Have you learned a lesser used 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...