2023 Conlanger Census Review, ft. LingoLizard, Ætérnal, Kate the Pan Plate

Time to look at how conlangers have changed in the past year!
2023 Results Graphs: docs.google.co...
2023 Results Spreadsheet: docs.google.co...
#conlang #linguistics #language

[@Gamesaucer]

I can only imagine a few people took "None of the above" on the question about which language they speak to mean "Any language not listed above", in which case it's perfectly possible to select it alongside another option.

[@cheeseitup1971]

Finding out just how many people are 13 shortly followed by the sexuality question gave me some weird vibes lol On speaking signed languages, in my personal experience, I've exclusively seen the term "speak" in literature, education, and from ASL native laypeople. To my knowledge, you would just be changing it for the pedants :P

[@Gamesaucer]

Studies have shown that the age at which you stop acquiring language does not at all line up with brain development, and there's a fairly exciting new way of learning a language that has emerged from that called Automatic Language Growth. Apparently, it's trying to relate meanings across languages that gets in the way of language acquisition. The brain can do it automatically, but if you attempt to consciously study a language you disrupt that innate capability. So really what you need when learning a language seems to be exposure without explanation as to the meaning of what's being said. I think it's probably related to how your brain is wired when it comes to language in general; you can only become fluent when you stop translating everything in your head, when the word gets linked to the concept directly rather than indirectly via your native tongue. It's still at an experimental stage though, and it's not _completely_ successful, but for the people for whom it does work, it works _astoundingly_ well, getting them to speak in a way nearly indistinguishable from a native speaker in a fairly short amount of time.

[@pizzafox21]

for me it's also pretty fun, id just watch or listen to tons of content in German and every now and then id just randomly understand another word out of nowhere

[@skye1283]

i think its dumb that they included indoeuropean in the “what language families are you inspired by” question. sure, its technically a single language family, but its such a massively broad categorization that saying you made an IE-influenced conlang is only slightly more informative than just saying you made a conlang. it’s also bad because it means that families like germanic, romance, slavic, indoaryan, and celtic, all of which are unique families with their own interesting aesthetics and traits, don’t get any representation in the survey

[@xiaolin867]

>indoeuropean (broad category) is included in survey >other language families (specifics) get excluded from survey Indo-European Chads just can't stop winning

[@kori228]

Japonic wasn't even on the damn list 😂

[@abarette_]

How many groups exactly would you break it down to? Would you separate Baltic and Slavic? Would you separate Nordic from Germanic? Would you separate Indic from Iranic?

[@sicilanguageist]

2:01:27 It is a slur, but Inuit is just a subgroup of said family. The family is called Inuit-Yupik-Unangan (IYU)

[@AgmaSchwa]

Just checked, looks like you’re correct! They even changed the name of the Wikipedia article (most likely pretty recently). The change shall be made for next time.

[@Shareenear]

I have literally never heard the word "Eskimo" being said as a slur or treated as such. Also, how am I even supposed to remember this new long-ass name? 😖 Y'all need to chill out imho

[@sicilanguageist]

@@Shareenear Just because you haven't, it doesn't mean it isn't a slur. Inuit and Yupik people in Canada and Greenland have made it clear they don't want the term to be used, so there is no reason we should keep using it. It doesn't cost us much. The long-ass name is not for you, it's for linguists and other researchers, you can move on with your life

[@Shareenear]

@@sicilanguageist For something so clear, took it long enough to emerge 🤷‍♂️ I mean, sure, there are Inuit, Aleut and Yupik people, and likely some other related to them, and they have differences and it's a matter of simple politeness to call them by their proper names, maybe that's what are they upset about, and in that case it would make sense. But a slur? Who the hell says "Eskimo" as a slur? 💀 A few silly people thousands of kilome-I mean, miles away from me, and now everybody needs to change their speech, and in case, let's say, I talk about languages, mention that family and forget the name, I'm supposed to say something like "the family that must not be named" or "Inuit and co" or just "IYU", all because of them? 💀

[@cherrycolareal]

​@@Shareenear A few silly people?? You mean the group who has been referred to explicitly by that slur??

[@ZephyrysBaum]

I’m amazed at how similar lots of the people in the conlanging community are to me!

[@eggplant4367]

I thought the con in conlang was like the con in conman

[@I_Love_Learning]

I am a constructed man.

