Europe's 'most endangered' idiom has 58 active speakers left, says researcher

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30 minutes ago, Dennis said:

1) I know some Canadians who still struggle with French.

2) Imagine if it was 4 lol

1) Some? Nearly all Canadians outside of Québec never use French, are bad at French, or have forgotten French after they learnt it at school, or never learnt it because they are immigrants. Only in Ottawa, Eastern Ontario and New Brunswick they know it ***sometimes***. In Vancouver, there are at least 5 other languages that are more relevant than French. 

What is relevant, is that French should be strong in Québec, in the place where it historically is core francophone and that is successfully protected there. It should include Indigenous languages, too. But even there in Québec this isn't always the case because CAN's state legislation intervenes. Most Québécois don't demand Rest-Canadians to learn French, they realize French is of no use outside, they only demand to be able to live in French in their own, one and only, province. But instead, Canadian government annoys @Economy with its language laws, while it does not do enough to protect French in the province where it actually is used and under pressure and has its historical origins, Québec once had the largest cities in Canada.

Many people think or assume, USA somehow naturally became an anglophone nation in all states because it was a British colony but it only achieved that by banning French and German (and sometimes Spanish) in several states. If F/G/S were not banned, about 40-45 states would be English and 5-10 would be F/G/S.

2) Of course, the richest country in the world could afford 4 official languages. If Switzerland can afford 3 at 8,6 million inhabitants, US could afford at least 10 at 336 milliion inhabitants. A federal state language does not have to be official in all states, only there where it was relevant (now it is too late, communities are gone forever), like French in Lousiana but not French in, let's say Wyoming, that would be an English only state. The federal state level matters. At national level, no doubt communication would be done in English, to people locally the federal state language matters most, though.   Oops, I forgot they cannot afford it because instead they already have to spend 800 billion dollars for military bases each year

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2 hours ago, Dennis said:

So you're saying Mexicans and Latin America immigrants in the U.S don't have a right to ask U.S to start accommodating Spanish? Why though?

Let's just say Cuba 'ilegally invades' part of the East Coast. The US eventually concedes to the loss and Cuba goes ahead in pushing the American settlements (made up of people native in English) to switch to Spanish so they can have more job opportunities. Is Cuba in the right to linguistically assimilate the Americans living on the East Coast? After all, who cares about 'cultural roots', 'ancestors' etc.

(1) Do you believe Russian immigrants/the descendents of Russian immigrants in the Baltics, Ukraine or the Republic of Moldova have the right to ask the governments of said countries to accomodate Russian?

2 hours ago, Dennis said:

You're so attached to the notion of "cultural roots". For me, it's all about practicality and usefulness. If there are tens of millions of people in America who speak Spanish, even if they are immigrants. It makes sense for that language to take priority over others, so that people in the U.S can communicate with each other more easily and companies are better prepared to serve their customers.

Cultural roots should be valued. The fact that you do not understand is a case of US defaultism. And you keep going back again and against with this example of companies, as if economics is all there is. But it turns out culture, identity, language are important and assigned a whole deal of meaning in Europe. 

You should step outside your bubble and wonder how it must feel if instead of being the descendent of American colonists, you lived in your lands for thousands of years & you had your identity tied with your language, ethnic community and your ancestral lands. Then you would probably understand better why ''cultural roots'' matter. Cultural roots mattered for the Native Americans which got exterminated, which are the closest example in American context.

On the comments relating to adopting more languages at the federal level, nobody is remotely asking to make Romanian co-official in Ukraine or Istro-Romanian co-official in Croatia. But the language could be made official locally, in minority majority areas. Where the population is more than 50% of a certain ethnicity, the road signs should be at the very least bilingual so the locals will be able to preserve the language of the place.

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20 hours ago, Economy said:

Fascinating.

 

I know Portugal has a 2nd official language (Mirandes) that not a lot of ppl left still speak but id guess its at least a few hundred or few thousand left

 

Edit: oh according to google up to 10,000 i thought was less maybe cuz i never met one. Not at all the same scope then

 

@FfFfFfFF fascinating how simmilar that atire is to some traditional portuguese clothing

Based on the numbers, it seems like it's more comparable with Megleno-Romanian or Aromanian (Megleno-Romanian is also endagered, but has more speakers, while Aromanian's situation is kinda ok)->

I would be interesting to research if the similarity in attire is due to generic Mediteranean/south European influences or because of a deeper connection via the Latin heritage.

Also, note that there is a similarity between Istro-Romanian clothing and clothing from the North-West of Romania:  

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6 hours ago, Dennis said:

And that's why you don't see governments in the world doing that.

This is a statement with no factual underpinning lol. 

Here's a list of some governments that protect/invest in preservation of minority language(s) that were previously in decline or at risk of extinction due to deliberate acts of linguicide or to prevent that in its entirity. 
England: Cornish
Scotland: Scots Gaelic
Wales: Welsh
Ireland: Irish/Gaelic 
France: Breton
Spain (Basque Autonomous Community): Basque - a particularly important language to preserve given its the last surviving Paleo-European language still spoken indigenously in Europe.
Canada: Quebecois
Multiple european nations: Romani

Then there's also the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, currently signed by 33 state governments & completly ratified by 25. All signatories have to apply the following protections & steps to preserve any language they recognise in their country under the Charter: 
Recognition as an expression of cultural wealth
Respect for the geographic area
Taking resolute action to promote the languages
Facilitation & encouragement of the languages in public & private life
Provision of appropriate forms & means for teaching & studying the language at all stages.
Prohibition of ALL forms of unjustified distinction, exclusion, restriction & preference which discourage or endanger the language's maintenance or development
Promotion of mutual understanding between all of the state's linguistic groups. 

I seriously suggest you go read up on the subject before you say anything else so full chested, but without any factual basis. 
 

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I love how when multiple peer-reviewed research works have been provided showing that language erasure in native minority communities leads to increased suicide rates, substance abuse issues & other mental health issues - Dennis ignores all of them and continues to say they are right and the rest of us are too young to understand. 

Meanwhile, they're promoting the same "why should natives speak the native language" argument used by collonial governments as they raped and murdered their way across the world.