Conlang Critic: Lingwa de Planeta

a review of the international auxiliary language Lingwa de Planeta, and an introduction to conlangs. that's right, thirty three episodes in, and I'm only NOW explaining what a conlang is! this one's for you, comments saying you don't understand what I'm talking about in the earlier episodes.
primary source: www.lingwadeplaneta.info/
the end theme, kulupu jan tenpo, was created in collaboration with Jules: / jules_skyster
check out David J. Peterson's videos about conlangs: / @dedalvs
00:00 - introduction
02:20 - phonology
08:56 - WtMCSLWCIIIwToTPIAL?
12:53 - phonology (continued)
16:24 - orthography
20:45 - grammar
28:18 - vocabulary
35:54 - spoken sample
36:40 - rating Lingwa de Planeta
/ hbmmaster
conlangcritic.bandcamp.com
seximal.net
/ hbmmaster
/ janmisali

[@romaios1609]

It only took 4 years but we finally got an introduction to the series

[@theEtch]

I think "conlang critic" is pretty self explanatory

[@balrogdahomie]

The French Fancie yeah I mean I got that but when i subbed a few months ago I had no fucking clue what a “syllabary” or “symmetric vowel inventory” is

[@lugeushqimi9135]

It is just so nice that he is explaining everything for the newcomers

[@instructionalvideos2309]

Better late than never. I've learnt many things thanks to this youtube channel and all the posters. Thank you all!

[@Tiedyeban]

It’s the show that gets facts wrong about your favorite conlang.

[@katiehedrickcomposer]

when I saw a conlang critic of almost 40 min, i thought this was gonna be the most intense roast of all time

[@jackdesy2127]

that would mean he slams it harder than vötgil. i thinks thats impossible

[@MisterHunterWolf]

@@jackdesy2127 poliespo

[@TheYoshi463]

Misterhunterwolf Poliespo made him so angry that he decided to do another video shitting on it

[@MisterHunterWolf]

@@TheYoshi463 really? was it patreon exclusive, because I only see the Conlang Critic episode.

[@TheYoshi463]

@@MisterHunterWolf KEKW That was a joke, obviously. But I guess pragmatics are sometimes hard to convey on the internet^^

[@MaroonNeptune]

Not gonna lie, I have been watching the conlang videos since the Vötgil one first came out with almost zero knowledge of linguistics. The way you just make sarcastic comments about glottal approximates actually being alveolar fricatives while assuming everyone just gets it is just part of the fun.

[@anselmschueler]

you mean when in the Ygyde episode he said "because /h/ sounds to much like /f/"?

[@ruecld]

im your 69th like yw

[@Flowtail]

Ive never had any idea what he was talking about either

[@zozzy4630]

I mean, just two episodes after I make fun of Jack Eisenman for ~ʎʅʅɐʇuǝpᴉɔɔɐ~ calling the sound /h/ a 'glotal approximant,' here I am very intentionally calling it a 'guttural non-stop obstruent' just so I can avoid having the chart look like *this*. U U U G G H H.

[@Frahamen]

You know what zese about not knowing what your talking about...

[@user-gz2er1hl5o]

As a native Mandarin speaker, I’m immensely impressed by your effort into pronouncing Mandarin as accurately as possible.

[@yalvar]

What conlang do Mandarin Speakers usually find easier to learn and pronounce?

[@Asymmetrization]

@@yalvar Im not a native speaker, but my Mandarin is pretty good and I'd say the easiest to pronounce would be toki pona. toki kepeken toki pona li pona tawa mi

[@harpywarpyowo]

@@Asymmetrization a! toki! mi sona e toki pona kin :D

[@basil4154]

Poles and Georgians must be very dehydrated

[@snailofkale]

is your pfp you? where on earth do you get a photography void

[@guaposneeze]

As a video game, Lingwa de Planeta is much worse than the original Mario Brothers, because it has no buttons.

[@kaif8281]

the gameplay sucks too, and it's graphics are terrible and only has 2 colors

[@sofia.eris.bauhaus]

just like hangman 🤔.

[@zionj104]

*uno reverse card*

[@Rotem_S]

It really makes you FEEL like a Eurocentrist conlanger

[@datavalisofficial8730]

The original mario brothers dont have any buttons XD the buttons are in the NES I am wooshing myself hard rn

[@SunroseStudios]

"they're the stops that don't" is the best joke since "so that's y"

[@zozzy4630]

Or so Zese...

[@sphynx7242]

"they're the Stops That Don't" is the best joke since the idiotic B. Gilson

[@luccaburgess]

@@sphynx7242 underated comment

[@weakspirit_]

@@luccaburgess to this day, we'll never know whoever this B. Gilson is

[@amoledzeppelin]

@@weakspirit_ Bruce R. Gilson

[@carlavlund5841]

“If language was food, then the five-vowel system would be water.” *holy shit that is way too true*

[@viracocha6093]

If languages were like drugs though, five vowels would be like weed. And the Danish vowel system would be datura.

[@KyrieFortune]

@@viracocha6093 does that mean Ubykh,a desd language with only two vowels, is the equivalent of puffing in cold air and pretending to smoke?

