Who here studies a language with less than 10 million maternal speakers?!

I don't personally, but Welsh universities have a lot of students of the Welsh language and doing degrees in "professional Welsh" etc. Is that the type of thing that you're after or are you looking for a foreign language?

There are a lot of people in my department that study Spanish or French and do Catalan as well. I think the reason it's so popular is because they know it'll be similar and thus easier to learn, and it was a more interesting module than the alternatives

I'm not currently studying any (and definitely not at university), but there are three that I'd like to get into that would fit this category, and there are different reasons for them. Hopefully my post can help!

- Breton has about 210,000 native speakers and is almost exclusive to Brittany, a region in France. My reasons to learn this language are very simple: I was born and grew up in Brittany, but was never given a chance to properly learn the language. Considering my grandparents were fluent in it, and that I have strong ties to my region, I feel like I should really look into it properly. There's no other motivation than to learn more about my heritage through it.

- Swedish has around 8.5 millions native speakers, and I just really like the sound of it. It got to the point where I did apply to do an MA in Sweden (eventually decided against it because I had a better offer from KCL) and the musicality of the language is really what draws me to it. I find it sounds very melodic and it's relatively simple, which makes it all the more attractive. It'd serve a purely leisure-driven purpose as I can't really see myself moving there in the near future, but I think it'd be fun to learn it.

- Hebrew has around 5.3 millions native speakers (more L2/L3 speakers), and I just fell in love with it when I visited Israel back in 2010. Having Arabic under my belt means I have some knowledge of how semitic languages work and I suspect I'd be able to get the hang of it quicker than if I didn't know any Arabic. I'd like to go back to Israel at one point, and although I don't really intend on working in the Middle East (Arab or Israeli side), I really like the culture behind the language, as well as the language itself. So same as Swedish here, it would be for the pleasure of learning another language.

This is not to say that I wouldn't be able to do anything with these languages, but at the moment, they are not relevant to my professional interests. It can be more difficult to locate which fields might need which language, but these kind of niche languages can make you particularly employable if you play your cards right. If I were to pick one of them to study at university, I'd be split between Hebrew and Swedish, I like both of them equally and could see myself enjoying both degrees, although I suspect I might enjoy the Swedish snow a bit more than the Israeli heat!

Thank you! No I am looking for people who have willingly taken up a niche language at degree level, rather than people forced to do them Saying that though, if someone on here was studying Welsh/in Welsh willingly at university level then I'd love to speak to them!

Oh hey you, we haven't spoken in years! I hope everything is A-OK!
Also, SWEDISH, definitely Swedish! I want to learn more Swedish, for the same reasons you want to study Breton. I find Hebrew really fascinating actually seeing as it was a dead language and now it's been revived again, if you know any people who have converted to Judaism and learned Hebrew because of that I'd love to talk to them!
I can't believe your degree in Arabic and Russian is over... I remember when you started it. Gulp. Feel old.

I'm learning Hebrew right now at a centre for new immigrants in Israel. It's niche from a global perspective, but fairly important if you want to live here.

Yes I can imagine, where are you from?