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New Languages Coming to Duolingo! :)
So it's likely you know that Hindi, Indonesian, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, Klingon, Japanese, Yiddish, and Korean for English speakers are in the Incubator. I came across something that possibly means other languages might be entering the Incubator too? It's possible that Dothraki and Sindarin are coming. You can apply to contribute it right now so hopefully that's what it means. Personally, I was hoping Icelandic or Azerbaijani would be coming next, but oh well. If you know anything about this, please comment. :)
78 Comments
Dothraki and Sindarin have been on the contribution list for at least a couple of years. After such a long time it's hard to take them being there as an indication of them coming soon. The same goes for the much larger list of languages found in the code. And as woof pointed out, Dothraki is unlikely to ever happen.
1985
It is also worth noting that languages in the incubator like Yiddish and Haitian Creole were not on the list in the code, so DL is clearly not limiting itself to these. When it comes to adding minor languages, DL's decision-making process seems entirely inscrutable.
Dothraki & Sindarin are in the coding for the Incubator website, along with Haitian Creole & Yiddish. Unfortunately, DL could not get the rights to creating a Dothraki course because of HBO's deal with Living Language to create a Dothraki course.
Actually, Dothraki is not coming to duolingo after all. Why not? Read this link: http://forum.dothraki.org/index.php?topic=484.msg2910#msg2910
Not sure about Sindarin though.
Thank you so much for that link. At least that means the chance for another language, right?
Me too but I haven't heard about Arabic. Do you happen to know the link to that? It's fine if you don't, I'll take your word for it cause I think it's kinda obvious that Arabic will be added some time in the future.
''After launching Korean and Chinese, the company will turn its focus to Hindi and Arabic...''
Arabic!!!! Yes please! I've wanted to learn this language for awhile, and I'd love to be able to learn it on DL! While Sindarin would be interesting (Not a LOTR fan, just a big time book nerd who supports most book nerd stuff), I agree that DL should spend it's time and resources on creating courses for "real life" (for lack of a better phrase) languages. Thanks ThatSnailDude for starting this informative post!
The link for Zulu is at http://triblive.com/local/allegheny/11983638-74/language-duolingo-swahili . :)
If what you came across was https://d7mj4aqfscim2.cloudfront.net/images/flag-sprite13.svg , it's also got a Mayan cultural flag , and see http://eleconomista.com.mx/tecnociencia/2015/07/17/duolingo-wikipedia-rescate-las-lenguas-indigenas . :)
As for Dothraki, at 1:12:28 in http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/01/26/luis-von-ahn-duolingo/ Luis von Ahn says
...we kinda asked for permission for Dothraki and we were told no...
...we probably thought we could anyways do it but we didn't really want to get into trouble...
I'm not sure why it's still an option at https://incubator.duolingo.com/apply . Maybe someone decided that the flag Duolingo uses for Dothraki looks good, and now Duolingo's keeping it there to decorate the list of languages?
I don't know why that contribution list is still there, I don't think that's how Duolingo recruits anymore. As for Tolkien languages I think the main thing stopping them is that things to do with rights are complex when it comes to fictional languages. J.R.R Tolkien is long gone, so who does that leave to give permission? Some of the languages were worked on for the movies but some of the Tolkien family weren't too happy with them so it might be complicated finding someone who can lead and contribute.
Apparently according to Wikipedia "Sindarin is a fictional language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for use in his fantasy stories set in Arda (popularly called Middle-earth). Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called the Eledhrim [ɛˈlɛðrim] or Edhellim [ɛˈðɛllim] in Sindarin. The word Sindarin is itself a Quenya form."
I haven't heard of it either.
You... You don't know Sindarin...?
A Lord of the Rings fan here
Just kidding; no, it's not a GOT language. I know nothing about GOT, so I assume the names of languages appear similar to Sindarin?
I am talking about whether the languages you mentioned were in beta or going to be released?
Like Mandarin, Haitian Creole, and Korean? In that case yes, they will be released into beta. Sorry if I'm not understanding what you are trying to say...
Even I am not getting....I guess you need to keep on checking..... till it ends!
XD I just edited it before you commented LOL. Guess we both noticed it at the same time!
I'm just sincerely waiting for a Romanian from French course. Not really new languages since both of those courses alone exist, but it would be nice for me to learn Romanian and strengthen my French at the same time.
Also, I really can't wait for Korean and Japanese for the web. I haven't had the best experiences learning both in the past, so I'm hoping Duolingo can change that. ^ ^
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Yes there will be more but knowing how long it can take to make a course on duolingo it would take many years
I have applied twice to start a Latin course, which I could use with my high school students (I teach).