[@EduardoHerrera-fr6bd]

i was gonna comment on it HAHA

[@Wonderland_Jutomi]

@@EduardoHerrera-fr6bd same here pff

[@hollyfelis4197]

does that mean that, when you speak a language with 2 or 3 vowels like Arabic, you're drinking exclusively rubbing alcohol?

[@the_cheese_cultist]

when your main show is less popular than a video about a paper and pencil game often played in schools

[@servantofaeie1569]

its still under the umbrella of "language" though

[@jackalope2302]

Well, who in the Anglospere hasn't played Hangman?

[@Man-cc1ot]

It's sad

[@jojogape]

i hope this doesn't affect the channel negatively because these vids are great for conlang inspiration. artifexian is nice but i like the lowkey, minialistic yet straightforward delivery in this channel

[@10thletter40]

Me: enjoying all the vids :>

[@gooball2005]

Side Note: "Mädchen" (girl) is only neuter in German because it is diminutive; all diminutive nouns are neuter in German.

[@draco5991rep]

Der Jüngling Der Schößling Der Däumling Der Winzling and so on

[@lewissnow8031]

the -ling words arent diminuitives. the words you chose describe small people because the first part of the word has the meaning or connotation of small.

[@DarkrarLetsPlay]

@Scythero: I will have to correct you another time. „Magd“ is the original form, not „Maid“. The g turned into an i or vanished after vowels and before t/d. gitregidi → Getreide.

[@devenscience8894]

In learning German, it was handy to learn that any word ending in "chen" has the neuter "das" article.

[@gillablecam]

@Hi!Score Thanks for that clarification! It's a great example of how languages usually have a good underlying reason behind something, though that doesn't change how unintuitive it is that the word for "a small woman" is not grammatically feminine haha

[@cookiequeen5430]

I appreciate that I get extra treatment as a new subscriber. Now I am suddenly interested in a topic I didn't know existed.

[@conlangus9966]

Hope your journey is going well

[@lia6771]

i've watched way more Conlang Critic episodes than i should considering i barely know anything about the inner workings of linguistics i'll be pretty hyped if i actually get stuff now

[@grenien4109]

same, gonna have to rewatch them all

[@Rowlesisgay]

I watched so much conlang critic (and biblaridian) that i consider myself "'intelligent" enough to co-build a conlang. So far its, uh, unable to tell if its analytical or fusional.

[@BBeret]

"Dan way yu kwesti me?" sounds like a futuristic Jamaican to me.

[@romaios1609]

In the grim darkness of the grimdark future, there is only Jamaican

[@pierreproudhon9008]

Heil Jamaica

[@csolisr]

Considering that Lidepla is a creole and Jamaican creole is also, well, a creole?

[@AuntBibby]

Grandmaster DeeJay sends his regards.... *SOBAT KICK!!!!!!!* OOH-OOh-Ooh-ooh-ooh......

[@gayvideos3808]

Hermes from futurama

[@appleislander8536]

"I don't think an IAL can ever be good" English: why does it need to be good?

[@sherriee]

if only english was a smarter language.

[@EnigmaticLucas]

If English had a spelling reform, it would be a lot easier for non-natives to learn. The grammar of English is actually simple. The highly irregular spelling is what makes it hard.

[@1Cr0w]

@@EnigmaticLucas Things that are hard about english which speakers familiar with the language usually miss (aside from spelling, everybody knows the orphograthy): - just because the words don't change much in form does not make the grammar easy. The precise placement of a word (especially adverbs) can and frequently will alter a sentence's meaning, sometimes dramatically (typical example: place the word *only* in any of the indicated slots: He _ told _ her _ that _ he _ loved _ her, and watch as the meaning shifts in nontrivial [yes, learnable, but not trivial] and sometimes drastic ways) - words not changing form ("simple" grammar) to indicate their role in the sentence can indeed make things harder, as seen in garden-path sentences like "The old man the boat" - humongous and disjointed vocabulary: English has extreme amounts of extremely specific words that are not (or not regularly/not within english) connected to any other english words. This is because english usually prefers to steal words from other languages (mostly, but not exclusively, latin, greek and french, sometimes german, italian and spanish), rather than meaningfully deriving them from basic/preexisting vocabulary. Also, usage of meme-words outside a humorous context (e.g. thagomizer, permanent ironic usage of awful and terrific) does not make things easier. I.e. English morphology is extremely irregular and disjointed (contrast e.g. Arabic, Finnish or German with their extensive, largely regular and productive morphologies) - English, as a world language with a real-world history, features all kinds of registers (not talking about dialects), which due to the prior point about vocabulary, can sometimes be fairly disjunct in terms of what words are used at all. This can extend into grammar as well (e.g. intensifier -ass, as in big-ass chair) Overall: English grammar may be fairly simple (and english is extremely concise, which is a big plus for an IAL), but that does not render the language even remotely easy. You can usually make yourself understood fairly easily, but understanding what english-speakers say/write can be quite a challenge (which, looking at the 2nd amendment, is a problem not limited to L2-speakers).

