# The Least-Spoken Language. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 19, 2014, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076 "2014-03-19T11:42:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076/41 "2014-03-25T16:14:25Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Senegoid: > > Amongst religious Jews, Hebrew was the “holy” language and reserved for ritual use (and, of course, Torah study). Throughout the ages, there have been languages used by Jews for mundane conversation which are influenced by Hebrew, but clearly based on other languages as well - Yiddish is the most obvious example. It was not until the Zionist movement that Hebrew ever became a language used in mundane conversation. When I saw this thread I almost immediately thought of Hebrew as a successful example of language revival. Also note that Yiddish seems to be becoming a case where language decline has been halted or even reversed before death - it is experiencing a resurgence among Hasidic Jews in New York who see Hebrew as too holy to use and English too goyish. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076/42 "2014-03-25T17:11:27Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Also, classical Latin as it is understood today is actually a formal dialect of a language continuum stretching across millennia and thousands of miles. When, exactly, did people in Spain stop speaking Latin and start speaking Spanish? When the Western Roman Empire fell? When the Moors invaded Spain? When Ferdinand and Isabella re-united the country? When your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandma burned some pancakes and came up with a new swearword that people in Italy didn’t want to adopt? As I understand it, people didn’t realize they weren’t speaking Latin anymore until they tried to figure out why so many Latin speakers couldn’t read the Vulgate. This was in the Carolingian Renaissance, 8th-9th century, where they codified and standardized Latin, which had a lot to do with its continued longevity today. Later, the humanist Renaissance led to a zeal for a new standard of more Roman Latin, which is the most common single standard studied today, but as you say it’s the Latin of the high literate culture of the Augustinian age. I myself don’t reject the innovations of later ages, though I do prefer to bring them into coherence with the classical standard. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076/43 "2014-03-25T17:40:47Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Scottish Gaelic might also be a contender. The UK Census stopped recording the number of monoglot Gaelic speakers in the 1971 census (477) [http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Scottish\_Gaelic#Number\_of\_speakers](http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic#Number_of_speakers) I suspect that there are very few if any left now. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076/44 "2014-03-25T23:17:43Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > The UK Census stopped recording the number of monoglot Gaelic speakers in the 1971 census (477) [http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Scottish\_Gaelic#Number\_of\_speakers](http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic#Number_of_speakers) I suspect that there are very few if any left now. What I usually see is that there are none over the age of five. In other words, there are plenty of people who are monoglot in the home, but once they start school and enter the community, they quickly become monolingual. There are adults who aren’t fully bilingual, in the sense that they’re not as comfortable in English, but that’s essentially the reflection of a lifestyle choice. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076/45 "2014-03-26T00:27:35Z")
**VOLAPÜK** In 2000 there were an estimated 20 Volapük speakers in the world. They’re a pretty tenacious bunch, though – the Volapük version of Wikipedia has 119,126 articles. (How many of those are raw machine translations is unknown, since only a Volapükist could see the difference and they aren’t tellin’.) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076/46 "2014-03-26T00:45:25Z")
COBOL? Sanskrit? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076/47 "2014-03-26T01:39:10Z")
> [@](#): > > (How many of those are raw machine translations is unknown, since only a Volapükist could see the difference and they aren’t tellin’.) Anyone at all could tell the difference. Just run the original through a machine translator yourself, and see if it matches the existing Volapük page. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-least-spoken-language/684076.md?page=2)