Conlang Critic Critic Episode One: jan Misali

I wanted to make a simple April Fool's video reviewing every episode of Conlang Critic by jan Misali, but it turned into an hour and a half long nightmare. Enjoy.
Daniel Swanson's channel: / @dangswan
kay(f)bop(t) for Travelers: • kay(f)bop(t) For Trave...
Lichen the Fictioneer's channel: / @lichenthefictioneer
Aronora's video about Sambahsa: • Sambahsa | Language Sh...
Viossa Discord: / discord
jan Misali's channel: / @hbmmaster
My utmost thanks to Daniel Swanson, Jack Eisenmann (aka Esperantanaso or Ostracod), Dr Olivier Simon, and Nikomiko for their appearances in this video!
Intro 0:00
Lojban 1:18
aUI 4:01
Vötgil 5:21
Láadan 7:57
Ygyde 9:44
Ithkuil 11:35
Wolflandic 13:29
kay(f)bop(t) 14:52
Klingon 18:15
Na’vi 20:23
Fluidlang 22:00
Toki Pona 24:02
Esperanto 28:06
Ido 30:54
Volapük 32:22
Dovahzul 34:01
Interlingua 35:21
Solresol 36:50
Loglan 38:20
Zese 40:23
Futurese 42:55
Lingua Franca Nova 43:58
Interslavic 45:10
Folkspraak 47:07
Dothraki 49:04
Novial 50:33
IS 53:41
Drsk 55:10
Sambahsa 56:52
Sindarin 1:01:15
Poliespo 1:06:16
Kēlen 1:07:42
Lingwa de Planeta 1:10:06
Viossa 1:14:00
Iqlic 1:23:38
Quenya 1:25:55
High Valyrian 1:27:22
Outro 1:28:28

[@HBMmaster]

conlang critic critic critic when

[@LinguaPhiliax]

welcome to conlang critic critic critic, the critic that gets critics wrong about your critic critic.

[@nzubechukwu]

Oh my golly! It’s Misali!

[@anotparticularlynotableguy]

Stolen comment

[@arjunamin9399]

There are thousands of people who would sit through 3 hours of that

[@devofficialchannel]

So, uhh...what happened with the Blissymbolics episode?

[@proxyprox]

16:43 If someone makes a jan Misali iceberg "jan Misali gaslit the creator of kay(f)bop(t)" needs to be an entry

[@adriangd5040]

yes

[@frank_calvert]

and an even deeper entry about what ipa chars those chinese characters might be

[@doubobo1]

Now we need Jan misali to make conlang critic critic critic

[@pananaOwO]

Yes

[@eboone]

the capitalization in "Jan misali" is destroying me

[@Designed1]

The part about how jan Misali accidentally gaslit the creator of kay(f)bop(t) for almost half a decade because his computer couldn't render IPA symbols is actually hilarious

[@official-obama]

timestamp: 16:43

[@elliottsampson1454]

the intro should have been "... the show that gets facts wrong about your favorite show that gets facts wrong about your favorite conlang"

[@nyuh]

ah, one of the criticisms that will appear in conlang critic critic critic. the show that gets facts wrong about your favourite show that gets facts wrong about your favourite show that gets facts wrong about your favourite conlang.

[@felipevasconcelos6736]

Conlang Critic Critic Episode Two: B. Gilson

[@SlaVinkMichels]

Does anyone actually know who B. Gilson is?

[@thelollykitty]

Conlang Critic Critic Episode Three: Otto Jespersen

[@jan.akisa.]

@@SlaVinkMichels some guy with an esperanto podcast or something

[@sketch4363]

I literally started jumping up and down with excitement when you said “Im a bit excites, because this episode is a first in a few ways”

[@AgmaSchwa]

Help

[@s1ddh4r7h.p]

nguh

[@ZBisson]

nguh

[@soIzec]

nguh

[@opiret44]

nguh

[@_LBH_]

nguh

[@ashleybyrd2015]

good april fools joke, you're only 353 days early.

[@thatoddshade]

…or 11 days late.

[@asheep7797]

⁠@@thatoddshadeor 377 days late

[@mskiptr]

_mod 365:_ > They are literally the same picture

[@valentinaaugustina]

“overall i like this one more than the yaoi episode” is all i can hear when you talk about aUI

[@esavvysavokiii1277]

oh my god i'm so glad i'm not the only one

[@atlas16198]

I love yaoi!!!!!!!