[@thefakepie1126]

@@EnigmaticLucas I don't you should change a language to make it work as an IAL , it seems a bit like sacrificing cultural value to get international value to me , I don't think doing a spelling reform on english just to make it easier to non-native speaker is a wise decision , I would prefer to just straight up not use that language as an IAL , just my opinion

[@woobilicious.]

Because if you're designing an IAL it needs to be better than English. Otherwise we can just use English.

[@ARVash]

When you said "stress is the difference between incite and insight" my brain broke a little.

[@rosiefay7283]

Indeed. English has many pairs of words with identical *underlying* pronunciations to which different stress patterns have been imposed, thus resulting in different patterns of vowel reductions. For example "project" (n., v.), "record" (n., v.). But this pair incite/insight is the first I've come across where no vowels are reduced, so stress is the only difference in their pronunciations. Thanks, Jan!

[@maximkovalkov1334]

@@luelou8464 That's not stress though

[@jhoughjr1]

that is witty af

[@ygemkaa]

​@@rosiefay7283wrong. Record and record, as well as project and project do have differences other than stress. The unstressed syllables have the schwa vowel, and the stressed syllables the other vowel. The vowels are different in the words. So no, stress is not the only difference.

[@player17wastaken]

@@ygemkaathey mentioned that, though.

[@__cornflake__4252]

"if languages are food, the 5 vowels system is water." Jan Misali, 2020

[@fupta6449]

Gaming Studios arabic has only 3... it all makes sense now 👹🏜🏜

[@2half1whole46]

That's not how you capitalize "jan"

[@kirilvelinov7774]

7 vowels are like Fanta Plus the E and O with circumflex

[@artifactU]

english iz severely dehydrated

[@elliottcepin2372]

Shoutout to all the, “cute frauds,” out there!

[@pierreproudhon9008]

I fraud, I cute

[@samsonblack]

*high five*

[@alexnobody1]

"How would you explain what 'the' means?" Nouns in English are informed slightly by a presence or lack of "articles." Plural words usually have no articles ("cats") and singular usually have the article "a". ("a cat." It becomes "an" if the noun begins with a vowel sound. "an apple." "an hourglass." The distinction between words beginning with an H that are vowel-sounds or not vowel-sounds is beyond the scope of this explanation) The article "the" is used to show that the noun in question is unique or specific. "Did you feed the cat?" implies that there's a particular cat, probably one we own or are otherwise responsible, but only one such cat. "Did you feed the cats?" now implies there's a finite but plural set of cats we are responsible for. "Did you feed a cat?" would be a strange sentence, implying that there isn't any particular cat that might've been fed. "Did you feed cats?" would be even odder. "Bonus points if you can explain 'that' as well!" The word "that" is used almost exclusively for extreme clarity, in my experience, and is usually accompanied by a visual gesture, such as pointing. "Did you feed the cat?" "Which cat?" "THAT cat," and you point at the cat you're referring to. It's a clarifying word, usually used in response to questions, or to select one option from a list of possibilities. "What kind of soda do you want?" "Uhhh I dunno, what do you have?" "We have Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Canada Dry, Dr. Pepper-" "That one! The Dr. Pepper!" (I know I'm way late to this game, but I couldn't pass up a chance to play along. ^^; )

[@Vitorruy1]

imo those nice explanations envolving concrete entities go out of the window when talking about abstract things

[@Monica-br8pi]

Very concise explanation, but you did prove the point being made. A complete explanation would not be short nor simple. A new speaker may still have trouble learning to make the distinction.

[@kilmameri]

this is p much exactly how my english teachers used to explain "the" to us! but then we come to the issue of When is a noun spesific and identifiable enough to need "the". there's Denmark, a name. but then The Netherlands. is there "the" before Atlantic ocean? and why does sun need "the", is sun a name we gave to the star? so yes, good job explaining this but its still just as vibe based as ny other "extra feature" like subjective direction (left right forward) or gendered or polite pronouns (higher social status female vs young bitch of a boy who is your friend)

[@enkor9591]

It can be really hard for non-native English speakers to understand how articles works and we tend to mess this up a lot

[@wesleyrajpara6023]

I know this is a year-old comment, but... You did a really good job at explaining those words, but I'd like to put their linguistic definitions here for you and everyone reading this thread: The word "the" is what's known as an article. There's two types of articles: definite and indefinite. Of those "the" is the definite article, meaning when placed before a noun it implies that the object the noun refers to is already known by the listener. In some languages, they agree with the noun's plurality or case. Think Spanish "el"/"los" and "la"/"las" In English, "that" has two definitions. That can be used both as a distal demonstrative and as a relative pronoun. When used as a demonstrative, it signifies that the noun is far from the speaker. As a pronoun, it begins certain relative clauses, which are sentences that can be used as adjectives, modifying a noun, or as objects to verbs. That's why we get stuff like "that that" in English, the first "that" is a pronoun, and the second is a demonstrative.

[@AthHendrix]

"Hangman" got me in, but "Conlang Critic" is awesome and kept me around.

[@servantofaeie1569]

i was around months before hangman.

[@fernandobanda5734]

That's pretty cool. Did you have any interest in languages before?

