Wikipedia reports:
So most students are forced to learn it autodidactically by books, listening to Faroese on the radio (there is an internet live stream) and trying to correspond with Faroese people. A good opportunity for learning Faroese is also visiting the websites of Postverk Føroya and reading their stories about the stamp editions both in Faroese and English (or German, French and Danish) as well as an online dictionary on Sprotin [1], which requires a small subscription fee.
You can learn some simple phrases here. Overall I conclude that the prospects for learning Faroese are not extremely favorable.
Faroese is the new Esperanto.
If a language community is a network, then network effects dictate that the value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of speakers.
Icelandic, with 6½ times more speakers, would be 40 times more valuable than Faroese — but (literally) a million times less useful than English.
Especially since neither luxembourgish och lichtensteinish exists.
Luxembourgish exists, but is not typically used–they use German and French most of the time.
But yes, there is no Liechtensteinish.
However, I think I understand the original intent: it can be argued that it isn’t the number of speakers, but the value of the resources controlled in a language that defines the value of a language.
For a single language American the most useful language depends on the person’s interests, geographical location, and manner of life.
In much of the Southwest and West Spanish might be most useful, but in places like San Francisco there might be a good reason to learn some Chinese, the same could be said for the Northern bits of New England, where French has some real utility.
An American who doesn’t travel much has little reason to learn a foreign language unless they live in very particular places, such as along the border or are in certain professions such as the restaurant industry or building trades, but even here it isn’t always Spanish.
If one is interested in reading the classics, Latin can be extremely useful, if you are religious: Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, or Arabic may be the wisest choice. These can be pretty obscure, I know someone who became fascinated with the Ancient European Celts and already being moderately proficient in Latin ended up studying German to follow this interest. I hat this sort of “which language would it be best to learn?” question. Learning a language, especially as a monolingual adult is very difficult, so you better be very committed and interested.
The best and most effective reasons I have seen to learn a new language late are necessity (from immigration or business), a spouse or other romantic relationship, or religion. Notice all of these are things that elicit strong devotion.
I would like to point out that my native language is not a ‘declining product’ as techreseller would have it. The Faroese language has only become stronger over time ever since written Faroese, which had been languishing for centuries, was resurrected on a firm grammatical foundation in 1888.
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