Monaco's Useless But Mandatory Language

[@NameExplain]

Would love to hear from anyone living in Monaco or is familiar with the region about their experience with the Monégasque language!

[@peoplesrepublicofliberland5606]

I'm a bit confused, why do they speak French and not Occitanian.

[@bruhz_089]

Monaco is a microstate micronations are not recognized and made by one person or a group of people

[@HopeRock425]

This reminds me of Irish, also a useless language we are forced to learn in school, you should do video on it.

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Monaco is a microstate not a micronation. The latter means a small unrecognised country that claims to be independent.

[@jimskoutas1933]

@@HopeRock425 it's not useless you guys should learn about your culture and heritage....it should even be your only official language but I know that's rather impossible at the moment (sadly)

[@vincentdavis8941]

As a moderate speaker of Hawaiian language, which was nearly driven to extinction, I do not find my ancestors' language or any language"useless". It is the source of a people's history, and their connexion to their land. If Monegasque were to die off, a not so small part of Monaco dies. I believe that Monaco has a duty to protect its heritage.

[@iris7867]

It almost physically hurt me to hear the phrase "useless language" so many times. It's so callous and caustic! I agree with you that losing Monégasque, Hawaiian, Balinese, Quecha, Guarani, Chin, Macanese Patuá, or ANY language would be a tragic loss... and the speakers of endangered languages, trying so hard to record them, revive them, teach them-well, they may just be heartbroken to hear someone speak so callously about their heritage languages and their desire to save them!

[@VinderGroup3]

Quite agree, it’s sad to think of a language dying off. It’s like in the UK, English will die off one day replaced by god knows what language!!

[@Markle2k]

@@VinderGroup3 Oh piss off you faux-nationalist buffoon. The English killed Cornish and other Brythonic languages and did its damnedest to kill Welsh. Breton escaped by virtue of being isolated on the continent.

[@TevelDrinkwater]

In British Columbia, we have over 30 indigenous languages in 7 language families, almost all critically endangered. I guess if you just consider the "utility" of a language, English is king. But if you consider a language an integral part of a culture, a way to describe the world around you, then each language that "goes to sleep" represents a loss of that connection, that way of describing our world. And we are all diminished as a result. Klahowiam kanawi msaika! Tlus msaika chako komtaks olman Wawa pus msaika chako komtaks ankati siisim.

[@Dilholio]

Yeah, nothing sounds as English as saying "this language is spoken by only a few people, so it's useless"

[@galaxypedestalfan]

I would like to make a correction. Ligurian is not a form of Italian. While both Romance languages spoken in Italy, they are still very different. Ligurian is a Gallo-Italic language, while Italian is an Italo-Dalmatian language.

[@quidam_surprise]

indeed.

[@rovi3833]

The whole video lacks serious knowledge of basic linguistics, saying that a dialect is "not written, just spoken" comes to show that they're just showcasing what they found online. The title of the video itself is a huge display of ignorance.

[@asherl5902]

​@@rovi3833 Yes, I don't like this channel because it constantly make mistakes in most or even every video for things that you can find correctly after a 5 minutes look at the wikipedia so I don't really understand which sources does he use to missinform so much... And then that he has never ever bother to search how any foreign language or word is pronunced before saying it badly... I mean, for languages like Monegasque it can be actually very difficult to find, but he does with any well-known and full of resources language. But if someone tries to correct him, he answers very condescending or even rude!

[@nostalgiakarlk.f.7386]

@@rovi3833 Not to mention that Name Explain seems to think that second languages like Monegasque, Latin, and other languages taught in schools like Irish are completely useless and should not be taught at all.

[@rovi3833]

@@nostalgiakarlk.f.7386 It's basically a (most likely monolingual) language hater trying to teach us as if he knew better

[@jensschroder8214]

If the royal house of Monaco dies out, then the country will fall to France, according to the law. Until then, France guarantees the existence of the country. Moanco is tax-free, but not for the French. And Monaco has always used the same currency as France. Monaco is very close to the Italian border. This has changed over time so that it now belongs more to France.

[@Florian0799]

The automatic inheritance of monaco in case there is no heir to monaco was removed in the most recent franco-monégasque treaty of 2002.

[@grzegorzha.]

@@Florian0799 Sad.

[@t.wcharles2171]

The country actually run out of male heirs of the princely House of Grimaldi and had to make one the husbands of the daughters the prince of Monaco and in return he would take the name Grimaldi

[@bunniifangz]

@@Florian0799 sounds like something you’d see in EU4

[@alphamikeomega5728]

They do have a value added tax.

[@Sueci]

Maybe a very small correction but, Monaco would probably be more of a "microstate" rather than a "micronation". Because micronations don't tend to be recognised countries

[@axolotl-guy9801]

indeed

[@FlagAnthem]

Microstates are just more successful micronations

[@gamermapper]

Micronations = dreams of stupid people Microstates = actual states but they're very small.

[@Cloiss_]

a *very small* correction indeed ;)

[@Sueci]

@@Cloiss_ I'm going to pretend that I thought about that

[@n1hondude]

Given the dwindling numbers of speakers, I think it's about time to have digital records of every word in the language so if they worst were to happen then at least the language won't be lost.

[@wendigockel]

...assuming digital records won't be wiped out themselves

[@cyber_pirate]

@@wendigockel at that point, we would have bigger things to worry about lol

[@NorseNorman]

Well there is the Wiktionary Project, which has done a very good job and is open to all to add words, translations, sound-clips and IPA pronunciations.

[@aidenbooksmith2351]

remember that a language is not just words and we as linguists want entire texts to be able to preserve the grammar, (but even this won't guarantee mapping out the entire grammar)

[@buarath9]

@@cyber_pirate Yes, but historians and linguists would rather have a testimony of a dead culture than let it be forgotten forever. Furthermore, linguistic revitalization movements could arise. Do not you think?

[@L-mo]

Ligurian and most other "dialects" of Italian are actually languages, not dialects. Each language has many dialects (from town to town), which is why the people speaking them called them dailects. Modern Italian was the "dialect" spoken in Florence. But it was a written language just like Venetian is a written language. They derive directly from Vulgar Latin in the same way Spanish, French or Catalan do.

[@lucaslourenco8918]

Basically in Italy any language but Italian is called dialetto. Even when they have a rich literary tradition, like Venetian or Neapolitan.

[@stheno7312]

I never knew their italian names, i always just called them, and other languages like them in other contries, local dialects. I think that these languages exist in a middle ground, so it wouldn't be incorrect to call them languages or dialects.

[@L-mo]

@@stheno7312 no they are languages, not dialects. There's no middle ground to it.

[@dseanjackson1]

@@stheno7312 No definitely not Most are stand alone languages (linguistically). The state may or may not recognize them as such (sometimes) but if you look at the mutual intelligibility or lack thereof between them, then you quickly realize that they are languages.

[@srikrishnak196]

@@dseanjackson1Almost each Italian 'dialect' is a language in its own right. Each province of Italy has its own special language. Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, Azurrese, Sicilian, Neapolitan, Piedmontese, Friulian, Ladin, Venetian, Sardinian...