[@AthHendrix]

@@fernandobanda5734 no actually! This channel got me into them and I have actually purchased a couple books on linguistics as a consequence. I'm almost done with the first one "archaeology and language" by Renfrew

[@yanxishan6575]

Same

[@jannovotny4797]

@@yanxishan6575 Wow, I would not expect you to be here!

[@kateanon8791]

I'm an ASL interpreter, so my approach to language is from a very different perspective, but I'm loving the conlang critic episodes. As someone who works professionally between signed and spoken languages, my immediate feeling about any spoken IAL is that it is going to require translation into some sort of signed language to be legible to all language users; why is it that no one has attempted to build from International Sign / Gestuno into an IAL? Several Deaf people have attempted to more thoroughly standardize IS into something more than a pidgin, but those attempts don't seem to have born much fruit. And I guess, in general, where are all the signed conlangs, interlang or artlang or otherwise?

[@stevenlaczko8688]

There's luka pona :)

[@kateanon8791]

@@stevenlaczko8688 you mean there's a signed version of Toki Pona and I'm only finding out about it now? I could have been studying this for the past two years! Lot of missed time to make up for

[@delusionaldreamer8332]

Hmm. I have a few ideas... I'm making a conlang of my own, and a signed version does seem like an idea, especially for a society where dance is so important.

[@DagothBob]

With signed languages, you have the problem where it is hard to draft it on a computer without the ability to efficiently encode signs into computer text (I'm not aware of an IPA equivalent for signing, if such a thing is even possible). I think this poses a fairly large hurdle for most conlangers, on top of the problem of most peoples unfamiliarity with signed languages.

[@tmnimusic]

@@DagothBobDavid Peterson has developed a sign language IPA (SLIPA) and written about it on his website :)

[@Lucafont]

Misali: uploads Me, dropping everything I'm doing: well, i gotta watch this. and it's in organised sections too on the video bar this is like luxury

[@unintentionallydramatic]

Clicked faster than you could say "Full glottal stop".

[@phunanon]

Missed the opportunity to say you clicked as fast as it takes to say /ʘ/

[@Citylight-yq8dp]

Full glottal sto- wow you beat me

[@glottalstop2080]

im not full

[@unintentionallydramatic]

@@glottalstop2080 lmao

[@stevethebarbarian9876]

I was looking forward to my first episode of Conlang Critic since I subscribed, but I was not expecting it to be *forty minutes long*

[@jslice6137]

heck, this is even surprising for longtime viewers

[@sphynx7242]

@@jslice6137 ikr

[@Epic_TanuKitty]

I'm natively Polish, but have spent a long time in England since I was young, so I think of myself as being completely fluent in both languages. I still can't explain what "The" means to a Polish person.

[@Tuberex]

I'm going to shop vs. Idę do the sklepu

[@spaghettiisyummy.3623]

Explaining Articles to People who don't speak a Language with Articles is nearly impossible.

[@praetorfenix69]

Can I get a shirt that just says "rjeinrlwey" on it?

[@kornsuwin]

69 likes

[@anselmschueler]

yes whats the most commonly spoken language whose consonant inventory is incompatible with that of this particular international auxiliary language is back, wohooo!

[@Strauss-]

big fan of wtmcslwciiiwtotpialib!

[@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046]

It was always there, even in the other 2 IAL videos

[@Liggliluff]

(10:00) You said that this test was meant to see if _monolingual_ speakers would need to learn a new sound. However, the number of speakers you use for English speakers is the _total_ number of speakers, which includes second language English speakers. It would make more sense to use _first/native_ speakers of English; while this still doesn't result in only monolinguals, it's at least more accurate. So the top list of languages is Chinese, Spanish then English.

[@spiderwishing]

40 minute conlang critic episode? be still my heart!

[@BLiu1]

rjienrlwey is back with a vengeance!

[@Mason-vf6bz]

Hello my fellow cute fraud, I would like to inform you that there ARE "radio shows" (it's a podcast) that are in toki pona!

[@the_cheese_cultist]

now you confused all the people that came from the hangman video

[@amoledzeppelin]

Seme li sin?

[@totallynotjeff7748]

DaIlY rAdIo sHoWs?

[@smonkk8556]

i genuinely find myself wonderering how that guy is doing quite frequently. whats he up to right now. did he ever become less pedantic and weird? hell, is he even alive? - he did say hes over 70 after all. mysteries

[@MrShyguyRS]

Seth Dugan I think the commenter is referring to an Esperanto Elitist who commented on previous videos. He’s the pinned comment on the Esperanto, Poliespo, and Toki Pona videos I believe

[@cluelesswanderer]

Pointing out how difficult it would be to explain what “the” means and the difference between “the” and “that” actually broke my brain. It seems so simple but every time I try to define it like “well, ‘that’ is used in the sort of context in which you would point to something to refer to it specifically whereas ‘the’ is used to describe something that there IS only one of” but then I have to backpedal and say “except ‘the’ can also be used to describe one specific object like ‘that’ but only if it was previously mentioned which thing you are referring to or if it is generally understood which thing you are talking about” but I guess the way that makes most sense to distinguish them to me is to say that ‘that’ is more accusatory than ‘the’ which doesn’t really explain it at all to someone who doesn’t already know what I’m talking about so again I’m stumped. Not to mention I’ve used the words ‘the’ and ‘that’ in this comment in ways where even I am unsure as to why they are used that way or how I would begin to explain how the words are used in a myriad of different contexts.

