I feel like a lot of Duolingo discourse should acknowledge that the reason that they have basically every national European language on there is not because of a “European bias” but because of refugees. A huge number of refugees in Europe use it to learn the language of whatever country they’re moving to or living in; the site even talks about it in the “fun facts” on their waiting screen. Languages like Swedish and Norwegian aren’t there primarily for Minnesotans getting in touch with their heritage, but for African and Asian refugees in Sweden and Norway, and indeed they make up the majority of people using Duolingo to learn those languages. The site does need to add more non-European languages; it’s gradually doing this, it recently added Zulu, Xhosa and Kreyòl, and its focus on indigenous languages like Navajo and Hawaiian is especially commendable, but there are still some glaring omissions of major world languages from Asia and Africa that need to be addressed — and even “they’re edited by users” doesn’t cut it with how many people worldwide speak those whom they could seek out! But the fact that a free language app is doing its best to provide the language learning services that those actual countries routinely deny desperately-poor refugees is a good thing actually. Reserve your rage for the inclusion of Esperanto, Klingon and High Valyrian over Tagalog and Farsi.
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