[@NorseNorman]

There is a quite similar, yet opposite, situation in the island of Jersey. Like Monaco, Jersey has a reputation of being a tax-haven and, like Monaco, also has a native language; Jèrriais. Like Monégasque, Jèrriais is quickly becoming endangered and is only natively spoken by old people (around 1,900 people). Unlike in Monaco, Jersey's native language has very little support from our government besides a few token programs. This is mainly due to the increasing anglicisation and globalisation of our island. Most people don't care at all but a few people, such as myself, think preserving the language is very important to our unique identity.

[@Game_Hero]

Don't give up on your language, you can do it! I'm sure of it!

[@weirdlanguageguy]

Jèrriais is a direct descendant of the Norman French language spoken by William the Conqueror and that impacted english so heavily

[@mist9798]

Jèrriais is a fascinating piece of history. Thankfully a lot of it has been catalogued in wiktionary with many voice samples and easy-to-access vocabulary is an important step in its' preservation. A similar thing greatly helped securing the existence of a fascinating critically endangered minority language called Vilamovian (Wymysiöeryś), which is currently spoken natively by approximately 20-30 very old people and one young guy who learned it from his grandma at an early age and through his work involving activism, education, translating, creating his own poems and children's books, he pretty much single-handedly secured the future for the language for the next couple of generations. It still receives zero aid and recognition from our government (which refuses to even call it a language, even though it belongs to the Germanic branch, while Polish is Slavic, instead insisting on using the term "ethnolect") and all the protection it received was from individuals and non-government organisations Even when the government doesn't care about you there is still hope and everything is possible. Your language has made the most important step and I believe that it will be reinvigorated. It just needs to be popularised and have the means to easily teach it to children like children's books and fairytale translations

[@jdsonical]

Literally all languages are worth protecting and researching, including Monegasque, Occitan and Catalan, which some strange people I've seen seem to dismiss for no reason at all. Strange indeed...

[@laurelelasselin]

every language called 'useless' I want to learn

[@Augustus-mk1du]

I think traditions should be preserved but not necessarily practiced

[@fermintenava5911]

However, language should still be kept a naturally living organism - if nobody wants to speak it anymore, there is no reason to keep it on life support.

[@NorseNorman]

@@fermintenava5911 Language is not solely utilitarian; it holds cultural value often worthy of preservation, regardless of how many people speak it.

[@FlagAnthem]

I heard about the "vergonha" treatment which suffered Occitan, but Catalan? I mean, they are backed by a strong identitarian sentiment

[@willmcmill4]

Never call a language useless

[@Galaxy128-h1i]

I agree

[@Galaxy128-h1i]

I agree with you

[@willmcmill4]

@@Galaxy128-h1i thank you 😊

[@dkgamers1385]

No language is useless every language has a story to tell

[@davidsantiago-bonilla3442]

I agree, calling a language useless is nothing but very disrespectful and ignorant.

[@nostalgiakarlk.f.7386]

Ligurian is not a "dialect of Italian". The Italian government might have wanted you to think that in the past, but linguists generally agree that it's a separate Romance language. Specifically, it's part of the Gallo-Italic branch of Gallo-Romance.

[@Just4Kixs]

I'm pretty sure that Monegasque is a dialect of the Ligurian language which is a separate language from standard Italian.

[@IAmGlutton4Life]

I always wonder why people argue over if it's a language or dialect because we all know it's just political

[@martinmaynard141]

@@IAmGlutton4Life I remember someone saying "The difference between a language and a dialect is an army"

[@IAmGlutton4Life]

@@martinmaynard141 that is very very true

[@aiocafea]

it's in the phrasing 'are ligurian and italian different dialects of the same language or are they different languages' is an ok question to pose and it's fine for people to have their own opinion the statement 'ligurian is a dialect of italian' (or 'monegasque is a dialect of italian') is bound to make people argue though, it implies descent of ligurian from Dante-florence-italian or from a post-latin common italian politics is still important, what image someone has over the ancestry of the languages of italy can push people to think they are more or less related than they had actually thought, or drags the national identity into the history of a small people, many of them not possessing that national identity

[@buarath9]

@@IAmGlutton4Life Yes, but it's really uncorrect to call a language "dialect".

[@OrkosUA]

Monegasque is precisely the native language of Monaco, even though many people do not speak it. Irish is also barely used in Ireland yet noone would dare call it useless or cancel mandatory learning of it in Irish schools.

[@sofiaormbustad7467]

