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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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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 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.
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.