed from Old Icelandic?

It depends on what you mean by "know". I think we know to a reasonable degree of certainty that Old Icelandic á (the accent indicates length) was pronounced somewhere in the ballpark of a continental European long a. That's why they wrote it that way. In Modern Icelandic it's an au diphthong. And I think we can be pretty sure that in OI, a double l was pronounced as two l's, not as tl as in Modern Icelandic. The missionaries who first wrote down Icelandic in Latin letters would presumably have used tl to represent a tl sound, not ll. (There is other evidence, mostly from comparative linguistics, but the spelling is the starting point.)

Do the French use the church Latin (Italianate) pronunciation? Chichero not Kickero? If so, I don't think they would claim that that reflects the way they believe it was pronounced in classical times.

It seems that I am the first responder who can answer "yes" to the question as originally defined. Unfortunately my answer is not very interesting as zashibis has already correctly pointed out that many Irish people fall into this category. But for what it's worth the answers are:

what language did you pick up (no native speakers please)

Irish (Gaelic). I am Irish but as I spoke only English until school age I am not a native speaker.

why did you decide to learn it,

Because it was (and is) compulsory in Irish schools.

about how many people actually speak it?

In the 2002 Census in the Republic of Ireland, about 1.6m people claimed to be able to speak Irish. However about 1m of these people say they actually speak Irish less than once a week. The remaining 0.6m who speak it at least weekly presumably includes a lot of schoolchildren. These figures don't include Northern Ireland (or the rest of the world, of course).

The number of native speakers is hard to quantify, the census does not attempt to identify them. I've seen estimates ranging from 20,000 to 100,000.

Vinny, I just asked my source of information about French pronunciation of Latin. He said they learned to say "Sisero" for that old Roman, but some people may have said "Kikero". Certainly not the Italianate "Chichero".

We got a little stuck on Church Latin because we couldn't think of any mass words with a soft c in them.

The c in gloria in excelsis deo would do.

Anyway, back to OP....

When I was a kid, I tried to learn Kadazan, because I had some friends who spoke it:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadazan_language

Most people who grew up in New Zealand (including myself) will have learned Maori, which I would say fits your criteria, at some point, but most not to any degree of proficiency.

A few years ago I spent quite a bit of time in south India and started learning Kannada, the native language of Karnataka state, but I have no idea how many Kannada speakers there are (off to check Wikipedia....) Oops, it doesn't come anywhere near qualifying, it has 38 million speakers. I should have known, it being an Indian language. I bet not that many people outside India have even heard of it though.

I guess 1 million is too small a number. So, let me reask the question. Who amongst you have learned a language that is spoken in only one specific area - not having global usage? I realize that there are numerous cases that fit my criteria, but I'm only interested in hearing YOUR specific experiences. Alan with Irish, Kanandavasana and Kannada (I've traveled to Hampi & Mysore - what kept you there?), and Zashibis with Georgia gave the types of answers I was looking.

I hope the new criteria opens it up more!

It was an oversight, but I should have included Socsabai with Khmer and Lithuanian and Lorenzo with Quechua.

Alan with Irish, Kanandavasana and Kannada (I've traveled to Hampi & Mysore - what kept you there?), and Zashibis with Georgia gave the types of answers I was looking.

I don't think Kannada can be included as a 'lesser used language' by any stretch of the imagination.

Nope but it's not uncommon for people to learn the pacific island languages in NZ. Well, I say "not uncommon" but it's probably more accurate to say that it's not uncommon in certain sectors.

It's usually for reasons to do with government departments - social services, education, healthcare. Samoan is particularly popular due to the large Samoan population here.

Off-topic, but sneaker, you might be able to answer this. A few months ago, someone on the radio (in the US) said something about Samoa, stressing it on the first syllable (SA-moh-ah). Before I heard that, I thought it would be sa-MOH-ah. Is SAmoa common where you are? And (if you know) how would Samoans pronounce it?

I'm going to throw something else into that pronunciation actually!

I have no idea how to write it properly - and keeping in mind it's a non-rhotic pronunciation - I would say it like 'SAH - more'. Also common is SAH-moh-a. But definitely it seems more common now to emphasise the first syllable.

Sorry, not sure how to write that.

Thank you! The pronunciation on the radio may actually have been your first one: SAH-mwa or something like that.

Until pretty recently, I always heard saMOa. But SAmoa seems to be the local pronunciation and it seems to be becoming more widespread in the US now, possibly because more Samoans are coming here. (At least it's my impression that more are coming here; but I may be overly influenced by the exploding number of Samoans in the NFL.)

It's the same in NZ, which has a fairly high percentage of ethnic Samoans. When I was younger it was always SaMOa, but along with the tendency to pronounce Maori words more correctly has come the pronunciation SAAmoa, with the "moa" syllable sounding a lot like a non-rhotic "more", as sneaker_fish said.

viaggero, the yoga style that I teach has its main practice centre in Mysore, so I stayed there several months for yoga practice. We had a lot of free time, so I started learning Kannada but have forgotten pretty much every word! Incidentally "karandavasana" is one of the poses which is practiced in the sequence taught in Mysore, and is one which I have yet to master...

When I was in my twenties I lived in Ghana for several years. I spent most of my time in the city of Wa, and learned Waali. I was never completely fluent, but I could understand most things, and converse adequately. I learned it partially to make my day-to-day life easier, but mostly because I am fascinated by language. There are 100,000 people who speak it.

Cool, what were you doing in Ghana?

I was a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching math at a Ghanaian secondary school.

It must have been quite interesting.