Are there nobody wanting to remove mandatory irish in Ireland? In Norway the two largest parties in government (well, Frp/the most far right actually left the government just pre corona, but still supports it) literary wants to ban norwegian and just basically removed it from being taught. (Well, in Norway we have two languages officially called norwegian, which is Bokmål and Nynorsk. Norway became independent in 1814 (or 1905*) and we didn't have our own language, we wrote danish, but spoke different dialects decending from old norwegian which again decended from old norse. Danish also decends from old (east) norse, so they were mostly mutual intelligble. Many people wanted a written norwegian standard language, some even pre independence (Petter Dass or Gregers Gran Fougner), some of whom wanted to go all the way back to old norse, others wanted to gradually make danish in Norway into a norwegian written language. A linguist from western Norway had the idea to make a written language as archaic as possible when rooted in then present dialects, so like if he found dative being used in one district he would include it in his language (actually 60% of Norway used to have the dative case, just an example), but since no places still had a nominative-accusative difference he could not view it as modern to include it. Well, in most cases he didn't include alot of features he viewed as too archaic, like dative, or things he only found in one district. He used all his life setting up his written standard atleast, Nynorsk, and it got support by alot of people and eventually even the prime ministers for 50 years, which began the prosess of switching out danish with Nynorsk. You still had weirdos trying to make their own norwegianwritten languages, like Jan Prahl (basically super archaic modern norwegian with danish spelling) and Ivar Høyem (a reformed Nynorsk, with the trondish dialect's AND faroese spelling, and dative, it was super weird, but cool). At the same time, from the 1840s (same time as Nynorsk was coming together) the danish supporters were beginning to fracture between people whom wanted to keep writing danish and keep close bonds to continental Europe (these would later form Høyre/the conservatives (1880s) and FrP/The progress party (in the 1970s though), the two parties I mentioned above). And the people whom wanted to transition danish into becoming norwegian, with some people wanting it to happen fast (modern day socialists and nationalists for the most part), and some wanting it to take much slower. So all these basically sabotaged eachothers and Nynorsk was able to reach 15-20%, mostly in the rural areas. Come 1905 and Norway becomes fully independent from our union with Sweden and in 1911 (or 1907?) Bokmål officially cuts its ties with danish in Denmark (There was never a widespread policy from the swedes to make us write swedish btw). The socialists in Europe grew alot just before WW1 and the same happened in Norway, they eventually gained majority alone in the 1930s (which forced all other parties to work together, both very Pro and Very anti Nynorsk, which I will come to later, as other policies were valued more, like economics or social politics). The socialists in Norway, the Labour party, nowadays called the social democrats, were for a totally different language policy, to merge danish and nynorsk into one middle ground language, Samnorsk/All Norwegian. By the 1930s Nynorsk had reached 35% and was just growing and growing in popularity by each year, even entering many cities (cities in Norway aren't that large though, so maybe town is more appropriate). Well, Labour forced new spelling reforms into the two different languages each decade basically (1917 was the only major before Labour, then 1938, 1959, 1981, 1987 and 2005/2012 were the most major reforms), and also started to refer to Bokmål and Nynorsk both as "norwegian" languages. Then the nazis invaded and well, the norwegian (and to a smaller extent the german) nazis started minor cracking downs on Nynorsk which at this point was at its 35%-top (were scheduled for 40% actually, as many municipalities and schools had decided to switch to Nynorsk in 1940 and 1941 already, but the occupation in the spring of 1940 stopped this and the german soldiers used the schools as barracks for the rest of the war). Some prominent figures in the NS-government were Nynorsk-supporters though (like Didrik Arup Seip), and others were prominent danish-supporters (wanting to reunite to danish) and some were basically "We want Samnorsk, but not in a commie way", so yeah, it's complicated, but anyhow, didn't affect the language situation that much except forcing down almost every single newspaper in Nynorsk, whilst the major danish newspapers (Aftenposten, Dagbladet, VG, Bergens Tidende) profited and colaborated with the germans during the war, though this comes down to ideology (Nynorsk was generaly a language for the masses, Bokmål a language for the upper class often much more pro german, so easier to sensor and comply with). Labour returned to power after WW2 and they tried to push Nynorsk and Bokmål even closer, though since Bokmål was the bigger language in number of users, it ended up looking more like bokmål than nynorsk and well, it really made people lose interest for Nynorsk and just viewing it as slightly less danish than Bokmål (which wasn't made better by Ivar Aasen choosing danish spelling over well, faroese, which was the language most close to norwegian, besides swedish). So Nynorsk just collapsed after the war and is now at 11%, most of the fall happened in the 1950s and 1960s, due to Labour forcing small rural communities to merge with surrounding cities, and the cities then removed nynorsk viewing it as rural and tbh nazi (and unnecessary). The samnorsk policy also failed miserably, with Bokmål today being barely different from its danish counterpart in Denmark, and being very inconsistant. Two norwegian and not danish features are diphtongues (=two vowels pronounced as 1,5), so for "stone" norwegian has "stein" and danish has "sten", Bokmål today uses stein, but does not use "meir" for "mer" (more, ammount) or "fleire" for "flere" (more, number). And same goes for soft consonants->hard consonants, so norwegian has hard consonants in maT, skaP and kaKe; whereas danish has soft consonants maD, skaB, kaGe. Though bokmål still has LeGe>lækjer, beGer>beiKer, meGler>meKler, en dyBde (but et dyP), koBBer>kopper, StreD>StreT, seDDel>seTTel etc etc. So yeah, Samnorsk left bokmål a giant mess, just a blub with random things with barely any historical sound changes being consistant (You want more examples?). Basically, Samnorsk failed, and cultural elite in the cities being very pro danish went out beating up political rivals (both Samnorsk and Nynorsk people, and heck even sami people were beaten up for speaking sami in the public space, which had nothing to do with this conflict), and the danish cultural elite vandalized and burnt books not in what they viewed as "clean language" aka danish +- some depending on how extreme they were (my aunt was very active in these movements in the 1980s, she proudly beat up a professor in Uni for being a Nynorsk-symphatizer in Oslo, well, she was in a group and probably didn't do most of the beatings. And she was actively burning books). So the pressure became so tense that Labour abandoned Samnorsk, forcing Nynorsk and Bokmål into one middleground language. Though very many still support the idea, but yeah, they just aren't as violent as the conservative bokmål forces (which call themselves Riksmålinger, btw). And there hasn't been much violence since the top in the 1970s and early 1980s.

[@sofiaormbustad7467]

Come 2020 and the government is now a right winged government, consisting of two small very pro Nynorsk parties (Venstre/the liberals, they had power basically 1885-1920 and was responsible for the initial success of Nynorsk. And KrF/the christians, being historically very pro Nynorsk, as they viewed danish as very hard for the common people to write the bible or attend mass in). And the two who want to well, Høyre/the conservatives have run multiple times on the slogan to make Nynorsk illegal in the public space and calling it a disease giving you lower iq (I can give sources if you don't believe me, lol), and making a language written by half a million illegal overnight I don't even think would be feasable. FrP/the progressives are to the right of Høyre and has, well, calling Labour for islamistic terrorists back in 2017 I think (Anders Bering Breivik, the nazi terrorist responsible for killing 100 teenage Labour-members at the Utøya Summercamp back in 2011, was a former member from FrP and had been leader for the western half of FrP in Oslo/the capital just five or so years earlier, so it just shackled Norway when FrP behaved so radical being in parliament and almost threw Norway into a political nightmare and instability, though they would do that three more times (once saying the christians were licking the islamist leaders' balls (well, actually "Imams' sweaty back", but it more means balls or arsehole in norwegian, being an expression for being somebody's slut or prostitute basically)). And the christians were in government with FrP, so yeah, not a clever move. Anyways, FrP is more radical on most areas, but on Nynorsk they are more "we wanna remove Nynorsk from public space by stopping giving it money, making anything in the useless minority language and stop teaching it in schools" (though some in the party even want Nynorsk to be a voluntarily course in high school, which is even more moderate, though tbf it would probably not be popular enough to be offered in many schools). So yeah anyways, the compromise between these 4 parties was basically "Nynorsk is now mandatory for 6 years [3 for people not attending higher education], we will make it 2 years [1 for non-higher educating]". Other native norwegians will call this statement of mine incorrect though. The government is just removing the Nynorsk grades for 4/6 years, not the education in it all together, though in the law of education (Utdanningslova) it says that students/pupils are to learn Nynorsk from 4th grade, but only get grades from 8th grade, but I have yet to meet any other class than mine own which actually learns a single word in nynorsk pre getting grades. Heck, I even know people who actually breaks the law and don't have either nynorsk or grades until high school. This is because both the teachers, the parents and the students all hate Nynorsk, it is basically what you ought to do here not to be bullied tbh, so that's a thing. So removing de facto compulsory education in Nynorsk, by removing most of the grades, will de facto remove Nynorsk being taught, except for those two years with 2 years inbetween, which will make them master the language extremely basic and poorly, even more than today. Oh and btw, I have been talking about Nynorsk as a course so far, but in fact it is called "Sidemålsundervisning/education in your second "norwegian" language". So for the 15% having Nynorsk as their main language in school, mostly in Western Norway or the surrounding valleys, they will learn bokmål, but everybody are exposed to so much Bokmål in Norway that it is not really a problem that nynorsk users will not master or understand bokmål, so by removing "Sidemålsundervisning" you also remove de jure bokmål for nynorsk users, but de facto all of them understand bokmål perfectly. Also, a majority of people in Norway don't speak a norwegian dialect anymore, but "spoken bokmål", "upper class sociolect" or "standard eastern norwegian" as we call it to make people think it is norwegian and not in fact danish. Also, FrP is a very anti-sami and anti-kveeni party, so I am just very used to the well off majority/large minority trying to remove smaller languages. It is the same in Finland, where one of their parties openly want to remove swedish being taught in schools or being used by the state. Though in Finland swedish is the former colonisers' language, now being on the way out, whilst in Scotland, Ireland, Norway and a smaller extent Wales afaik the aboriginal language is going extinct whilst a local dialect of the colonizers' language is being marketed as the true national language of the state. Idk if that is the case in Ireland, I have never been there, but I mean, in american media, the english irish and scottish dialects are portrayed as those countries languages, I mean I didn't know until I was 16 that celtic languages was (still) a thing even. Also, sorry for the extremel long reply, Rip. Also, this is my view as a Nynorsk user in a family of either danish or samnorsk supporters. I am sure there will be multiple of norwegians, as 85% write the danish dialect in Norway, which will disagree with me. And will claim that bokmål has become norwegian by the fact the clear majority of people in Norway write norwegian (that is for me like calling russian in Belarus for belarussian, or dutch/flemish in Belgium for belgian, or english in the USA for native american. But okay). And they will call Nynorsk purely western norwegian, I disagree and can use linguistic examples for hours, I mean even statistical studies show Ivar Aasen's vocabulary was 45% eastern norwegian and 37% western norwegian (so tbf little in vocabulary for northern Norway and Trøndelag, but there's a reason for that). Though Nynorsk is mostly used in western Norway nowadays, so the stereotype is connotated to that area.

