This would be great if you wanted to talk to yourself without anyone understanding what you're saying, for example, or if you didn't want anybody to know what you were writing down. It might also be useful if you enjoy lots of foreign language media (see music, tv shows, movies) and want to experience the "original" rather than through dubs and subs.

Personally, I would go for either Russian, German, or Estonian, all three of which are because I frequently listen to lots of music that are in those languages

Chinese

Well I probably can't say Klingon, too many goddamn nerds around here. How about Welsh? It'd be fun to go gargle at the locals in Cardiff about Doctor Who filming if I ever visit the UK.

-Were at war with their neighbours for centuries

-Language containing many chhhhh sounds

-Lots of singing

The Welsh are Klingons

JAPANESE

I wanna watch Anime without needing subtitles...

Also sometimes meaning get lose in translation...

I'd love to rewatch Steins;Gate with proficiency in Japanese.

Oh btw, I have never met a Japanese person (I mean maybe I could've had walked passed by an ethnic Japanese that have been too Americanized for me to know their ethnicity... cuz then they're just "Asian American" to me, and it'd be hard to tell) and never heard anyone IRL actually speaking Japanese fluently...

So yea knowledge of Japanese can impress a lot of Western weebs.

I could even pretend to be Japanese for the lulz... since I'm ethnic Chinese and I doubt most Americans would even be able to tell the difference xD (I mean I probably can't tell apart East Asian ethnicities either, despite me being East Asian myself)

Mandarin. It'd be useful for me to learn because of my job, and I've been meaning to learn it for quite a while. I just can't seem to find a decent source for learning that doesn't focus on the written language; I only need spoken Mandarin.

Whatever the Voynich manuscript is written in.

Lojban

Latin. For no specific reason, it would just be cool

This would be my answer too, but because it would instantly give me a much better understanding of the etymology of many words.

Norwegian. I'm already working on it, but magic would be nice

How strict is "nobody speaks"? Because pretty much every language is covered if it's vague enough. If I drove two hours I could probably find somebody who speaks Pheonician.

Learning Mandarin would make me the most valuable guy dealing with Chinese and Taiwanese chip vendors.

Chinese ? Idk define “region”

Coding Language. Then we can easily talk to humans and computers.

"Region" would have to be extremely small around here to not include someone who speaks almost any (natural) language a typical person could think of.

I'll just go ahead and answer a different question: If I could instantly learn any language and my SO could instantly learn it also, I'd pick ASL, because it would be very nice to have a way to communicate that works where talking either doesn't work (loud places, for example) or would disturb others, or just across a large room.

Japanese. As a Manga & Light Novel reader, there is nothing more devastating than having a series you really love being ripped away from you because the source is not licensed yet and the guy doing the fan translations has lost interest.

Japanese, for the media. But really…

Loxian. The language was created by Enya’s songwriter, Roma Ryan, and the two of them are the only users of Loxian. Ryan’s husband Nicky (Enya’s producer) passed way last year, and his wife is probably not far behind. She’s in her 80s (Enya is in her mid-60s herself).

It is a real language and it exists in exactly five songs by Enya. The best one IMO being The Loxian Gate. The only reason we have translations is because Roma herself has written them, and we have to take her at her word that they are accurate, because it’s her language.

If you don’t want to look up any songs and hear it, it sounds like Gaelic (traditional Irish language) with some Elvish (like from Lord of the Rings, which Enya did the song May it Be from, and sang part of it in Elvish) mixed in.

Lojban!

If someone else turned out to understand me after all, we'd be immediate besties

I'd travel out of Germany then choose German then travel back.

@sbeak@sopuli.xyz @asklemmy@lemmy.worldSumerian. Ka'tar Namush Sil (𒆆𒌆𒍗𒋛)!

I have spent a few years learning Spanish, and that's something I use pretty much every day. I can understand it almost as well as English, but my speaking lags much further behind.

I would like to learn Mandarin, but unlike Spanish there is pretty much absolutely zero relation between English and Mandarin. And because I wouldn't use it nearly as much unless I forced it, I'm sure I could spend over a decade studying it as hard as I have Spanish and be worse at it. So Mandarin is my answer.

Me too. I could read all the old texts in its original form.

Pictish.

