The online BBC News Magazine posted a quiz today on less-spoken languages.
The quiz features some tough questions on languages such as: Aka or Hruso (hru), Aramaic (family) and Romansh (roh), as well as four UK languages: Breton (bre), Cornish (cor), Irish (gle) and Manx (glv).
Readers of this blog will probably score far higher than most. With two lucky guesses (whoops!), I scored five out of seven. What’s your score? Post below!
Last autumn, the BBC had an article titled “Are dying languages worth saving?” that includes a video.
The article provides pros and cons for revitalization, but the video is on the side of revitalization. Speaking in seven languages, people make the case with English subtitles to assist those people who are not septaglots (speaking seven languages).
The languages used are:
According to Wikipedia, Charles Leland referred to the language Shelta (sth) as the fifth Celtic language (family), though with at least Irish Gaelic (gle), Scottish Gaelic (gla), Manx (glv); Breton (bre), Cornish (cor) and Welsh (cym), there are certainly more than five.
The speakers of Shelta are known as Travellers, a people also commonly known by the derogatory term “Tinker” because of the tin work they are known for.
Richard Waters has a Website dedicated to the Travellers in the US, called Travellers’ Rest. This site includes English > US Shelta and US Shelta > English dictionaries as well as links, music, essays and notes about some of the controversies surrounding the Travellers.
Although related to Gaeilge, the syntax is largely based on English.
Parts of R. A. Stewart Macalister’s 1937 The Secret Languages of Ireland can be found at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and Kobo Books, the vocabulary starting on page 174. Some of the other parts can be found on those sites as well.
Two other nomadic groups are the Romani (or Roma) and Sanka.
Living Languages 