[@OrkosUA]

@@sofiaormbustad7467 a bad comparison, it is better to compare with Hebrew in Israel.

[@sofiaormbustad7467]

@@OrkosUA don't most israeli actually speak hebrew daily? Also, why was it a bad comparison? Thanks for taking time to read my extremely long comment btw, I know it was too big and too compact, and I speeded up some parts and dragged out others. So thanks, lol

[@qaaqqutsiaqtaatsiaq8796]

@@sofiaormbustad7467 that was... a lot haha but very interesting. :) i totally appreciate the effort you took into explaining that topic :)

[@aethelredtheready1739]

Well you know what they say, a language is a dialect with an army.

[@gui18bif]

@@oyoo3323 But japan does have power. And an actual military, just not in name

[@k-techpl7222]

@@oyoo3323 It's a metaphor. While the phrase says 'with anavy and an army', it's more of meant to be a dramatic way of saying 'with a state' This is as the institution of the state is fundamentally tied to conquest and the military. And that's just a historical fact no matter how much people talk about non-existent 'Social Contract'.

[@guppy719]

@@oyoo3323 Japan doesn't have an army in name but they are actually top 10 in the orld in military spending.

[@AdriaFlores]

Excuse us speakers of smaller languages, almighty Englishman lmao you just gave all spaniards in the comment section fuel for their hate for catalans...

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

I hate when Brits talk about languages man, it drives me nuts. If I had a penny for every time an English person said "useless language" I'd be a millionaire in Monaco.

[@asherl5902]

Any Spaniard hates Catalans... Just some Spaniards hate Spaniards using any other Spanish language that is not Castilian

[@nihouma11]

Hi from MX, I don't understand, isn't catalan just like a Spanish dialect? I didn't know it was its own language that's interesting

[@asherl5902]

@@nihouma11 It's a language from a separate subfamily of Romance languages, it's the closest language to Occitan and more or less as related to French as it's to Spanish, while Spanish and the other languages of the Iberian Peninsula are Ibero-Romance but Basque which isn't Romance. The endangered Aragonese language, which is somehow between Spanish and Catalan, it's debate whether it's Ibero-Romance or Occitano-Romance. Catalan/Valencian language is spoken in Catalonia, Balearic Islands, half Valencian Comunity and in the Aragonese border places with Catalonia, being the greatest language of Spain after Castilian/Spanish, which many people also speak as mother tongue in Catalan-speaking areas. Catalans also have their own accent speaking any language

[@AdriaFlores]

@@nihouma11 no lo es hermano, búscalo en cualquier sitio de internet.

[@hilariousbenjamin5614]

4:58 "per pieijè" to me sounds a bit like "per piacere", another way to say "per favore" in Italian👀 Also a nitpick, but to call Ligurian, or any other regional language of Italy, "dialect of Italian" is misleading. They are romance languages derived from Latin, not from Italian itself, as Italian is in fact an evolution of the language spoken in Tuscany and specifically in Florence. So Italian and the ""dialects"" are more like cousins, if that makes sense.

[@quidam_surprise]

Whilst it's true that it isn't based on the Italian language, I believe languages such as Ligurian or Venetian are rather classified as *Italic languages* (which Latin is also part of) whereas Romance languages are a group of languages that are based and have evolved from Latin itself.

[@L-mo]

@@quidam_surprise No, Italic languages are a subset or sub branch of the Romance languages. Italian and Venetian are Italic languages and Romance Languages.

[@quidam_surprise]

@@L-mo I highly doubt that that's the case but if you have a source...

[@iris7867]

Thank you!

[@L-mo]

​@@quidam_surprise sorry I meant romance languages are a subset of italic languages. Italian and Venetian are Italic and Romance languages, that part is still correct.

[@cadr003]

The Ligurian language is nowhere near a child of modern Italian

[@pascalbaryamo4568]

Fascinating! When you said “it’s rare to see a European country disregard its native language so much”… have you ever heard of westfalian? It’s a dialect of low German and we’ve been prussianized even to the extent that we don’t consider our high German dialect a dialect :D

[@RoccosVideos]

“French, Spanish, and Italian are examples of big Romance languages.” Portuguese: “Am I a joke to you?”

[@axlr8deathpls294]

HE IS COMING TO BRAZIL

[@chimpazoo1143]

Caralho!

[@mikeoxsmal8022]

@Dzastin 0713 Romanian is just a dialect of moldovan

[@masuo64]

Romanian is almost Slavic people or replaced gradually by them.

[@HopeRock425]

@@mikeoxsmal8022 lol

[@AntonioBrandao]

3:39 how do you dare not highlighting Portugal in red as well together with the other Romance languages?

[@chimpazoo1143]

He also forgot Romania, a tad bit of Switzerland and a tad bit of Belgium

[@Istrianprincess]

And moldova

[@asherl5902]

He just pointed a few examples among the most known ones

[@robbadob9929]

@@asherl5902 It's still very funny how he went through the effort of NOT coloring Portugal

[@CaptainApathetic]

I'd say the relationship of Monaco and France is more similar to the one between the US and the Freely Associated states like Micronesia. Unlike the Isle of Man that doesn't have any sovereignty, they're fully sovereign with the US providing for their defense and their citizens can work, get educated, and live in the US. Seems fairly similar to the relationship between France and Monaco.

[@TheChrisEMartin]

I'm not sure what you mean about the Isle of Man not having any sovereignty? it does. The Isle of Man Government only relies on the Uk Government for defence and international relations. The Isle of Man, for example, was never even in the EU because it was not part of the UK...It has full power over all laws and taxes and all other domestic matters.

[@CaptainApathetic]

@@TheChrisEMartin Yes but it's not considered independent, whereas the the Freely Associated States are fully independent and UN Members who handle their own international relations.

[@TheChrisEMartin]

@@CaptainApathetic I guess it depends on how much sovereignty. I guess I was challenging your point that the Isle of Man 'doesn't have any sovereignity', which it plainly does in all but Foreign affairs -it even has its own nationality and citizenship. Even Monaco depends on France and there is a law that says if the Grimaldi House fails to have a heir, it becomes part of France!

[@pillmuncher67]

"A language is a dialect with an army and navy." -- Max Weinreich

[@iris7867]

Wow.... this was genuinely upsetting... "Useless language"?! I heard this upsetting phrase more times in this one video than I have in the rest of my life! 😫😫😫😫😫 Doesn't understand why anyone would want to preserve and protect a dying language??? Seriously?!?! Ay! My heart! Please!!! "Per favor"!!!!!!