[@valentinaaugustina]

@@atlas16198 i’m def a yuri fan but good for you!

[@maxiapalucci2511]

The artifexian section with the music was soul-healing

[@Designed1]

and then the nativlang section with the silence dragged out was soul-stealing

[@codenamepyro2350]

Ygyde islamophobia? What lore did I miss, someone fill me in

[@dihydrogen]

the official word for Islam is 'dangerous religious organization'. in fact, the ygyde dictionary is full of racism

[@tristensanz7058]

The word for islam is something like "dangerous organization" or something. I can't find its dictionary anymore

[@CobaltHammer-yb3hu]

Also indigenous American is called reddish person and gossip is feminine communications.

[@yummydragon8533]

​@@CobaltHammer-yb3hu "feminine communications" is crazy

[@enkor9591]

​@@tristensanz7058descriptive names are great 👍🏻

[@mitchmarq428]

13:44 it's more complicated than that. "inuit" refers to a specific family of tribes, and is not the correct word for some peoples covered by the slur. here at least the term "Alaska Native" is preferred

[@xaelly]

I am watching this and with all that comment from LingoLizard it feels like I am with a friend-conlanger watching jan Misali and not alone in the room in my own interests for however long

[@xaelly]

now I want to rewatch the conlang critic playlist for the second time

[@BabayChannel]

What do you mean only second

[@Liggliluff]

(26:10) Note the usage of "kili" (fruit) for multiple fruits and "pipi mute" (bug many) for multiple bugs. He only puts the plural on the second because English doesn't normally say "fruits" and only "fruit" but would say "bugs". But there's plenty of languages that commonly use fruit in plural, like Swedish.

[@yeetrepublic9142]

English says "fruits" though???

[@matthewe3813]

@@yeetrepublic9142 Fruit plural when talking about some actual fruit, like "I have some fruit" for a plate with fruit on it. If you are talking about TYPES of fruit, use use "fruits", such as "There are many fruits that grow on trees".

[@Liggliluff]

@@yeetrepublic9142 yes, but I'm taking about specifically the sentence made by jan Misali where he chose to use "fruit" as the plural, which was the main focus on my comment.

[@adrenalinevan]

almost like its basically impossible for your native language to slightly make itself obvious in some way if you speak an ial

[@Poopick]

I would guess that most language that perffer to inflect for plurality when the item is plural would do the same with "fruit". English just doesnt for some reason i guess

[@CrateSauce]

The amount of mic changes in jan Misali's series is insane lmao

[@juliangoulette7600]

Sidenote: When I started watching Conlang Critic, the latest episode out was the Kay(f)bop(t) one. That was my introduction to cursed conlangs, and I soon made Kay(h)use(g) as my first proper conlang. Much later on, when LingoLizard submitted their CCC2 lang Touching Grass, I soon submitted my own CCC2 lang RøTa as a first stab into competitive cursedlangery. When the CCC3 eventually starts, of course my lang for then will have to be more ambitious. Sidenote 2: I’m also someone with the NCVS, but unlike Misali: 1. My STRUT vowel is [ʌ] unironically 2. I have the cot-caught merger 3. Schwa is merged with KIT instead of STRUT [ɘ~ə]

[@TheStickCollector]

The unexpected crossover. Especially a series revival. Nice

[@wookielocks]

So enjoyed being interviewed for this!!! Thanks so much for the amazing job you've done to make this haha

[@Liggliluff]

(25:30) I also wake to criticise the use of ぴ over ひ for "pi" (and all other p- in there) for hiragana. I understand that ゜is used here to change what's in rōmaji is H to P, but tokipona doesn't use H, so you can just skip the ゜. You can just say that ひ is pronounced /pi/ in tokipona.

[@ookap-orsc]

i write toki pona in kana quite a lot, and i'll say many people including me use ひ (and other h-row kana as /p/)

[@Liggliluff]

@@ookap-orsc That's neat to hear that you're using hiragana, because it fits so well with toki pona. It's also neat to hear that people are using what's considered H in Japanese as P in toki pona, because that shows adaptation. That's pretty cool

[@protondium_8927]

33:18 WOW, the detail of removing the pauses between words when talking about a lack of pauses between words. A lovely detail!

