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According to Wiki has 140,000 native speakers and over 1.7 million second language speakers of varying degrees of proficiency. Official language of the Republic of Ireland alongside English and an official language of the European Union. As recent as the 19th century, many people in Ireland still spoke the language but it has largely been supplanted by English by most in Ireland.
According to Wiki has 520,000 native speakers and few second language learners. It is an official language in Malta alongside English and an official language of the European Union. Almost everyone in Malta today is bilingual with English with only a few monolinguals left. Maltese hasn't been an official language for most of Malta's history and only used as a vernacular language alongside first Italian and then English. It became co-official with English when Malta gained independence in 1964.
According to Wiki has 66,000 native speakers and few second language learners. It is an official language in the Faroe Islands alongside Danish. Faroese has the fewest native speakers among these languages and is spoken primarily in a place that is not an independent country. It is still a territory in the Kingdom of Denmark albeit with much devolved powers due to home rule. Faroese was not even allowed in institutions for over three hundred years in favour of Danish starting in 1536 which changed after home rule. Today is not the case but still Danish is a language studied in school. English is also very widely spoken among the Faroese.
If we look at the number of wiki entries today in each language, we can see which language has the most articles. It is certainly not a scientific method of looking at language vitality but it is interesting nonetheless.
Irish - 39,411
Maltese - 3,190
Faroese - 12,455
So which of these have the worst possible future and may become extinct and why? I like to hear what people think.
Nowadays the 1st economic sector from Malta is the tourism, and they adopted English as their official language when they were belonging to the British Empire, the biggest prevalence of tourists in Malta come from English speaking countries... and also it has lots and lots of foreign immigrants (counting British expats) which only speak English. In some decades the maltese language will be ko. And it's a pity...
Nowadays the 1st economic sector from Malta is the tourism, and they adopted English as their official language when they were belonging to the British Empire, the biggest prevalence of tourists in Malta come from English speaking countries... and also it has lots and lots of foreign immigrants (counting British expats) which only speak English. In some decades the maltese language will be ko. And it's a pity...
I think you're wrong. Having tourists from mainly English speaking countries doesn't equate to not learning the official language anymore. And since Maltese is the preferred language over English in the EU, it's really not gonna happen.
Gaelic, because it's the only language which is not a integral part of the national identity.
How is it not part of the national identity? Irish schoolchildren learn Irish as a subject in school even if few are very proficient. If it wasn't part of the national identity, it would not be part of the curriculum at all.
How is it not part of the national identity? Irish schoolchildren learn Irish as a subject in school even if few are very proficient. If it wasn't part of the national identity, it would not be part of the curriculum at all.
It's a part, but not an integral part. Most people speak English at home.
90% of the Faroe Islands speak Føroyskt as their first language, the next most common first language is Danish, at just 3.1%. So Føroyskt is no danger, and doesn't really belong on this kind of list.
The problem for Maltese is not simply survival, but also preserving its identity. It's so heavily influenced by English that currently up to 20% of the vocabulary is estimated to have been derived from English. Heavy word borrowing can chnage a language beyond recognition, just look at Old-English before it began to borrow heavily from Norman French, it was basically a different language, more closely related to German than it is to modern English.
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