[@buarath9]

I hope you are ironic

[@Jan_Koopman]

Linguistics student here. The difference between a language and a dialect is completely cultural/political. Linguism makes no difference and researches them equally.

[@felicepompa1702]

No? A dialect implies that it derives from a language and well Ligurian doesn't derive from italian but the local latin and it's in the same language family as occitan and catalan (are these 2 italian dialects? No)

[@Jan_Koopman]

@@felicepompa1702, again, that's all in a cultural/political basis. Linguism makes no difference between languages and dialects and studies both equally

[@felicepompa1702]

@@Jan_Koopman that's not cultural lol. Dialect means one thing and language means another. A dialect needs to have an originating language while a language is related to the closest common ancestor in his language family. French and italian are not dialects of eachother while normand is a dialect of french. Ligurian derives from latin and not italian so it's a language and not a dialect, because it doesn't have a base language to hold on to other than latin

[@Jan_Koopman]

@@felicepompa1702, "a dialect needs to have an originating language, while a language is related to the closest common ancestor [which would/could also be considered a language]" Indeed, languages brach off into different dialects and once those dialects become big/important/different enough, they will often be granted the rank of language. That is how new languages form. Which is why there is no linguistic difference between "dialect" or "language", simply whether it is culturally/politically accepted as a language, so: congratulations, you played yourself! I'm a linguistics major, I literally study this stuff. How do you expect to win this argument?

[@Jan_Koopman]

@@felicepompa1702, here, have some more sauce: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect

[@weirdlanguageguy]

The reason kids learned latin is because almost all the scientific, mathematical, and historical literature were written in it. If you wanted to be educated, it was necessary to learn latin or you couldn't even read the science of the times.

[@servantofaeie1569]

ITS NOT USELESS!!!

[@servantofaeie1569]

@theLundLs fuck that all languages are equal

[@Game_Hero]

@theLundLs "Speak english already" is that what you wanted to say?

[@christianwestling2019]

Recently I have noticed that the term "Daghe Munegu" (Go/Forza/Allez Monaco in monegasque) has been common for fans to say and post during AS Monaco football games. During the Monaco Grand Prix, there are several "Daghe Charles" signs around to support local driver Charles Leclerc (Ferrari).

[@DukeDukeGo]

One of the great thing of living in Europe is that you can just take school trips to entirely different countries. In Germany it's common that before graduation you take a week long trip somewhere in Europe. We went to southern France. To have the veil of education, we had some vaguely education related activities, for example we went to Grasse bc we had read "Perfume, story of a murderer". And we took a day trip to Monaco and went to the Oceanographic Museum (there we could pet baby sharks and that's why I can confidently say that sharks are smooth) Monaco is very small indeed, you can just walk across the entire city multiple times a day. But it's also very expensive. Everyone had EU Roaming mobile flats for their phone, but Monaco isn't in the EU, so as soon as we entered we all got text messages informing us of the ungodly expensive prices for mobile phone use. I also ate a very expensive Panini for lunch and the tour guide lady told us how Grace Kelly died and showed us her grave, but without calling her Grace Kelly (called her by her official title Princess Gracia Patricia of something like that)

[@sofiaormbustad7467]

My grandma literary took the bus through Monaco in 15 minutes when she was on holiday in southern France (norwegian btw). I find that kinda funny, it takes me 2 hours by train and bus to get hom from my school, lol.

[@adamender9092]

Endangered languages are not useless. Ligurian is it's own language. Monaco isn't a micronation.

[@chuzhoy333]

If it isn't a micronation then I don't know what is

[@sofiaormbustad7467]

@@chuzhoy333 The vatican state

[@jasastopar]

I am pretty sure ligurian is just italian

[@mimmiblu6138]

@@jasastopar no, not really. Ligurian is pretty much a Gallo-Italic language and is still being spoken on a daily basis. There are also some fantastic recent songs in Ligurian by Fabrizio de André

[@nyko921]

​@@jasastoparit isn't even close.

[@lpburrows]

Helpfully: Linguists just don't use the verbiage of "language" and "dialect" in their analyses, except when analyzing how *speakers* use those words. Long story short: the distinction is a *social* one, not one internal to the functioning of the languages themselves. It's often mostly about nationalism; national groups are said to have "languages," where regional peoples are said to have "dialects" (which becomes especially important if a nationalist group wants to insist that another group is *not* a legitimate people, but only a regional identity). Hindi and Urdu, for instance, are practically identical, but they're different "languages" because of social factors. On the other hand, Continental French, Québecois French, and Sénégalais French are all called "French" (despite being sometimes mutually unintelligible) because of different social factors (i.e., colonialism). Linguists instead talk about "language varieties" and "mutual (un)intelligibility" (i.e., can people understand one another) and leave it (more or less) at that.

[@IgabodDobagi]

Learning Latin is not useless! If you know Latin then you can easily figure out what basic vocabulary in other Romance languages mean. You also understand the language of science and medicine when you know Latin. It's just not used commonly in everybody's everyday life. But for us languages lovers it is vital. And it plays a big role in etymology, which is what this entire channel is about.

[@harrypadarri6349]

That’s how they convinced me to elect latin in school. Now I wish I would have learned French. Instead I just speak two languages, English and German, which is a shame considering Belgium is not far from where I live. I would love to go to France and Belgium(Wallonie) and talk in the local language. Shure, latin is interesting but it has nothing to do with science today.

[@IgabodDobagi]

@@harrypadarri6349 I took French in high school. I get very little opportunity to use it though because I live in the US in the south. I know a lot of languages that I don't get to use very often though. Language is one of my passions. I actually learned German in 5th grade in my own free time because I found out that it is the mother tongue of English. That started me down the road to learning more and more languages, at least the basics of them anyway.

[@asherl5902]

For me Latin is very utile, because sometimes I have or want to do historical research and I can only find documents writen in Latin, with no translation... The last I used it, it was for reading and analyzing Rimbaud's poem (whose translations I've found mostly incorrect)!

[@Galaxy128-h1i]

Latin is not a useless language. It’s a good language to learn.

[@EHonda-ds6ve]

A language is a dialect with an army

[@brayanhabidcol]

Monaco does not have an own army, though.

[@Miss-vg4qn]

@@brayanhabidcol CONTEXT: This is an allusion to Max Weinreich, A yiddish scholar and linguist who was once quoted as saying "A language is a dialect with an army and navy." as an aphorism about the arbitrary nature of the distinction between a language and a dialect, pointing out how sociopolitical conditions can influence the cultural perception of a language or dialect's status. (My apologies, But I'm clarifying this because I don't think you understood the reference.)

[@cogito3227]

Right, only Italian was a language spreading without a king, an army and a navy but from the culture as a lingua franca for the educated people of the Italian city states

[@luxair1997andTAP]

I’ve always known Monaco as a country (member of the UN) that happens to be both a constitutional monarchy AND a microstate. Never heard anyone or an existing debate claiming Monaco wasn’t a country until today 🤨

[@FlagArmadaProductions]

Wish they would just make Monegasque an official language

[@weepingscorpion8739]

Same. Same with Emiliano-Romagnolo in San Marino.