[@MeNowDealWIthIt]

I disagree with the premise that "any conlang can be considered good if it follows its own goals". I think if a goal is not worth pursuing (e.g. an English-based IAL), then it's not a good language, even if it succeeds at that goal. (apologies if you mention this later in the video)

[@Sylverfysh02]

Yeah I think if you expand it to "If a language's goals are well thought through and sensible and the language follows those goals well, it's a good language" which still includes languages intended to be comedic (their goals are to be funny, the comedy is well thought through, they succeed at being comedic and funny in their particular way)

[@xavierreichel8254]

It's not quite that simple. "Any conlang can be considered good if it follows its own goals" is a reminder that, if someone intended to do a certain thing and they pulled it off well, then they've succeeded and that should be appreciated. You don't get to prescribe to someone what their goals should be, or criticise them for failing to do something they had no interest in. This mantra evolved out of the very early days of internet conlanging, particularly the listserv, because there very much was an era in the 90s and 00s of everyone criticising everyone else's conlangs purely because their own tastes and interests were different. I would caution you against the idea of assessing whether someone else's creative goals are "worth pursuing", but that's not what the phrase is about anyway. It's about not taking measures like "naturalism", "efficiency" or especially "beauty" and treating them as universally applicable avenues for criticism. I think more people would do well to remember that not just in conlanging, but all other art forms too.

[@stephenjohnson9745]

Found this literally the day after I finished every Conlang Critic video

[@stephenjohnson9745]

This only matters or is notable as a coincidence because this video was posted on the same day I finished watching Conlang Critic

[@TheLegend2T]

I can’t believe you’re ending the series so soon, I was hyped for the potential episodes on Otto Jespersen and B. Gilson

[@spcxplrr]

while i think the critique regarding anusvara is valid, i do agree with jan Misali in using in the hangulization. the and vowels are just combinations of and with . it also keeps better symmetry.

[@passerbypassinbi]

53:20 Globasa allusion! 1:13:41 second allusion let's goooo!!! Things I say with humorous intent but at least partially actually mean aside, this is a fantastic breakdown/highlight compilation/opinion piece with fact-checked addenda with basically nothing for me to complain about, especially seeing as this is the most new CC content I've seen since the infini-hiatus (which as cope I still tell myself will end once as many months have passed as there have been people who asked when the next episode will come out, as jan Misali had said on social media some years ago), making this easily the best critique critique I've ever watched so far. (If you ever find the time, though, I'd be very curious to hear what kinds of problems you have with Globasa)

[@arjunamin9399]

11:00 "Novicki is a very polish surname which explains the islamophobia" well he's not wrong

[@WhizzKid2012]

Nowicki

[@Concavenator128]

There's some irony in implying that someone is destined to be prejudiced against a demographic because of the part of the world they're from, though

[@Impasta_Tronic78]

I cannot wait for Lizard to release conlang critic critic critic critic to solidify the conlang critic inception

[@LingoLizard]

I literally had displayed in text in the first 6 SECONDS of the video to shorten my username to Lingo and not any other way (ie. not Lizard)

[@jandelion404]

Thank you for putting so much effort into this! My favourite parts were the interviews/statements from the conlangers. I also just really appreciated an outside opinion and overview on the conlang critic series in general

[@ImNetheN]

3:30 shouldve said "you silly billy"

[@GameTornado01]

I think this is one of my new favourite KZbin videos

[@kamalkrishnabaral]

Happy New Year! Also feels like Alexander Pope and Thomas Hearne rivalry😂.

[@soupisfornoobs4081]

Thank you for making this this is really good

[@modmaker7617]

30:04 kinda. Polish does kinda have /h/ as an allophone of /x/. I speak Polish natively. Also the orthography still has a /h/ and /x/ distinction even if in pronunciation they're allophones. /h/ - h; /x/ - ch

[@enkor9591]

Would most polish speakers be able to differentiate them though?

