Reasons to Learn Uncommon Languages

We learn different languages for different reasons. Our native language comes without any decision at all, while other languages are determined by the world around us – a family immigrates into a new culture, a school requires foreign language classes. Some individuals may possess an incredible capacity to acquire one new language after another, compiling fourth- and fifth- and sixth-languages in addition to the mother tongue, but we all have a finite capacity for new languages. This limits our choices. To learn one language is to exclude another (many others). And because it requires such enormous commitment to learn a language, it would seem to make the most sense to choose the language (or languages) with the greatest apparent benefits. This leads most decisions in the direction of the most common languages. But what about all the rest?

Uncommon languages are remarkable because we pour so much of ourselves into them even when there may seem to be so many obvious reasons not to. While some may have a practical purpose behind an uncommon language – a job, perhaps – many others do so for reasons that would defy the logic of the world around us. This logic tells us that time is scarce and choice is abundant. Therefore, time should only be devoted to the choices that will create the most benefits: the greatest opportunity for financial reward, the most helpful when traveling abroad. Uncommon languages don’t fall into these categories. Yet we learn them anyway.

Some people have clear reasons to learn an uncommon language. Love and friendship are prominent motivational factors: a relationship with someone who speaks that language and the wish to have something more to share with this person. Some are driven by a deep personal fondness for the place where the language is spoken. Learning the language allows one to communicate with a nation’s inhabitants in their own tongue. And beyond this, a language provides a window into its culture. A nation’s language reflects aspects of this nation’s character, its identity. One way to better understand this culture, or to better understand someone who came from this culture, is to learn the language.

Perhaps certain people choose uncommon languages precisely because of their uncommonness. There is a pride in this nonconformity. It’s not just a language – it becomes a kind of statement. Going against the heavy current of the global world. But a language requires far more commitment than other nonconformist statements available to us. You can’t simply buy a language, you can’t wear it around like a t-shirt. There is no instant gratification available from learning a language.

The act of learning a language (whether it is common or uncommon) is a long and difficult ordeal, and the reasons for doing so must be strong enough to keep a person struggling forward, from the basics of grammar and vocabulary, the pronunciation exercises, the rudimentary three-word sentences, the rules and inconsistencies, the tenses, the mistakes and improvements and never-ending practice eventually into fluency, the ability not only to request a coffee or ask after the bathroom, but to express intimate thoughts, feelings, convictions. It isn’t just about passing a test or adding a line to your résumé. If you really wish to speak the language, you have to become a part of the language.

And this is where uncommon languages may actually have an advantage. Because common languages are so often chosen based on pragmatism or expectation, a prerequisite in school or a necessary duty to perform a job – something with no deeper connection. On the other hand, there is often something intensely personal about a decision to learn an uncommon language. It is precisely because this language is viewed as impractical that it requires some closer connection that goes beyond requirement or expectation. And for this reason, the uncommon language becomes another artifact of that personal connection, whatever it is – a person you’ve fallen in love with, a memory from childhood vacations, a family heritage. To learn the language gives you something that can be articulated, that can be shared in the way that a photograph or a memory cannot, that deepens the connection between you and whatever it is that caused you to choose the language in the first place.