[@hey.itsfran]

@@weepingscorpion8739 sorry just a nitpick, Emilian and Romagnol are separate, in San Marino they only speak their dialect of Romagnol

[@weepingscorpion8739]

@@hey.itsfran That's fine. I always see them described together but I have also had my suspicions that they might be further apart. So thanks for that! :)

[@sweetbailarina92]

When a language disappears, it's a loss to humanity. We are also losing the culture, the history and the customs of the people who spoke it. I find it very ignorant to claim that learning a language is useless because it doesn't have many speakers. If we follow this reasoning then we should ban all languages except for one.

[@guppy719]

On the other hand losing languages is a sign of a globalized and connected world. Arguably the world would be a lot better place if only one language was spoken. Since people who speak the same language have a tendency to get a long better. Keeping around a tradition isn't always worth it or people would be protecting killing albinos in Africa.

[@nyko921]

​@@guppy719clearly speaking a language is not as bad as killing people. Also, just so you know, there isn't a limit to the number of languages one can speak and people can grow up plurilingual from birth.

[@guppy719]

​@@nyko921 There is a practical limit to the number of languages someone can speak fluently its certainly not 6'500 and realistically its not double digits unless they were all very closely related..

[@nyko921]

@@guppy719 I'm pretty sure that if you speak a regional language, the country's lingua franca and an international national language, you're still very much in the safe zone, very far from the "practical limit" 😊

[@AntonioDellElceUK]

In Italian all letters are pronounced,, including the "e" in Favore, maybe you speak the New Yorkese dialect?

[@Omar-cw5gg]

0:19 Micro nation is for unrecognized small countries like Sealand or Molossia. The right term is micro state

[@h1ccup2000]

I used to live near Monaco and did a research paper at university about the promotion of the Monégasque language in Monaco- we interviewed some high ups in the tiny country! You did mostly a good job here! Monégasque itself was standardised to be promoted but the standardised version was actually different to the one that most people spoke - which had more external and Italian influences. Side note I wouldn't say it's a dialect of Italian, a dialect of Ligurian maybe- but it exists on a continuum transitioning from occitan to ligurian.

[@asherl5902]

Can you share that paper?

[@h1ccup2000]

@@asherl5902 I have just dug up a version of it- I can send it to you if you pass me your email somehow?

[@Kintsugo]

4:53 you can also say "Per piacere" in Italian, which does sound like "Per pieijè".

[@RhmnLego]

Latin could be really useful for many people, kids who eventually end up studying medicine, history, theology and many more even if you are just gonna study a romance language later in life. Monogasque might be useless to learn could be the only thing keeping the language alive.

[@sammexp]

It doesn’t really look painful having to learn Monégasque since it is really close to French/Italian. For example, a dialect of English would look like this. Ti do not veary loov panetul haven a lerni Monégasque sance ti es veary close a Anglish It is just funny and not that hard to understand

[@petra1995]

Did you just create an English-based conlang on the fly?

[@jonathanwilliams1065]

Monaco does have its own military, roughly 250 men strong, with two branches: the Corps des Sapeurs-Pompiers, meaning corps of sappers and something, is Monaco’s fire department, civil defense force, and if it came down to it they do have weapons for combat, and then there’s the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince, which provides the ceremonial guards for the Prince Many also have prior service in the French military

[@iammaxhailme]

that monagasque "per pieije" (please) sounds pretty similar to the Italian "per piacere" which is kind of like "per favore" but more formal, so it's probably still related

[@edoardosalza]

Is from the Gallo-italic branch, it is related to italian but also, and more, to Gallo-romance languages.

[@2712animefreak]

"Monacan" is a resident of Monaco, "Monegasque" is the citizen of Monaco. Despite there being many millionaires that live in the country, most of them aren't actual citizens of the country. Out of the 38000 people in the country not even 8000 are citizens, and those are the ones counted as speakers of Monegasque, because they all learn it in school.

[@maxpuente6291]

I’m negatively surprised by this video… you claim to love language and words so much only to now undervalue them

[@oliverraven]

The Manx comparison falls down in a few ways, although Manx *is* a language! Monaco has its own state broadcaster and has entered Eurovision in its own right, whereas the Isle of Man is part of the English North West TV region (yes, on both BBC and ITV). The island in the Irish Sea is also not a UN member and doesn't have its own head of state. But it does rely on the UK proper for its defence. That part rings true enough.

[@Markle2k]

But it shares the quality of tax-dodging millionaires depending upon other people to pay for (and sacrifice their lives for) their defense.

[@imjustsomefilmguy]

Suggestion for future video: Different names for things from the past i.e. Retro vs vintage vs classic vs classical vs ancient

[@samuelweizhfeld5676]

Calling any smaller language useless just shameful and illustrates a profound lack of respect towards the culture, history and people who formed the respective language over the course of centuries - something I never expected to find on this chanel.

[@servantofaeie1569]

It is NOT a dialect of Italian! It has literally closer relation to French. Language of Italy ≠ dialect of Italian, espeically when its Gallo-Romance and not Italo-Romance.

[@felicepompa1702]

Well it's a dialect of a language spoken in italy (Ligurian) and yes it's a gallo romance language like most other North italian languages, or occitan and catalan, french is a distant relative of these languages

[@servantofaeie1569]

@@felicepompa1702 But French is still a closer relative than Italian.

[@felicepompa1702]

@@servantofaeie1569 no because they are on par, the closest relative of Ligurian (and most northern italian languages) is occitan which is unrelated to french, then comes catalan italian and french on the same second place, and the region of nice should have retained it's historical italian culture but france decided to ban their language just like they did in Corsica and Alsace

[@servantofaeie1569]

@@felicepompa1702 Occitan IS related to French... what the fuck are you smoking!? Did you mean to say "descended"? Because thats true, Occitan is NOT descended from French. But Occitan and French are in the same branch of the same family. all three are Gallo-Romance, while Italian is Italo-Dalmatian.

[@felicepompa1702]

@@servantofaeie1569 french is the least romance language on par with Romanian and yes occitan is related to every language in europe excluding non indoeuropean languages, and yes italian is italo dalmatian, but standard italian is very close geographically to gallo romance northern italian dialects and so the dividing line is very fuzzy. Also northern italian dialects retained a closer pronounciation to italian with rolled r and many other italic rules preserved. Also pronounciation is not like french pronounciation at all

[@watchit3746]

4:48 it this case we in Italy can ask "Please" in many ways, Per Cortesia, Per Favore or Per Piacere (Cortesia = Corutesy, Favore = Favor, Piacere = Pleasure -> to Please) so the monegasque Pieijè is very similar to piacé, which is a common slang to shorten Piacé(re).

[@just1frosty516]

No language is useless, it’s a damn shame people call languages useless I’ve talked to people who call Catalan useless😭

[@isabelnecessary5915]

God as a Gàidhlig speaker (native Scottish minority language) I already feel slightly sick to the stomach just reading this title. Reminds me of all the bullshit I’ve heard over the years about how my language is a waste of money and should be left to die. As if you are not letting a massive part of a country and it’s history die with the language.

[@globallou]

Its really quite offensive to call any language useless

[@YoutubeChannel-ll6sw]

even if it functionally is?

[@vincentdavis8941]

@@KZbinChannel-ll6sw not useless, un-utilised, or under utilised. Language is not a commodity. There are still some people who use Irish, Sorbian, Aromanian, or Monegasque in day to day conversation. It is being used by these people to communicate with one another.

