More people around the world are learning under-studied languages, according to the 2021 Duolingo Language Report: the list of most popular languages to study by country includes Irish, Swedish, Korean, Japanese, and Swahili. And the list of second most popular languages to study in each country is even more diverse!

What's behind the global movement to study these languages?

Family and culture drive interest in less-commonly-studied languages

There is growing interest worldwide in studying languages for personal reasons. According to the 2021 Duolingo Language Report, for the first time ever, family and friends also became the most popular reason for new U.S. learners to start studying a language! This sentiment is echoed in a recent Duolingo-DKC Analytics survey of people in the U.S., where 70% of those who started learning a language during the pandemic say their learning is related to family heritage, ancestry, or culture.

For many interested in learning family languages, this also means studying a language not traditionally available in classrooms or local schools. More than 27% of survey respondents had a family member from a culture that speaks a language considered endangered, indigenous, or under-studied (such as Yiddish, Navajo, or Scottish Gaelic). Of this group, 90% reported being interested or very interested in learning the family language, with more than two-thirds saying they have even more interest in learning it than their parents.

Illustration of Duolingo character Lin with her grandmother Lucy. They are looking at each other affectionately.

Learners choosing to study indigenous and endangered languages are motivated by family and culture. In fact, culture is the #1 reason people in the U.S. study six of the seven indigenous or endangered languages offered on Duolingo. The exception is Guaraní, an indigenous language from South America: family is the #1 reason for studying Guaraní! Family is also one of the top reasons U.S. learners study Hawaiian and Navajo.

Bar chart of the motivations of new learners in the U.S. in 2021 who are studying Hawaiian, Navajo, and Yiddish. The vertical y-axis goes from 0% to 40% and the horizontal x-axis represents the seven motivation choices: school, work, brain, travel, culture, family, and other. The highest bars, by far, are those for culture: for Hawaiian, it's just over 20%; for Navajo, around 28%, and for Yiddish, 34%. The bars for family and other are also pretty high, all at or just under 20%, and brain training for all three languages is around 15-17%. The other reasons are much, much lower, even under 5%.

The importance of culture and family to those learning understudied languages really stands out in comparison to the most popular languages studied in the U.S., Spanish, English, and French. As you might expect, there is more interest in studying for school reasons, and English learners are especially interested in learning for work. But this year, you can also see the growing interest in family languages for those studying Spanish!

Bar chart of the motivations of new learners in the U.S. in 2021 who are studying Spanish, English, or French. The vertical y-axis goes from 0% to 40% and the horizontal x-axis represents the seven motivation choices: school, work, brain, travel, culture, family, and other. The school bars are all relatively high, which Spanish and English around 23% and French around 19%. All the other bars are much lower, typically under 10%, with these exceptions: English for work is nearly 30%, French for brain is just over 20%, and Spanish for family is around 23%.

People around the world are deeply interested in languages and language learning, but they don't often get to engage with what they really care about in traditional courses. Learners know that language is a way to connect—with friends, hobbies, interests, and our own histories.

A third of Yiddish learners study for culture

In the Duolingo-DKC Analytics survey, learning about a new culture was the top reason people in the U.S. said they might choose to learn a new language, selected by 65% of respondents.

Culture is an especially important motivator for learners studying Yiddish, Duolingo's newest language course: 34% of Yiddish learners say this is their primary reason for studying it! That is more than three times the percentage of learners who are learning for culture in English, Spanish, or French courses in the U.S. Altogether, 54% of Yiddish learners are drawn to the language for family or culture reasons.

Bar chart of the motivations of new Yiddish learners in the U.S. in 2021. The vertical y-axis goes from 0% to 40% and the horizontal x-axis represents the seven motivation choices: school, work, brain, travel, culture, family, and other. The culture bar is the highest, reaching to almost 35%, followed by family and other, which look about equal at 20%, then brain at around 15%, and then school, work, and travel that all look to have 4-5%.

Studying outside the box

For English, Spanish, and French, roughly 10% of learners choose "other" -- meaning their motivation for studying a language isn't totally captured by the available options. For indigenous and endangered languages, the percentage of learners choosing "other" is double that!

We suspect that learners choosing this catch-all category are interested in media, entertainment, and music in the language they're learning. Some learners consider these reasons to be part of "culture" and so choose that option as their motivation, but many see media and entertainment as even more specific than a traditional "culture" category: they want to connect with other viewers, follow bands' social media accounts, and interact in a really personal way with the culture, even from their own homes.

We see learners' desire to engage with media and music in our Duolingo-DKC Analytics survey results as well: of those learners who started studying a new language during the pandemic, 69% report practicing the language with TV, streaming media, or movies, and 69% also practice the language through social media. (Fun fact: experts also use pop culture for extra practice!)

We look forward to seeing where learner interests expand in 2022—and love to see people using language to build connections with the world around them!