Hi all, my name is Mark, I’m from Ireland and now that I’m out of university one of the main goals of my “real adult” life is to develop my language skills! My main 3 priorities are Irish (Gaeilge, NOT “Gaelic”), French, and Arabic (specifically Levantine/Shami). I am a humanitarian as well as a passionate human rights advocate – as someone from a country where the native language was almost entirely wiped out, I am extremely passionate about languages that face deliberate persecution and would love to see Lingonaut become a space to see resources for such languages be provided, and for people to learn! Specifically, I would love to see languages like Kurdish (Kurmanji), Uyghur, Catalan, Basque, Galician, and the Celtic languages (Irish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton)!

One of Ireland’s most famous revolutionaries, Pádraig Mac Piarais (Patrick Pearse) said that “tír gan teanga, tír gan anam” – a country without a language is a country without a soul. I think a lot of us are here because we can see that the folks over at Duolingo have clearly sold their souls on the alter of profit-seeking, and I’m hoping all the best for this amazing endeavour. Best of luck to everyone involved!!!