[@joelaldodiaz]

6:15 it’s very rare you come across a country I. Europe that disregards their own native language so much. Ireland: disappears into bushes

[@MarcelGomesPan]

Senig a language as ”useless” is exactly one of those things that makes it extinct. If everyone in one of Europes richest countries insisted on speaking it it wouldnt stay useless for long. It wouldnt make much difference for business or science, but for culture.

[@SharpieLEET]

that monologue at the end of monegasque being useless and annoying for the kids was a bit much

[@georgeaust1]

All languages are important AND saving a language that's part of thriving language family of an extremely wealthy nation is less important than saving languages that may be the only remaining example of their language family after being subjected to colonizers' cultural genocide. I just don't think calling Monegasque useless is the same as calling Hawaiian or Quechua or Lushootseed or Welsh useless and i don't think Patrick would do that either. Maybe I'm really off base here but I feel like there's some nuance missing from this comment section.

[@duhroof]

Thank god I don't see anyone in support of the inaccurate and ignorant attitudes professed by him in the comments😌

[@gianb3952]

As someone who loves languages I always had a soft spot for languages that are going extinct... but at the same time. I just think "why tho" I mean, if a language disappears its because the culture has changed and people have started speaking another language. While it's interesting to see and hear these languages it still feels weird to be sad about sounds lol

[@mikeoxsmal8022]

It is not useless,

[@jonsealartist]

The difference between a language and a dialect is exactly one army.

[@hey.itsfran]

"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy"

[@nyko921]

It isn't.

[@YBRIS4036]

there are two wrong things in this video: 1)monegasque is not a dialect of a dialect of italian, but a dialect of a language called Ligurian, in Italy there are six linguistic continuums: 1.gallo romance (wich ligurian belongs to) 2.retoromance, 3.tuscanian (wich standard italian belongs to), 4.central italian, 5.southern, 6.extreme southern, plus sardinian that is not even part of the italic languages....so italian is just a literate dialect chosen from the ruling class to be the official language in a country so linguistically fragmented. Unfortunately people started considering the language of everyday speech a dialect because it seemed to them an inferior version of italian, since it was used by the common people, while italian was the language of education, science, literature, institutions etc..., this trend has continued until now, but more people is starting considering their "dialect" a language. 2)Latin is not a useless language, i studied both latin and ancient greek and they helped me a lot with learning other languages, especially romance languages, because i can compare my native language with latin and figure out the meaning of a world without searching in the vocabulary, and is still a good mental gymnastic for learning also non romance and non indoeuropean languages, it also helps with finding the true meaning of worlds, wich helps a lot with the theoretical thinking, and, if you want to do a research job in humanistc field you simply cannot look into ancient time without knowing the major languages of that time

[@XMarkxyz]

You forgot to mention that until midlle 1800 the region of Niece was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia which will go to form Italy and exchange that region for France's military help, so in the past Monaco used to border with ""Italy""

[@realhawaii5o]

1:57 ah yes the famous language "France"

[@joshuabutler4271]

"Its very rare you come across a country, especially one in Europe, which disregards it's own language." Laughs in Cornish

[@matteomarranini9127]

5:03 we italians also have the "Per piacere" form of asking that, that is of course closer to Monegasque. When you wrote that down I thought "Oh, I can see my genoese uncle saying that"

[@Dracopol]

3:38 What a crappy map. Portugal should be red because Portuguese is a Romance language too. And so is Romanian.

[@chickeninyeezes3759]

He said three examples

[@eb.3764]

no language is USELESS, imagine if every country transitioned to a major world language. Let's say English, French and Spanish for better "communication". How boring and Eurocentric that world would be, imagine French Japan and Spanish Korea.

[@billbirkett7166]

Ligurian isn't an Italian dialect, it is one of the languages of Italy. It's as distinct from Italian as Occitan is from French. It may be moribund and not have an official use, but linguistically it's completely separate. I don't think most people understand that about the languages of Italy...there are 19 of them and it may seem that they are 'dialect-y', but there is even a long lost dialect of Greek spoken in Calabria. In fact, Italy is the part of Europe with probably the highest level of linguistic diversity.

[@dyn01234567]

I'd be interested in knowing how many languages the people who call a language "useless can speak" (on average) compared to those who don't consider minority languages useless. I bet there's a significant disparity. Contempt and ignorance go hand in hand.

[@Iopia100]

As a UK citizen, you should be aware that the Monégasque situation is very similar to Welsh (compulsory up to GCSE), as well as Irish here in Ireland (compulsary up to Leaving Cert (~age 18)). I believe Scots Gaelic is not compulsory in Scotland, nor is Irish in Northern Ireland. None of these languages are particularly widely spoken compared to English. The question over whether these languages are 'useless', or instead an important part of national heritage is obviously debated (and in NI, political), but I think most agree that it is important to learn the language to some extent, with debate typically around how long compulsory education should last. Perhaps the situation in Monaco is a little different due to the huge immigrant proportion of the population, and the lack of rural areas where regional languages may have been preserved more organically (even if only in small numbers), but it always comes back to that same question: should compulsory language education be functional, or cultural?

[@asherl5902]

You can study both functional and cultural subjects, like I studied at High School English and French together with Latin and Classical Greek

[@2712animefreak]

There's one more thing he failed to mention. He said that there are "only about 8000 fluent speakers". Well guess who they are: The citizens! Despite there being about 38000 people in Monaco, only about 8000 are citizens. The language, and the school curriculum is for them, not for the remaining ~80% of the people who are either migrant workers or millionaires hiding from the tax man.

[@rateeightx]

4:03 I Believe Ligurian Is Actually Not Completely Mutually Intelligible With Standard Italian, And Is Actually More Closely Related To French Than To Italian.

[@felicepompa1702]

No it's close to occitan and catalan and it's as close as french as it is to italian

[@arteoggivlog-artecontempor2606]

No, it's similar to italian. I am from Liguria.

[@edoardosalza]

@@arteoggivlog-artecontempor2606 it depends also where: western ligurian is closer to provençal (occitan) while eastern dialects bounding Tuscany, are closer to italian. Monegasque is a form of genoese, not mutually intellegible, or very little, with standard italian.

[@nyko921]

​​@@arteoggivlog-artecontempor2606utte le lingue d'Italia sembrano simili all'italiano se le parli, però chi parla solo italiano non riesce a capirle.

[@nyko921]

Exactly. It is a gallo romance language, so it is genetically closer to French than italian.

[@Whelknarge]

Monègasque doesn't exist to be "useful", languages aren't just tools to be diacarded when they can't get you a job. Also, "Italian" isn't the "father" of Monègasque, Monègasque is Monègasque and how similar it is to other languages or dialects of a language doesn't make it anymore subordinate to them then they are to it. A language doesn't get to be called the "father" of another language just for having a larger state and more speakers, except in the minds of people who don't understand how language works.

[@HalfEye79]

Other from the teaching, Monegasque is very similar to Lower German (Plattdeutsch). It is dying because lack of usage.

[@readisgooddewaterkant7890]

Mooi to sehen datt dat gifft en lüü dat platt för dat internet schauen. Ik glööv nicht datt dat sterven sien dårför de in brasilien verwende sien plattdialekt veel.