[@modmaker7617]

​@@enkor9591 Without learning it no

[@Vecderg]

44:37 nitpick but it should be compatible with those languages since the Elefen documentation says that h can be left silent if the speaker prefers (e.g. ba-amas instead of bahamas) while only being present in very few words, which is probably why jan misali didn't mention it, but i don't blame you for missing it for that reason lol anyway loved the video!! as someone who's also binged conlang critic, this felt like a nice sort of closure to a lot of the episodes that the original series kind of lacked, especially with the interviews. huge props to you for making it happen.

[@spegnagmaglorious3590]

I appreciate that you made this, I feel like you organized all the thoughts I’ve had at all for the past five years and put them in one video which is very helpful and useful

[@FairyCRat]

One moment of the Vötgil episode that I love and that not many people seems to talk about is when jan Misali demonstrates their proposed simplified phoneme inventory. Eet wuud saoond samseen laeek zees. Eevan zaoo eet maeet saoond shwans, eet eez steel almaoos kampleelee andastandabal too naeeteev eengleesh speekaz! Also one nitpick you missed is that Zamenhof's native language would've probably been either Russian or Yiddish, not Polish, which he learned later.

[@elemenopi9239]

15:24 prolangs jumpscare

[@wonderland4267]

25:27 te reo māori also has phonemic vowel length distinction, so surely you’d need to double this for those..?

[@joeyopenshaw]

Some analyses of Māori treat long vowels as two syllables (e.g. wāhine as wa/a/hi/ne, kūmara as ku/u/ma/ra), though this is usually not argued for ā, as it appears diphthongs (like in kāuri) and is far more common than any of the other long vowels. Accounting for long ā as a separate phoneme but not other long vowels and counting diphthongs as multiple syllables would put Māori at 66 distinct syllables (or 62, if you exclude wu, wo, whu, and who, which all only occur in loanwords).

[@im-radio]

the translation "moku ko pi pona" at 27:16 is ungrammatical, it should be "moku ko pona"

[@emilyvalentine4565]

KZbin gives me the option to translate this to English, and the only change is "moku ko pona" becomes "moku ko pi pona"

[@jerry-the-genius]

Same lol​@@emilyvalentine4565

[@Sean-of9rs]

lol youtube doesn't know how to handle toki pona at all

[@MeNowDealWIthIt]

You should make a video on B. Gilson

[@PfyscheStyx]

great video! although just so you know the links to the channels in the description seem to be broken

[@grilha]

overall, this episode isn't good. it spends its time making petty nitpicks, and criticising things that based on conlang critics goals (getting facts wrong) don't need criticism.

[@sus-kupp]

conlang critic critic critic

[@diegogarcia8033]

Thank you. I thought I was the only one who thought this way about that series

[@DecoAoreste]

Love this. Watched all of it. Thank you! As a fellow long-time fan of Conlang Critic, I have my own opinions of the episodes. Poliespo is my #1, it is absolutely hilarious how Misali just craps all over it, and for good reason. I agree Sambahsa is great as well, but the verbs part with the screwed-up audio was extremely annoying. I get it, it was on purpose, but still annoying. Viossa definitely needs to be higher, that stuff is awesome. High Valyrian absolutely needs to be dead last. It was really painful to watch and I haven't watched it a second time.

[@kidkangaroo5213]

Me after 30 minutes of watching this, in my best Lethal Weapon impression: "I'm getting too neurotypical for this shit"

[@LinguaPhiliax]

More than the endless void of nothingness, which has a distinct colour of slate-blue.

[@Greeen7771]

Incredible

[@weepingscorpion8739]

I love this episode. There were a few moments where I definitely wanted to shout "Shots fired!" but you guys probably know which moments those are so I won't specify them now. Also, biggest what the h3ck moment: ranking of the Iqlic episode. Did I miss something there? But yeah, awesome video, man.

[@norude]

can you please make a playlist?

[@krishacz]

BUT WHEN BILLY RAY WALDON-

[@Ramanuj_Sarkar]

16:50 Thanks for this. I loved learning this.

[@Sean-of9rs]

you should make episode 2 on anthony mccarthy

[@chao3948]

some of these criticisms feel like cinemasins trying to meet the "100 things wrong with blank" quota

[@Ransok_Bukaj]

53:20 Can someone list the languages which these flags correspond to, please?

[@beyondobscure]

things heating up in the inception community

[@__zwischen__]

37:58 is that the Solresol word for "banger"?

