Spanish, of course, is not a niche language: one legacy of the fact that Spain was the most powerful country in the world hundreds of years ago, is that Spanish is the second-most common language in the world, with 427 million people speaking it, and Spanish the lingua franca in some 31 countries.
Spanish, of course, is not a niche language: one legacy of the fact that Spain was the most powerful country in the world hundreds of years ago, is that Spanish is the second-most common language in the world, with 427 million people speaking it, and Spanish the lingua franca in some 31 countries.
"And we've watched the rise and decline of many niche languages — including our own.
The new global functionality could be even more powerful for businesses based in countries with more niche languages.
Given the mind-boggling number of existing niche languages, it seems somewhat strange that a powerhouse like Microsoft, with their huge install base of C# and VisualBasic.NET would enter into the fray with a new programming language.
The exoteric linguistic niche contains languages with large numbers of speakers, thus requiring these languages to serve as interfaces for communication between strangers.
Google says the new site will contain a number of tools and resources to help keep some of those alive: there will be high-quality recordings of people speaking the languages, copies of historical manuscripts, e-learning options, and even niche-language social networking opportunities, in addition to research and other documentation.
Just as biological organisms are shaped by ecological niches, language structures appear to adapt to the environment (niche) in which they are being learned and used.
New niche words, though they are marginal increases to a language's lexicon, are themselves anything but "marginal" - they are core words within a subset of the language.
The exoteric niche includes languages like English, Swahili, and Hindi, while the esoteric niche includes languages like Tatar, Elfdalian, and Algonquin.
The broader societal context will also be measured using media coverage in state, local and niche language media outlets.
