Languages with no monoglot speakers

fraz   Fri Apr 23, 2010 1:18 pm GMT
Welsh and Scots Gaelic are spoken in parts of the UK but there will be very few (if any) monoglot speakers of these languages in the year 2010. Possibly some elderly lady on a remote farm who left school at 13 with only rudimentary English.

I assume things are going that way with the Native American languages. How many Indians cannot hold a conversation in English?

But what are the implications for the languages themselves when the monoglot speakers dry up? By implication, modern speakers are also proficient in another widely-spoken tongue and this must lead to a "peppering" of foreign terms in everyday speech.....as can be heard in contemporary Gaelic conversations. Does it also mean that a lot of obscure terms fall into disuse?

In Holland, virtually everyone is perfectly capable of using English but obviously Dutch remains the functioning language of the state and its media. I'm talking more about minority languages under threat from the majority tongue.
Franco   Fri Apr 23, 2010 1:53 pm GMT
Catalan.
Ren   Fri Apr 23, 2010 3:28 pm GMT
Catalan, Occitan... I never heard Occitan, but Catalan is very nice sounding for a language existing in Spain.

Occitan, Catalan and Galician
Obadiah   Fri Apr 23, 2010 3:51 pm GMT
Esperanto, Klingon
Franco   Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:36 pm GMT
Occitan, Catalan and Galician


Wrong!. There are monoglot Galician speakers in small villages in Galicia. They are very old people though.
Coprolite   Fri Apr 23, 2010 5:12 pm GMT
Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian have no monoglot speakers.
Also there isn't any Gypsy monoglot.
josh   Fri Apr 23, 2010 6:13 pm GMT
hey franco what's your opinion on the other spanish sub languages or dialects? should they continue existing?

and what about hebrew? luxembourgian? native american and aborigine languages?
Ren   Fri Apr 23, 2010 8:02 pm GMT
Ok fine Franco, but they will die soon...then what?
king   Fri Apr 23, 2010 8:50 pm GMT
All the Italian regional languages.
Ren   Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:23 pm GMT
Catalan is shit..!!
Ren   Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:26 pm GMT
I didnt say that! ugh lol
Matematik   Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:32 pm GMT
Iberian Spanish, as they are the Englishman's natural servants.
Franco   Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:41 pm GMT
Spanish is the country with most monoglots in Europe. Speaking foreign languages well is seen as pedantic.
Fleischmanns Hillbilly   Fri Apr 23, 2010 9:49 pm GMT
<<Spanish is the country with most monoglots in Europe. Speaking foreign languages well is seen as pedantic. >>

Maybe in Europe, but the US Anglo population has got to be the most monolingual of them all. In many places, knowledge of a foreign language is seen as unamerican or unpatriotic -- you're not not of us, but rather one of "them". In fact in some circles, being educated ("book smart") makes you an elitist or a effete "pointy-headed intellectual".
Madrid   Fri Apr 23, 2010 10:06 pm GMT
Fleischmanns Hillbilly, no seas pesado eh, eres un maricon de mierda.. sabes lo quiero decir..?