[@drdca8263]

Would it be weird to compare your voice to that of Icely Puzzles? (Or at least, when both are sped up. I usually don’t watch long videos at 1x, and maybe I wouldn’t make the comparison if watching at 1x speed) (Just to be clear: this is not meant as a criticism at all. I was just reminded. And maybe the comparison doesn’t make sense and I’m just being dumb.)

[@the_cheese_cultist]

I thought this was gonna be a joke video but it's an hour long amazing

[@Tophatted]

As I continue to watch Conlang Critic Critic, I'd like to congratulate you on doing so well in the latest EWOW episode! Good job, Stealthy!

[@joannasthings]

im a bit excited

[@Aerostarm]

39:08 the nerd picture is so accurate!

[@icloudkkk3925]

I on esperanto part. And about /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ in portuguese, both do exist but /tʃ/ its more commun for exemple the world tchau (bye) or atchim normaly is represented as [tch], and /dʒ/ /tʃ/ also apper on un-stressed sylabbles as allophones of /d/ and /t/, so most of the ppl say /tʃi.ɡɾe/ or /dʒia/

[@adamkh0r]

29:24 Punjabi does have [ʒ] which is written ژ in Shahmukhi and ਜ਼ in Gurmukhi. There isn't a difference between the [z] and [ʒ] consonant in Gurmukhi script, but it can be pronounced. Most dialects in India which use Gurmukhi script simplify it and reduce [dʒ], [z], and [ʒ] to just one sound, [dʒ], which is also common in some dialects of Hindi and other South Asian languages as Hindutva ideology ties [z] and [ʒ] to Islam and tries to distance itself from those sounds.

[@im-radio]

WOOHOO !!

[@janLokan]

this is my new favourite video

[@flirora]

Love this.

[@noahnaugler7611]

pi generally shouldn't be used unless it contains two content words. moku ko pi pona is just moku ko pona with an extra syllable that may hinder auditory parsing

[@Zarugoza5969]

Družina Mjau Mjau!

[@davie53]

Amazing video! I know I sure wouldn't want to make such an incredibly long video, but making it good as well!? Well, I did spot one mistake, but still. Only one! 1:25:51 So, you say that (in terms of the episodes) toki pona (15) > Iqglic > Futurese (17), yet you place it between the IS Language (13) and Folkspraak (14). Not to mention the fact that Drsk is already between toki pona and Futurese. My guess is that you accidentally read the part for ranking Drsk when recording this part. Oh well, it's just an April Fools video, and a mistake is bound to happen in a 1:30:00 long video. What do you mean it's one second shorter?

[@ookap-orsc]

love to see one of the best linguistics youtubers around recognizing that toki pona exists!!

[@konokiomomuro7632]

56:26 a tiny mistake on Thai vowel combination /ɯː/: it should be กือ as a special case for the rhyme /ɯː/ with no coda.

[@neko2718_]

Omg why this video is so underrated?

[@Roaxial]

ive never watched a conland critic before, but since you put them in first place I'll have to give it a watch

[@TSBoncompte]

*considers making a video called conlang critic critic critic*

[@almazu2770]

such an iconic

[@meowtherainbowx4163]

11:30 The what episode? /j

[@WhizzKid2012]

38:51 like in Gothic?

[@dayalasingh5853]

29:42 as a Punjabi, thank you

[@hylus5d10]

Some day I'll finally learn Lojban.

[@minirop]

35:55 probably to show genitive is the odd one (but he didn't put it after reflexive because it still has "tu" in common with nominative.)

[@paper2222]

26:29 this is not a valid critic, as the video was clearly made before ku came out

[@amperscore]

Possibly the nichest video to ever exist. Banger though

[@ygemkaa]

1:12:45 Isn't that just because 'das Mädchen' is a diminutive noun?

[@user-er8yz9xh5x]

(25:11 Old Japanese had something like 90 syllables, definitely less than Toki Pona's 92)

[@tony58300]

so hyped to watch this whole thing, based lingolizard!

[@almazu2770]

7:13 I believe even PIE didn't have them

[@rainbs2nd957]

47:40 I also feel extremely uncomfortable with that campfire sound effect, I absolutely hate that.

