Top Ten Most Wanted Languages for Duolingo (as of Duocon 2021)
Duolingo is one of the best language learning apps out there. It's really efficient, really addictive, and overall just amazing. One thing I love about it though is the amount of languages that you can learn with it. There are 37 languages for English native speakers! However there are still some important languages left that need to be added this decade. So far, as of the Duocon 2021, five new languages have been announced to be added, Zulu, Xhosa, Haitian Creole, Maori and Tagalog, so I won't be having those languages on the list, as they're already announced. So let's rank our most wanted languages beyond those!This is the only one of the Nordic national languages not added yet to Duolingo, which I'm surprised about.
I mean, it's small compared to Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian, but it does one thing better than the rest, something Lithuanian does in comparison to the rest of the Indo-European languages. It's the most archaic North Germanic language.
This alone makes Icelandic deserving to be in Duolingo.
There is no language I crave more to be added to Duolingo than Lithuanian. This language is just legendary and amazing.
There are several reasons I want to see this language added. The Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family is the most archaic branch, and Lithuanian itself is the most conservative Indo-European language to date, even retaining features from Proto-Indo-European and Sanskrit!
The grammar is one of the hardest in the world for an English speaker, even surpassing those like Japanese or Chinese, for frick's sake! All of these reasons should be enough for Lithuanian to be on Duolingo!
The fact that Persian is not an available language to learn on Duolingo probably comes as the biggest shock to people new to Duolingo.
I mean, it's one of the world's biggest languages, the mother tongue of the Persians, the ancestors of some of the greatest empires ever, the Persian empires (like the Achaemenid and Parthian).
Seriously, this would've been #1 if Lithuanian didn't exist.
There are so many Germanic and Romance languages on Duolingo, like German, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, even Romanian! These language branches seem to be dominating in terms of Indo-European languages. But what about Slavic languages?
Well, it turns out not a lot of them exist, except for the three biggest plus the fifth biggest ones: Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Czech. But what about the fourth biggest language? Well, it's complicated. It's Serbian or Serbo-Croatian, depending on how you see it.
There are four languages in the Balkans (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin) that are closer than the Nordic languages, but the speakers of each language all insist they're separate languages. If one of these languages gets added to Duolingo, the speakers of the others might get upset.
But come on now, this family is the fourth biggest Slavic language, and there are no South Slavic languages added yet. I'd suggest adding Croatian as the best choice since it's the second biggest of the variants and uses the Latin script.
We have a handful of Asian languages already, like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, so why not Thai as well?
Here in Sweden, Thailand is one of, if not the most, popular tourist destinations ever. Everyone goes crazy about it. I think it's famous in other countries too.
Really, just add it. We don't have many Asian languages, so it's time for another one.
Bulgarian is one of the most interesting Slavic languages, in my opinion. It's another South Slavic language, but it's Southeast Slavic, compared to Serbo-Croatian, which, along with Slovene, is Southwest Slavic.
I love Bulgarian with a passion. It kinda sounds like a much softer Russian and more melodic.
I really want this language to be added.
The Basque language is the most famous example of a language isolate, a language with no other known relatives. This alone makes it a worthy contender for getting added to Duolingo.
It's spoken by the Basque people in the Bay of Biscay, in an area stretching across the Basque Country, which comprises the two Spanish autonomies of Basque Country and Navarra, and French Basque.
Honestly, just the fact that it's a language isolate makes this language deserve a spot on Duolingo.
This is the last indigenous language in Europe and deserves wider exposure.
One of my favorite language families is the Turkic language family! Something about their grammar and vocabulary is really fascinating to me.
In my opinion, the next Turkic language that should be added to Duolingo is Yakut! It's the most different Turkic language from Anatolian Turkish, the only Turkic language thus far to have a course on Duolingo. This would help add some variety to Duolingo.
It's also an endangered language, and thus I think it deserves to be added!
Afrikaans should be the easiest language for English speakers to learn. It would also be an entry to both other Germanic languages and the languages of Southern Africa.
A Dutch creole with African influences. How much more awesome can you get, honestly?
Lithuanian and Latvian are the two last surviving Baltic languages in the world. Yeah, it's crazy.
As a result, I think both Lithuanian and its brother in the north, Latvian, deserve to be added. It's less conservative than Lithuanian as it has borrowed more loanwords, and it honestly sounds like a mix between Estonian and Lithuanian.
It would be cool if they added it!
Catalan should be the first language added before Hungarian.