[@a___ab___b9896]

😄

[@MuttFitness]

Pretty sure the injustice a short hand for that.

[@PandaTheLesser]

"He said that that that that that boy said was used correctly."

[@Pablo360able]

hot take: “the” is a topic marker.

[@ulrikof.2486]

Cats are nice = in general, as a type. A cat is crossing the street = a certain one, unknown to me. The cat is sleepy = a certain one which is just around me, my cat or my friend's etc. This/that cat is black = a certain cat singled out from several cats being around.

[@BeatButton]

The audio for this one is kind of rough. Lots of cutting the last sounds in your sentences off, especially when it ends with "languages" or another plural.

[@Liggliluff]

And there was at least one sentence where the sound was cutting through the whole thing. Like he tried to reduce the pauses so it went by faster; but it made it so some words cut out some sound from each other.

[@leenaf8322]

I'm really glad your getting a bigger audience, I've been watching and really enjoying your stuff since June of 2018. Congrats man, you deserve it

[@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046]

yep, I agree, been subbed since the same time too.

[@ivanklimov7078]

on the topic of "the" i am russian, and the way i explain "the" and "a" is that it's just a thing that you often put before words, "the" roughly meaning that you introduce a certain thing or person or refer to some already established thing or person, kinda like the word "that" which has a direct translation to russian. the difference between "the" and "that" i explain by saying that "that" can be used to point to something that haven't been mentioned or acknowledged previously, whereas "the" can only be used when the thing that it's used with is already established. the difference between "the" and "a" is that "the" usually refers to a certain concrete thing or person, and "a" refers to the general class of that thing. i admit that this can feel somewhat arbitrary to a russian speaker, but it's quite easy to get used to.

[@anarchobeanism]

I though I had a good understanding of conlang concepts through some research and context clues, but I appreciate the introduction here because I realized that some if what I though I understood about linguistics was incomplete. Thanks

[@robdoghd]

u know it’s been a long time coming when the first “requested by” names are Fishy and me

[@riccardoorlando2262]

Let us feed the Gorithm, and welcome the newcomers! Conlanging is fun, as long as your language doesn't get featured here!

[@flyingstonemon3564]

_Nice_

[@dijawez]

i feel like you should base WtMCSLWCIIIwToTPIAL off of first language speakers rather than total speakers since there are so many second language speakers of a second language that still struggle with certain phonemes; like i know many a german that can speak english but not many that can properly articulate "really rural squirrel"

[@KyrieFortune]

That might actually plummet a lot of languages because for example, Han Chinese isn't the first language of many Chinese people but a second language they learn in school - a decent chunk might even learn it as a third language, if they live in Quangdong where Cantonese Chinese is more used but they have yet another native language.

[@mickrobertson7782]

Man, I can't pronounce "rural", and I'm American.

[@nahometesfay1112]

@@mickrobertson7782 Me too. I usually pronounce it without the second r because it's easier and pronouncing it "right" feels forced. How do you pronounce squirrel? I say it as one syllable (rhymes with swirl), but it's pretty clearly written as two syllables (double letters imply syllable break). England and most of the Commonwealth say it with two syllables.

[@IrvingIV]

@@mickrobertson7782 Guide to saying Rural. R as in Run, Red, Ran, Road. UR is said like the ER at the end of eithER and weathER. AL is said like the ULL in bull, as in a male cow, or like the OOL in wool.

[@IrvingIV]

@@nahometesfay1112 Squirrel is in one syllable SK as in aSK W as in Way/What IRL as in swIRL Squirrel is in two syllables. SK as in aSK W as in Way/What IR as in swIRl R as in Run ULL/OOL as in bULL and wOOL.

[@pualamnusantara7903]

"Which rhotic sound do you like?" *"Meh, whatever rhotic."*

[@fernandobanda5734]

Well, this conlang makes it an actual phoneme.

[@p.g.v.3765]

@@fernandobanda5734 and so many other auxlangs

[@Liggliluff]

It would be interesting if you could cover the familiarity of the orthography of the language. Like there are a lot of languages using J for /j/, so having this language use it for /dʒ/ will come off as weird; similarly how ch is used for /tʃ/ when there are languages using ch for /x/, /ʃ/ and /k/. While I personally do love the Slavic solution of using Š for /ʃ/, as well as C /ts/ Č /tʃ/ Ž /ʒ/ and so on, giving one letter per sound, (and since Lingua de planeta is using Z for /dz/ it's Ž would be /dʒ/), it seems like the most effective way of writing. But jan Misali seems to be allergic to any letter outside of the English A-Z.

[@qrtrx4]

3:29 jeez that really fast consonant reading caught me off-guard

[@kevinwells9751]

Me too, but then I realized that this video was already over a half hour long and figured he was just trying to save some time

[@LinguaPhiliax]

"I am talking to a language right now!"