It is a lost language from the British Isles and from one of the coolest populations in the area. They would paint patterns on their skin in blue then charge into battle naked. I reckon their insults and swearing would be absolutely raucous.

Nahuatl. It's one of the indigenous languages of Mexico. It's what the people of Tenochtitlan and several other cities spoke.

When people think "Aztec" it's that language.

Hungarian, so I could have a good conversation with my lovely stepfather, whose English isn't great.

Cantonese and/or Mandarin for chat with Chinese friends and relatives.

What I really want though is a babel fish - you put it in your ear and it acts as a universal translator. Any language, Earth or alien.

I live in a large city, I reckon most languages must be spoken by at least a few people around me. Not even considering so-called dead languages.

That being said, I would love to learn Chinese. I think I'll see next year if I can enroll in one of the few courses available in said large city (Paris). I've just started learning Russian something which, I imagine in our so incredibly nuanced times, coupled with me also wanting to learn Chinese, will make me quite suspicious. That's fine ;)

A joke an NYC paramedic told me.

He said that he'd started in the Bronx, and had a hard time because he didn't speak any Spanish.

He had a much easier time after he went to Queens, because he didn't speak Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Haitian Creole, or any of the other 200 languages found there.

I learned about that mystery just yesterday from another Lemmy post - really fascinating!

Good news, if you can read and write Chinese you're already partly there!

Lakota:

• Help preserve an endangered language

• I've always wanted to learn it

• Useful when I go back home

• and frankly, it's probably the only language I'd want to learn without a community of native speakers in Chicago

Chinese, specifically so I can exclusively curse in it like they did on firefly.

Define "nobody", because there are over 100 languages spoken at fluent level or above by at least a few ppl where I live

If we ignore the technicalities... Polish. Spoken by a lot of people, quite difficult to learn & would be a good priority target for magically learning it, and hopefully a good gateway to the rest of the Slavic languages

Whatever language the Voynich manuscript is written in.

If you want some idea what it might have been like, it would probably be about as close to Welsh as Welsh is to Breton.

... which might not be all that helpful as a factoid, so here's Wikipedia's Swadesh list for the Celtic languages: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Celtic_Swadesh_lists

(In loosely related news, you know you might have been reading too much about linguistics when, while scanning the above, you recognise the Welsh word "benyw" as a cognate for the English word "queen", (but with a meaning closer to Norwegian "kvinne"). That was a kick in the head for sure.)

Nobody in my region?

I'd be surprised if I could find one with any use beyond a small community in an undeveloped part of the world.

Dutch, French or Japanese.

Dutch because I would like to live in or at least visit the Netherlands some day,

French or Japanese because French is interesting and learning Japanese unlocks a whole other side of the internet (and UI design), and anime without subtitles.

Out of those I'd probably pick Japanese, as Dutch is relatively easier to learn by non-magical means.

My son-in-law is learning Finnish. That's on top of the English and German (Army brat) he already knows. As for me, I know Spanish and some German, and while Finnish would certainly qualify as a "nobody speaks" candidate, I'd go for Dutch. I've been to the Netherlands a couple of times, and it seems like a fun one to learn. There's no Dutch community locally that I'm aware of.

If we're talking city wide, then I doubt there are many fluent French speakers. So I'd Probably choose French just to not use it.

Dog.

There's a Polish club in my state that offers Polish language classes.

There is a very small group of Polish immigrants here, I'm thinking of taking the next class (the one offered is already in session). I live pretty far from where they're at, but honestly, it's a beautiful language.

Tokein's elvish, or other language I think he constructed several unique languages just for his backstory.

His cousin and him made their own language growing up they used to talk to each other, so it didn't start with his books.

The trick is to learn french, then pretend not to know it if any french try to use it with you, out of spite.

India has over 600 languages endemic too it, and I think many more that have been lost.

Probably either Latin or Gaelic. Both just sound neat.

language that nobody speaks in your region

I realize this is a bit pedantic, but if you live in a city, there aren't really languages that aren't spoken in your region.

But for my choice, definitely Aztec. There's nothing more fun to say than Aztec words. Tlachtli. Quetzalcoatl. Axolotl. Tlapalpoyactic.

(That last one is the word for the color "orange")

Oh, sign language could be a good one!

Magic is always good

Are there really no dogs in the area?

There are, but they all speak cat.