I don't think Finnish is threatened, but Welsh is. When I lived in Wales, I learned that for many years (several generations, anyway) the use of Welsh was strongly discouraged - as a result it nearly died out. Thankfully, some regions remained strongly Welsh-speaking in spite of it and it has returned to most schools now. Once the children are speaking Welsh on the playground again, the language will be secure for another generation, at least.
Here in the USA, there are many native languages which are in danger of extinction. Some of them are ancient, of course, and very complicated. But, again, many tribes have resumed teaching the children their native languages, which may save some of them. I hope so!
I also know that on my north Oregon coast, my own grandmother, the daughter of immigrants, never learned Swedish, which is so sad. But the government strongly discouraged immigrants from speaking their native tongues. I know enough now to converse a little (in text anyway) with my Swedish cousins, but nowhere near as much as I'd like - Swedish isn't incredibly difficult (at least for an English speaker) except that they are in the bad habit of not pronouncing things like they are written - often skipping entire syllables if it suits them!
After reading this.. I think I will continue to write in my mother tongue at least once a week😊 many of us achenese can speak but find no standart or basic rule how to write and read it... we just use our multi-lingual basic knowledge to understand each other. I have 12 nephews and nieces, but only 2 of them really well-spoken in Achenese.
So, you are a multi-lingual too @viking-ventures? I read some meme about welsh too and I think somebody should kept a written document such as dictionary to conservate the languages at least for refference book. Sometimes I think that people are better at making sentences in JRR Tolkien elf language rather than in welsh 😊
Thank you for your comments, it's so informative and burst my bubble about languages.
I had never heard of Achenese until I started hearing about it on Steemit, but I see a decent group of you on here not.
I know more about languages than I can speak them, unfortunately. I am okay with Norwegian, French, Spanish and Swedish (roughly that order). I can transliterate (letters only) some Russian and Korean, but I only know a couple of words in each. Elvish, from what I understand, is a blend of Welsh and Finnish, two very difficult languages. But again, not a whole language was developed, so it's easier to learn the bits of Elvish that were developed. Then, of course, fandoms take over, lol.
I'm so glad to encourage you to speak in your native tongue more often. Of course, bilingual posts also work very well.
I used to write my post in three languages😊 but nobody care about it that time and it took hours to write a good one then I stopped.
If you see #aceh on steemit.. we're so many in here but only dozens of us who really wrote a post in Acehnese Language. Being able to read and talk in many languages is a blessed, oohh I'm jealous that you can speak many "sexy" language... you know what I mean? The way people pronounce the words in languages that I never heard always sound sexy to tge ears for sometime.
The first time I heard Swedish spoken it sounded smooth, like French, but had the guttural sounds too. Beautiful!
But, I think knowing any other language is sexy - it's a "secret code."
Actually, I learned the difference when I visited France and Iceland. In France, everyone speaks French and I picked up an instinctive pronunciation - maybe not perfect and it didn't improve my actual knowledge too much, but it definitely improved my listening and turned French into a living/breathing language.
When I went to Iceland, everyone (who dealt with people, anyway) spoke English and Icelandic was more of a "secret code."
I wish I could be fluent in many languages - I love learning about people like that!
And I bet you will learn Acehnese quickly if you heard my voice because the words on Acehnese is read and pronouce as it written 😁 different from English. Maybe because there's so many words were adapted from other language.
We said doorsmeer (dorsmir in aceh) for carwash
Dobi/binatu for laundry service. When we said jak raon-raon it does sound like round which mean going for a walk around the place. We also adopt Free as Pre for something you got for free or pakansi for vacation.
See.. it's easy. And I think I need to learn some word in finnish or elvish too.. who knows I can find another similar words in Acehnese too. Because the French, Dutchs, portuguesse, turkey, arab, indian also been in Aceh in the 13-19th century when there's a great kingdom with white pepper as the main commodity to trade.
Thank you so much @viking-ventures😉 this conversation really enlight me about languages and you.
Yes, English has adopted so many words from other languages... it's not a very pure language, but a blend of many. Even at its roots we have Latin, but also German, but also Greek! There's also a lot of Old Norse in it... So, from the very beginning it's complicated.
A great Finnish word to learn is: kissa which means cat. In Finnish, the accent is always at the beginning and goes gentler throughout the word. For Finnish culture, the movie Jade Warrior is very interesting as it's in Finnish and Mandarin and ties in the national epic, the Kalevala to ancient China! It also uses multiple lives to achieve its plot - a fascinating film!
Uhmm.. will watch that movie, kissa - cat - kucing - mie'ong (in achenese) wheeww... this is really interesting. If you happen to write something about language, please mention me, won't you?