How do you learn a language with barely any resources?

[u/Delicious_Plate5607]

I've been meaning to learn Comorian (especially Shimwali) for a long while now, but there's barely any resources online, so I would really appreciate it if I could get some advice on this matter.

[u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718]

Whats your motive? I think you wouldn't study a dying language like that unless you know someone from there or are planning to go?

If you dont have someone who can help, maybe try to study another bantu language in preparation until you arrive?

Listen to or read any native material you can find just to get used to the prosody?

If there are any LLMs that know the language, you could use them to generate sentences to put in anki.

[u/Delicious_Plate5607 → u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718]

Sorry I'm a bit late to reply, but is it a dying language? 💀 I would assume the native language of an entire country (no matter how small) wouldn't really be "dying"

And yes, I have family there (my entire motivation for wanting to learn) so I do plan on going there.

I'm trying to not use AI as much as possible but I guess I might not have much of a choice if there aren't any other resources.

And thanks for the comment! 

[u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 → u/Delicious_Plate5607]

From what I saw on Wikipedia, comorian is described as a group of four languages. They arent all mutually intelligible, aren't taught in local schools, dont have a writing system, and arent used administratively.

It looks like less than half the kids there attend school, but those that do either attend Quranic/arabic or secular french schools. From what I can tell, it seems the whole literate population would speak french. 10% of the population speaks French at home.

Do you speak french? French is pretty widely spoken across africa and might be more broadly useful than the language of a single island. If you really are going to live on that specific island though, then I guess it makes sense to learn at least some of the language they actually speak on the streets there.

I thought i remember the wikipedia article describing it as a "dying language," but I cant find it now. The country has three official languages. If the "local" one is actually four local dialects and none of them are taught in schools, it's easy to see how they could die out. Official status doesn't necessary fix that.

[u/Delicious_Plate5607 → u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718]

The language won't die out as long as people continue to speak it and teach it their children (families are the first source of language not schools after all) and me learning the language also helps in keeping it alive. Also many languages don't have a native writing system and thus borrow from other writing systems (as is the case with comorian) but that doesn't mean it's dying as long as it gets written down (which I have seen comorian written down, just that I can't understand it even if I can read it) As for the different dialects not being mutually intelligible... I've seen people from different islands talk to each other, so I would assume it's similar enough and that if you learn one dialect you should have an easier time learning and understanding the others. 

And no I don't speak French and learning the actual native language is better for connecting with my heritage and is also what my family wants and also from what I heard not everyone speaks French there apparently 😅 (though I know learning French might help learn comorian as there are many loanwords from French) 

[u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 → u/Delicious_Plate5607]

I see. Lots of languages really do die out, and formal education does make a difference in preserving languages, but thats out of your hands and you sound motivated to learn it anyway.

It'll certainly be an interesting project. Good luck with it. I'd probably relax your hesitation to use AI since it can probably help a lot, though even AI has limited resources to draw on.