[@table5584]

@@I_Love_LearningI am a constructed struction = I am a constructed struction struction = I am a constructed struction struction structuon…

[@nirutivan9811]

31:05 Where I live we have Apprenticeships, which is something you can do instead of high school, but it's not really an equivalent of high school. I could imagine that people who did something like that chose "Other" in this question.

[@hydrashade1851]

about making the language feel more naturalistic and a world more lived in, creating profanity should be an answer choice, unless that counts as slang.

[@strawberryturtle1815]

i see a comment or two on the trans vs nonbinary distinction. trans is an umbrella term that includes nonbinary. anyone who says it is not an umbrella term is in fact wrong. as a trans and or nonbinary conlanger myself, i dont see the need for distinction in the question, as it is really a trans or non trans question. its like asking whether you like apples or oranges and someone complaining that you didnt specify red and green apples. sure theres a difference but their both apples.

[@ZephyrysBaum]

As a non-binary Demi boy, I am *not* trans, In my eyes trans is male to female, or vice versa, but each is entitled to their own views, speak for yourself next time.

[@strawberryturtle1815]

​@@ZephyrysBaum lol. trans means not gender assigned at birth, not a full 180. edit: it really isnt a debatable topic. this is well established.

[@ZephyrysBaum]

@@strawberryturtle1815 from the lgbtqia+ wiki: "Non-binary identities are included under the transgender umbrella as they are people whose gender differs from what they were assigned at birth. However, the two identities are distinct, and individuals do not need to identify as one term to be another.", also you shouldn't argue about what makes people comfortable or not, just respect that not al enbys identify as trans, and that some would like a distinction.

[@strawberryturtle1815]

@@ZephyrysBaum so the wiki agrees with me. Nonbinary is under the trans umbrella?

[@ZephyrysBaum]

@@strawberryturtle1815 read the second part

[@dymaxion3988]

Ok, this is a bit of a nitpick of all time, but lumping trans and NB together gets me almost slightly miffed. I’m isogender, which means I partially identify with my assigned gender, but not completely. I mean, technically answering ‘yes’ to the question is correct, but it doesn’t feel right. And saying ‘not sure’ feels even less right because it’s something I’m sure about. Anyway, I just figured if you’re good with adding demisexual next time, maybe you could also make the trans/NB question a little more specific

[@durkus8197]

Ok 😐

[@AgmaSchwa]

That’s a totally valid nitpick! I’ll add it to the list, haha.

[@abarette_]

the heck is demisexual

[@isaacthedestroyerofstuped7676]

​@@abarette_ Only experiencing sexual desire/attraction after a longstanding relationship has been established.

[@abarette_]

@@isaacthedestroyerofstuped7676 you serious?

[@PhantomKING113]

I think all the sexuality questions are gonna destroy this (not bc they're bad, but bc you could get quite a bit of hate for any mistakes). For example, this time your biggest mistake was probably grouping transexuality with being non-binary, which are quite different things (I mean... not entirely, but still quite different), and that shouldn't be a mistake because... well, it isn't that important for the conlang cenaus. I'd honestly do away with all these (perhaps keep a simplified sex/gender identity one, like the pronoun question, it works great!; not very long, and nobody expects you to list all pronouns). Also, nice census xd. Thx for making this, it's quite fun to participate and even more fun to see the results. (Maybe more language questions pls xd?) Oh, and, now that I think of it, in the same way that the geography question asked only for geographic area except for people from the US, which got further subdivided bc there's just so many, perhaps add options to subdivide the "what language families did you get inspiration from", subdividing maybe IE and Afroasiatic, or something. (speaking of the US thing... the education thing was kinda confusing bc the terminology changes quite a bit from country to country xd) Oh, and, pls, add the full lists of responses for open response questions, ik they are already in the document, but that's so cumbersome to access xd... I may go into the discord just to dump the lists of responses as .txt or something. So yeah, nice census, keep it going! (not like you need me to tell you xd) (and sry for bad English)

[@AgmaSchwa]

So the spreadsheet with the full list of responses should be that second link in the description! Also in regards to the sexuality/romanticity related questions, most people have been very reasonable in their requests for more options/specifications. I’ll keep reconfiguring those questions to be as efficient and inclusive as possible. As most people can tell, “efficiency” isn’t my strong suit, haha. Working on it! Glad you enjoyed the Census overall!

[@Gwahgwoh]

First