[@eyeless_person]

6:16 nahuatl mentioned 10/10 video

[@WhizzKid2012]

10:30 also Japanese can't distinguish between f and h

[@somebodyuknow2507]

Eh, by now with exposure to English loanwords, they seem to make the distinction correctly with words like fight ファイト and fire ファイヤ, I have never heard those pronounced with ha instead of fa. Same for fi, fo, fe. The only one that can genuinely be ambiguous is the fu

[@joelsavoie8641]

I think I manifested this by listening to Jule's covers of Tokipono or whatever it is over and over today

[@gaymoder]

i'm a bit excited!

[@mothgirl326]

Bro missed the oppotlrtunity to be StealthySquamate :(

[@paper2222]

1:25:46 you said iqlic is better than futurese, but worse than toki pona, and proceeds to put it between is and folkspraak

[@pulverizedpeanuts]

3:37 ironic

[@0Aquamelon]

I loved the Sambahsa episode, and despite Misali's criticisms: I really like the idea of Sambahsa! That being said, I feel that Oliver Simon's criticism of the conlang critic episode isn't fair. - He says that jan Misali wanted a simple anglicization, when he hates anglicization, see Vötgil. - He says that jan Misali is "trying to get a throat cancer" when pronouncing the voiced uvular fricative, but that phoneme is hard for English speakers to pronounce. - it is not necessary to learn a language to review it. he uses jan Misali's videos on video games as an indication that he lost interest in Sambahsa? Misali mentions that "I don't want a piano dropped on me" mentioning that he doesn't like how much effort goes into learning the language. but: this isn't a criticism of the language as a whole but a personal criticism. Sambahsa is meant to be hard to learn. If jan Misali says that's bad, then I'd have an issue with that, but I don't believe he was treating that issue as a fatal flaw. - "there are only three irregular verbs and the conjugations of the other ones can be deduced from their shape." There's a good chance jan Misali overcomplicated the verbs here, and didn't look deep enough into them, but it's also hard to believe there's an accessible method of learning verbs if he did a month of research and didn't find them. The verbs may be as complicated as jan Misali mentions. Also: 3 irregular verbs? why is it necessary to have any when the goal is to have *regularized indoeuropean*? I want to be clear also that I don't want to shut down Oliver Simon's right to criticize him, and I'm not saying his feelings are invalid. I feel bad that there's a famous review on a project he worked hard on, and feels that said review doesn't do the project justice. People on the internet also may be overly critical when an internet man says he doesn't like something. jan Misali went pretty in depth with Sambahsa, and I believe his thoughts at the end of the video were more personal opinions, and him being subjective, not objective. Perhaps subjective opinion should be left out of Conlang Critic, but that'd require Misali to be a bit less of a personality on his own show. I guess the best way to have handled it was to be clear about when he was being subjective and when he was being objective.

[@moldybongwater3808]

overall i like olivier simon less than lingolizard, making him the second best conlang critic critic reviewed so far.

[@AnnaColon3]

YOOOOO prolangs reference

[@Nerdy1729]

26:20 i disagree with this assessment. Firstly, if you're judging past them for not knowing the dictionary would come out, i blame PRESENT you for not knowing that yet another book has come out, canonising 2 more words, su (name of the book) and majuna (old). The language is meant to have no "common compounds" and if they exist, their meanings can be intuited. like, sitelen tawa musi is a common compound, but fun moving drawings is pretty clear to me. In fact, you literally make this point yourself at 27:05!! one quantity above life towards would actually be something like "nimi wan nanpa lon sewi pi ale tawa" good foam food would be "moku ko pona", the pi there is ungrammatical Also, the country names aren't meant to be treated as a "oh you have to memorise these". You derive them instead. In fact, i have found many inaccuracies in the document you pulled up, such as the fact it doesn't even have all the countries (small island nations are ommited, but also large ones like mongolia, kazakhstan, qatar, north korea, drc or roc, the list goes on) it has some decidedly non-countries (like gujarat) adn some of the tokiponizations (ways to derive the names) are just wrong.

[@xavierreichel8254]

I was about to comment exactly this list of corrections, but I scrolled down to check and found you'd already given them. There are a lot of problems with and mistakes in this video but I let them all slide as April Fools casualness until... the Toki Pona section...

[@zaglerelkaz]

"that is the whole point of the darn conlang you goofball" i need to use the word "goofball" more