[@ManateeExpress]

I've always been so fascinated in Linguistics, this is exactly the kind of content I've been looking for! Thank you for giving the basics in this video, I'll be sure to go back and watch some of your older videos!

[@HealyHQ]

Just remember that he gets things wrong sometimes and you're good to go. ;)

[@lazaraleksandrov2808]

24:01 In German, all words with the suffix -chen are neuter, therefore the word Mädchen is neuter.

[@jonas1015119]

reviewing english from the perspective of an IAL might be interesting

[@romaios1609]

It certainly wouldn't be kind

[@user-kd1eb6vc7y]

@@romaios1609 its a perfectly natural language so it would be very kind I would assume

[@Mr.Nichan]

@@user-kd1eb6vc7y Natural languages are terrible IALs, but their also the only type of language that's likely to be an international language (as English already pretty much is).

[@Red5rainbow]

Holy shit I really want this

[@PandaTheLesser]

I’ve actually been wanting someone to make a simplified English for international use. Now I’m wondering if it’s already been tried and whether there’s a conlang critic vid on it.

[@rubbedibubb5017]

This is like a hole linguistic course in 38 minutes, and I don’t mind even though I already know everything that you talk about.

[@Ruminations09]

After finding your channel from the hangman video, I basically binged all your Conlang Critic episodes. I had a bit of prior exposure to conlangs before (I'd only really explored the super famous ones like Esperanto, Klingon, and Dothraki, but I was also tangentially aware of the larger conlang-ing community), and these videos reignited that interest with a whole new intensity. I've been learning a second language (Japanese) for about a year now with the intent to move to Japan soon, and watching your videos has - in a bit of a weird way - made the process of learning a new language uniquely interesting to me. It's got me to think about language in a new way and has weirdly helped me study Japanese for reasons I can't quite articulate.

[@fernandobanda5734]

I feel like "heliu" or "helio" would have been a fine choice. Languages that directly descend from Latin already ditched final m years ago, so they are in fact not used to it, and it manages to put the stress in the right place.

[@redtaileddolphin1875]

The English word “the” is a definite article used to refer to a specific instance or instances of something being talked about, or else to refer to something of which there is only one EDIT:, or something where the differences between specific instances are negligible. This can often be used to heighten or emphasize the noun’s importance. The English word “that”, as all demonstrative pronouns, are used to bring attention to a specific instance or instances of something being talked about, whether already known to the listener or not. The main consequence of this difference is you wouldn’t use “that” more than once unless the attention was not adequately directed, but “the” is perfect for repeated use, to refer back to the same instance without requiring a proper noun. See: most stories, especially simple children’s stories, that open with “A ” to establish a nameless character and then for the rest of the story use “the ” to refer back to the same character. Opening such a story with “the” would be confusing to a native English speaker, as there has been nothing to refer back to yet.

[@cubedable]

As someone whose first language doesn't have a/the articles (though it has "that"), this explanation sounds simple but it's way harder to properly apply in practice.

[@mud213]

What about the application of "the" in the sentence: "I go to my friend's house on the weekends." Which specific weekends are you referring to? The answer is kind of "mostly all." Admittedly, this sentence could merely be "I go to my friend's house on weekends" and would have the same meaning but would be very different from "I go to my friend's house on a weekend." Alternatively, "I will just look it up on the computer." Which computer? Perhaps you could say "I will look it up on my computer" but would be equally satisfied looking it up on A computer at THE library. Alternately still, one could argue that it would be awkward to say "I will look it up on the phone." Which phone? I won't get into the fact that your definition of "that" wasn't that good since that definition that you wrote didn't cover it's use as a complementizer, adverb, demonstrative adjective, or conjunction.

[@redtaileddolphin1875]

BroShek I disagree, your examples can all fall under describing something of which there is only one of, or one KIND in this case. E.g., there is one kind of weekend, any kind of computer would do so they all are the same for that sentence, and the same goes for your last example. That’s an important difference to note so I will My work on “that” was subpar bc I’m no linguist or even that into the subject, so thanks for sparing me your diatribe on that one, but I love linguistic analysis so thanks for your comments on my definition of “the” :-)

[@mud213]

I think that pretty much covers all the uses of "the" but it still isn't easy for a non-native speaker to feel confident on when to include it. "I am studying the Linguistics." "See you on the Monday." "What is the price of the bacon?" With a little more context some of these could become grammatical (the last one would only situationally not be grammatical), but these are really close. What exactly is preventing these cases?

[@mud213]

Basically, the question is: "when do I need a prepositional phrase to clarify a "the"?

[@evanswart480]

Could you review Engala, a language David Peterson is working on with Jessie Sams, on the channel LangTime Studio? He's doing it live, so it might be fun to review a language where you can see exactly what the conlanger was thinking when they made every decision.

[@Pablo360able]

oh god, I was in the streams, I contributed a couple things, if he reviewed that language he might comment on something I did remember that time *lәulә was reanalyzed as a reduplicated form and the back-formed root “lo” was created? that was me.