[@HalfEye79]

@@readisgooddewaterkant7890 Tut mir leid. Ich kann nicht besonders gut plattdeutsch lesen. Außerdem kann ich am ehesten das Plattdeutsch aus dem südlichen Niedersachsen.

[@readisgooddewaterkant7890]

@@HalfEye79 ah gut

[@dlevi67]

@@readisgooddewaterkant7890 I thought Schwiizerdütsch was about as hard as they come, in terms of reading. You've just convinced me of the contrary! 😁

[@hamsterama]

I'm American, and I spent a year in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as a foreign exchange student during the 2001/2002 school year. The Gymnasium I went to was about 60 km south of Rostock. Anyway, only old people could speak Platt. In fact, my host mother and my friends there got excited if they heard someone speaking Platt, because it was so rare to hear. Of course, that was 20 years ago. Could be that nearly all those old people died off by now, so maybe the dialect is extinct.

[@ranulfdoswell]

The wikipedia articles all seem a bit biased against Monegasque. 8000 speakers doesn't sound like much, but that's 21% of the population. Wikipedia claims Italian is more widely spoken, and then backs that up by saying 19% of the population are Italian.

[@AllanLimosin]

I love the Munegascu language! The Provençau-transitional Ligurian variety! ♥️

[@eb.3764]

Wow this video has some bad research behind it. Ligurian is a language of Italy, but it is NOT descended from Italian (which, Italian itself is a Vulgar Latin dialect that was based off the "Italian" spoken in the Florence region).

[@arashkborzoo]

Monégasque has a similar situation to Jèrriais and Guernésiais which are distinct dialects of Norman French (langues d'oïl) which is is a dialect of French itself and taught as a heritage language in schools but are dying sadly in public life on the islands. Though the Channels Islands are recently trying to teach the language while Monaco has been teaching their language as a heritage language for a while, though it has not really been revived in public life sadly, but to be honest since French and Italian are the most common language, then Italians presence helps in keeping some part of that alive indirectly I guess.

[@cmyk8964]

> “Useless Language” Mr. Explain, you’ve fucked up

[@paullambert7840]

2:55 - Languages are spoken and written while dialects are just spoken. This is a poor definition. There are languages all over the world without ties to the dominant local language(s) around them (e.g. Quechua [aka Runasimi], which is a group of languages spoken in the Andes of Peru) and some languages are neither written nor spoken (e.g. American Sign Language or ASL).

[@wrath231]

Calling somebody's language useless you're just asking for people to post hateful comments

[@uncinarynin]

Monaco is ruled by the Grimaldi dynasty which originally came from Genova. Until 1848 Monaco ruled over a much larger region. Then Napoléon III conquered Menton and Roquebrune, declaring them part of France and leaving the tiny city state that Monaco is today. (Nice/Nizza and other places also have both French and Italian names but that's not due to Grimaldi influence as far as I could find.) Interestingly Monaco, though quite small, is divided into several districts, one of them (Monte Carlo) known quite well for the Monte Carlo Casino and the Rallye Monte Carlo (which is organized by a club from Monte Carlo but actually takes place in France). Monaco also has just one railway station (on a line operated by French SNCF).

[@powellmountainmike8853]

If you had studied Latin you would understand that it is still extremely useful to learn, especially for English speakers, since it helps one avoid common mistakes in spelling, and pronunciation. i.e. (id est, Latin for "that is") the abbreviation "etc." All too often I hear those who never learned Latin pronounce this "EX-etera." The term is the two Latin words, "et cetera" and means "and other" or "and further" with the word "stuff" understood. Also, when one has studied Latin and knows these things, it admits you a select club of the truly educate, and sets you above the uneducated, common rabble. In my family, to be a truly educated gentleman one was expected to have the ability to sight read Latin fairly well, and to have at least a passing ability to translate ancient Greek.

[@rateeightx]

Not Gonna Lie I'm A Little Ticked Off How You Call It Useless Here, In My Personal Opinion No Language Is Useless, Even If You Never Speak It, Just Knowing A Language Can Be Helpful, Knowing More Than One Language Can Make It Easier To Learn And Understand Other Things, For Example, Plus It's Just Generally Interesting.

[@ind-m-20]

3:14 If 2 "languages" are mutually intelligible they are dialects of the same language and if 2 "dialects" are unintelligible then they are separate languages according to me... this definition makes more sense but yea it can get blurry when involving dialect continuum but other than that this seems like a good definition to me...

[@BakouMOH]

Very disrespectful.

[@MBP1918]

They should revive the language so their descendants may speak it

[@arashkborzoo]

I like this channel but calling a struggling language trying to survive in the world by its people and government is extremely offensive, for example Irish is probably not the most useful language in the world, but it's the native lan if the Irish people and Ireland and the government is trying hard to keep it alive is really important, also languagea usefulness goes up and down based on there usage, just look at Hebrew, it was a dead language for 2 thousand year and mostly taught for religious education, but now it is a strong alive Language that can be seen everywhere in Israel, and because of the government push and the country being hi tech, the learning of it is easier than ever even though it's written with its own script.

[@gryphonavocatio]

Linguists (at least, formal linguists) don't distinguish between ‘language’ and ‘dialect’. In some sense, every dialect is a language in its own right, distinct in some ways but with many commonalities with a so-called 'standard' version of a language (though these 'standard' versions are often just dialects associated with the powerful and well-educated). The distinction is largely political; see, for example, standard Swedish and standard Norwegian, each of which can be understood by a native speaker of the other without much trouble and could well be considered dialects of a single language but which considered separate languages purely for political and historical reasons.

[@grioulaloula8594]

Monaco - A sunny place for shady people.

[@Wooeugene]

I think a dialect is understandable within a language. Once it is no longer intelligible, it is a language

[@buarath9]

Monegasque is not an Italian dialect, instead is a Ligurian dialect. Ligurian is another Romance language, but not strictly related to Italian or French. And also, if they were to speak a French dialect, they would have to speak the Occitan language in its Nice variant; surely not French language. Furthermore, this video is really badly titled: with a glottophobic title (probably unwanted) which obviously discriminates against linguistic minorities.

[@ProximaCentauri88]

Monégasque is definitely NOT a "useless" language. Natlangs, if not as good, are always better than conlangs like Toki Pona and Esperanto.

[@olbiomoiros]

All languages and dialects should be preserved

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

Video idea: actually research it next time and don't be such a superiour offensive Englishman. No language is useless.

Ligurian is part of the Gallo-Italian family while Italian belongs to the Italo-Dalmatian family

[@martinaperoxcappe]

Wtf are you saying? T'u digu in dialetu de chi, belinun. Monegasque nu l'è u dialetu du dialetu. Nu l'è ina lenga inütile. Gundun. I live in Italy next to French boarder... Monegasque is pretty similar to Ventimiglia dialect. And it isn't useless. Daghe Munegu ❤ daghe Ventemiglia ❤

[@shakiraglobal6071]

Extremely disrespectful to call it useless.

[@pitertauer3168]

Bruh, Monaco was founded by the GRIMALDI family, an important family from GENOA, if you asked them what origin they have they would say they are genoese or ligurian, not italian.

[@martinomasolo8833]

In Italian we say "Per piacere" to say "please " too. It's quite the same as "per piaijé"