Luckily I have heard no response, but at least Klingon and High Valyrian made it.
I agree, but too bad they haven't started a Latin course yet with all of the people who are begging for it.
I was being sarcastic actually. It is fairly irritating to see fictional languages there before actual ones, especially since the reasoning can't be "there aren't volunteers signing up to start one" or "there isn't community interest" since we see both of those things present for Latin, to use just one example.
XD I also think that real languages should be the priority, but I don't think that it's a bad thing that Klingon (almost) and High Valyrian are here, personally. I think that it's pretty stupid how there are enough contributors willing to work on it, too, but Duolingo doesn't accept it.
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What about Uzbek? There are more votes for Uzbek than most of the requested languages here. Check this link https://www.duolingo.com/comment/155336
I would love to see old English (Anglo-Saxon) as well as middle English (which I heard is pretty easy for English speakers to learn) Also as has been mentioned many times, Latin of course
I really hope they don't add any more fictional languages. We should focus on teaching languages that are starting to die off instead of ones that appear in a movie or book.
I don't think Azerbaijani is coming any time soon. Maybe Icelandic as Duolingo's user base seems mostly Western.
I'd imagine that in ten years, we'll see double the amount of languages offered. If I had to guess I'd say that Arabic, Afrikaans, Basque, Farsi, Thai, and Mongolian will eventually be added. Maybe even Cantonese.
"Duolingo's user base seems mostly Western."
Probably because you're on the English-speaking forums. Most of Duo's users are in Africa, Asia, India and the Middle East, and they're learning English.
I would say most users are in Latin America and the West. English courses for Asian and African languages have about 50 million learners combined or as much as English for Portuguese or French for English alone, let alone the Spanish - English courses.
The largest number of English learners can be found in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.
Also, from the maps in the link, it's clear that a great deal of the 17.2 million English for French learners on Duo are from French-speaking countries.
You'll need to assume that the African/Asian Portuguese countries are represented relative to their size (regardless of how many actually speak Portuguese) in the number of Portuguese speakers learning English and throw 90% of all French, Russian and Turkish speakers into the mix as well to cross the 100 million line the English - Spanish courses have achieved.
I don't know if you're looking at a different graph but the one I see shows that studying English dominates in those regions, not that those countries have the most users. Most users, like most English learners, are from Latin America and the West. That's evident from the incubator numbers.
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The fact that Portuguese is the second-most learned language in Angola gives a hint about how minimal Duolingo penetration likely is in most of Sub-Saharan Africa. A sliver of English speakers on shore leave from oil platforms are enough to bump a language actually spoken in the country into second place.
I think this, not the maps, is the go-to reference for the discussion.
I was thinking the same thing and i definitely think that Icelandic, Arabic, Farsi, Cantonese, and Zulu (at the very least) will be added. I saw an article a while ago saying that isiZulu will likely be the next African language added, but hopefully Afrikaans is added as well. Thank you!
Hopefully West Africa will get some representation soon enough. One of the major Nigerian languages would be the obvious starting point I guess, just in terms of popularity
Since they're already working on a Mandarin course, I doubt Cantonese will come any time in the future.
I honestly want a Kazakh, Ossetic and a Circassian (Kabardian) course for Duolingo. They're not frequently studied at all (maybe not so much Kazakh), so I can only dream.
Yes, there is ''Demand'', but very low demand. It's not demanded nearly as much as, say, ASL or Afrikaans or Finnish or Icelandic.
Oh yes, how could I forget Finnish? They will definitely add that eventually.
They have to: Demand for Finnish is extremely high and it has been for at least two years.
That would be super amazing! I love how Ossetic sounds too so I would totally learn that!
As cool as an Ossetic course would sound, there is no Ossetic keyboard anywhere on iOS or the App Store. I don't know about Android, but I've tried searching on iOS to no avail.
Kazakh has officially switched to the Latin script. Maybe Duolingo should let it reach equilibrium before creating a course. The script conversion doesn’t seem to be as easy as transliterating the characters one-to-one.
I am looking forward for some new languages coming soon to Duolingo. I will highly paid at WTC in New York City and other of the cities around the world.
I am looking forward Arabic for the another language for the World Trade Center of the Middle East. And some other new languages my disability with severe language disorder and mildly autistic. I am also learning Chinese is the hardest language on the planet.
Ready for Sindarin and Dothraki. Really want to learn them so I can write in my journal in public and not be very worried about people reading it.