[@KamilDrakari]

I don't know about anybody else, but I certainly wouldn't mind if you want to redo the Toki Pona episode with this amount of depth. I'm in the category of "I don't know anything about linguistics, I just like listening to people talk about their favorite topics in detail" so I'd definitely be interested in hearing more about that. If nothing else, I'm very curious just how much Toki Pona would crush every other language in "What's the Most Commonly Spoken Language Whose Consonant Inventory Is Incompatible with That of This Particular International Auxiliary Language?"

[@HealyHQ]

I've been waiting for this specific episode for a long time. Thank you, jan Misali! Great episode!

[@Iamveryconfusedabout]

the length of this video is incredible, it's incredible that you've put so much effort into it

[@redtaileddolphin1875]

This is the most similar to Simlish a language has sounded

[@evanstone724]

Can't believe I wasted my time with a BA in Linguistics when I could've been a music major and waited for this video Misali. Seriously tho, I appreciate you doing this for your new audience. So glad to see you grow so much. Just now realized I've been unsubscribed this whole time, and that was a big goof on my part. Keep at it my guy.

[@Joe1729]

Thank you SO much for such a fully-explained conlang vid!! I've been into conlanging for years, and been subscribed here for ages, but there's so little material online that actually explains basic concepts and terminology clearly and succinctly, I've had to just glean bits here and there, often just pushing forward with my conlangs semi-blindly, so this was a really really useful video, thanks.

[@Belissimo-T]

24:02 "Mädchen is only neuter because there is a rule, that all nouns ending with -chen are neuter. Mostly, this only affects the diminutive form, where usually, a -chen is appended to the word, and thus chnages the gender. "das Mädchen" comes from "die Mad"(feminine)(old way of saying Woman), but ovee time it became like a distinct word. Other examples are: "das Männchen"(neuter) from "der Mann"(masculine)(the man), "das Treppchen"(neuter) from "die Treppe"(feminine)(the stairs).

[@lyledean4390]

That's true, but that just goes to show that those rules are more important than a noun's actual gender.

[@Frahamen]

It's a deminuative. Same rule in Dutch "girl" is "het meisje" and neuter.

[@mickmickymick6927]

girl in Gaelic from Ireland, 'cailín', is masculine

[@seneca983]

The same goes for the -lein suffix, which also produces diminutive. Example: die Frau -> das Fräulein.

[@Belissimo-T]

@@seneca983 Oh no, I forgot that

[@griffinbeaumont7049]

Hey man, I've watched your vids for a long time, and I kind of wanna emplore you not to change the format too much for the new viewers. An introduction is good and all, but for people who are already very familiar with linguistics there are already very few shows out there that can just provide content like you do without explaining things that are already obvious to us. Don't get me wrong, i love you and I'm happy you're finally receiving some of the attention you deserve, I'd just hate to see you alienate your established audience by taking away a rare form of content that you're so good at making. Not saying you did that either, just a concern i hope doesn't become reality. Hope you continue to make such excellent stuff, and good luck for the future my dude!

[@HBMmaster]

dw I don't think I'm going to do something like this again, especially given how it made the video twice as long as it would have been otherwise

[@griffinbeaumont7049]

@@HBMmaster awesome man! Thanks for listening to me, and I look forward to everything you do in the future! Edit: btw am conlanger myself *cough*

[@Flowtail]

jan Misali as somebody who’s a fan but hasn’t known any of this stuff before it was explained this episode, i’d suggest making sure to point new viewers to this video in particular in the future! Maybe make a “intro to Conlanging” playlist or some such?

[@KenikoB]

I'd say it would have been better to make an intro video, instead of tacking it on here

[@rauhamanilainen6271]

At 31:41 you missed the chance to say "The other two non-Indo-European languages consist of one Sinitic language and one Semitic language."

[@logandarbz1257]

Pretty glad you made this, because when I originally got hooked on the series I had no linguistics knowledge whatsoever, so half the time I had no idea what you were talking about, and the other half of the time I was going off of half assed inferences 🙃

[@Biospark88]

“The show that exists to draw out the already bloated phonology segments of conlang critic” My sides. Stahp.

[@Biospark88]

"No definite article" *flashbacks to Turkish*

[@lextatertotsfromhell7673]

Biospark88 yo, I’m taking Turkish in school

[@justineberlein5916]

30:13 You forgot Armenian, the branch that turned *dwoh into yerku.

[@servantofaeie1569]

i was thinking about this very thing today

[@servantofaeie1569]

he also forgot tocharian, daco-thracian, illyrian, and phrygian.

[@that_orange_hat]

@@servantofaeie1569 all dead tho

[@WhizzKid2012]

Im always thinking of yerku whenever i see the number 2

[@Skipmunk85]

"The letter r is strange" cut to ad

[@profeseurchemical]

the production on this is stella. nice to see you one upping yourself

[@PandaTheLesser]

Loved your hangman vid, jumped on the W vid and wasn’t disappointed, and now I’m so glad I stuck around without having any idea what “conlang” is. I had no idea this world existed but I’m so happy I found it.

[@dahterrasse]

i discovered your channel through the hangman video but I watched the entirety of this series because I've always been a fan of conlangs

[@scarletstarlet773]

"what does the even mean" *Smiles in Polish*

[@trinitysarah2992]

I've always found Conlang Critic fascinating and fun to watch but recently you've really been flexing your comedy muscles in CC and it's really great this video is the most I've ever laughed during CC, the game show bits are great I love your work, please keep it up!

[@lukario8906]

It was so nice to see an explanation of the things you say in your videos, even though they were still really entertaining when i didn't really know what you were saying. It seems i can understand the rest of the series much better now and i will be sure to stick around for more

[@davidegaruti2582]

A solution for eurocentrism could be to use intelligeble local languages like romanid or interslavic* , You make it slightly harder for us romance language speakers but you could expand both your language list and your " potentially could understand a word from this language" audience ... *since those languages are made to be understood by around 90% of the native speakers of those languages ...

[@marcrosen999]

I love this show! The linguistics 101 part should have been a separate video though.

[@Pablo360able]

I disagree, I think it works best when there's a case study at hand

[@AQUTENOLEJ]

Its crazy how many subscribers you have now... I remember when you started doing the conlang critic segment, and only had lojban. I found your video on reddit and I thought, "how dope to have these video breakdowns for conlangs". Now, your channel has grown so much... congrats bro!

[@fanta3853]

Third option: familiarity with the series but none of the terms you've used in every episode

[@garbonzo99]

I feel like I could watch basically any video Jan puts out. Me knowing nothing about linguistics still didn’t stop me from watching this series right after watching the hangman video

[@emeralfmc6836]

i scrolled down to the comment section for about 7 seconds and when i went back to the video i had no idea what was happening. its like minutephysics all over again *oh no*

[@emilee4268]

i really enjoyed the video! I watched the entire series as soon as I found you (via hangman , predictably) and I still had a lot of fun with it, even though I understood absolutely nothing. it was nice to have this quick introduction to the basic concepts - I might need to go and rewatch the series now that I have even the most basic understanding. thank you for being such a cute fraud!

[@DecoAoreste]

Yesss! Finally a new episode, thank you! I think Lingwa de Planeta is a very promising auxlang, probably the best I've seen. I should look up some more details :)

[@AgmaSchwa]

i thought this was a gaming history channel, whats going on

[@leenaf8322]

He makes a lot of different videos, his main thing is reviewing conlangs

[@kzrs_smetal]

Gaming history videos are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to this channel

[@guilhermetavares5035]

it's always been about conlangs

[@kraetyz]

So many people falling for obvious bait from a guy named "Agma Schwa". Come on now, lmao.

[@venividivivi]

@@kraetyz no way! Some guy whose profile picture is /ŋə/ has definitely never heard of a conlang before!

[@0hate9]

Thank you so much for speeding up the read on the inventory.

[@517moe]

The longest and most satisfying paper I wrote in uni (I worked much harder on it than my dissertation haha) was on a phonological analysis of major IALs...so this was cool to watch :) I love linguistics content and I can't believe I hadn't found this channel earlier! Keep up the awesome work!!

[@drarenthiralas1683]

A suggestion - you should rename this video to something like "Conlang Critic: Lingwa de Planeta (+conlang basics)", so that new subscribers (like me) don't end up binge watching the whole series in order and only finding out what half this stuff means near the end (also like me).

[@Fenditokesdialect]

Isn't the "h" in human pronounced more like /ç/ as an allophonic variation of [hj]?. 15:18?

[@laprankster3264]

It can be but depends on the dialect.

[@servantofaeie1569]

yes. btw you mixed up // and [] [ç] /hj/

[@zozzy4630]

Yeah, but I think he did that intentionally. Even though /h/ in English usually has at least one allophonic variation, none of them are the [x] sound in any common dialects, and his point was that there's no [h]-like English sound that native speakers pronounce both syllable-initially and syllable-finally in a way that's analogous to /h/ in Lidepla. I think he avoided talking about [ç] for simplicity's and brevity's sake, but: [h] and [ç] are only allowed syllable-initially, [x] is only allowed syllable-finally, and few if any English dialects use similar sounds like [ɦ] or [χ]. Since Lidepla allows /h/ at both the starts and ends of syllables, native English speakers will have to become comfortable pronouncing at least one sound in an unfamiliar way in order to pronounce Lidepla's /h/ the same way in all contexts.

[@human-tk2fo]

"Cute frauds" yes, thank you

[@lahagemo]

Aleksander Whyte isn’t it a reference to that 70yo esperantist tho?

[@human-tk2fo]

@@lahagemo yes, it is, as in the song "Dreams of our Conlang Community"

[@WhiteKnuckleRide512]

As a FiLtHy CaSuAl who found this channel through KZbins algorithm deciding to bless the hangman video, I hope you don’t feel pressured to keep making videos like that, I can’t speak for everyone I guess but I find this just as entertaining

[@chataignevendemiaire7172]

At last! I have been waiting for a video about this language for so long!

[@enderwiggins8248]

The quotation marks around the check mark kills me”

[@alonmenzin]

Should have titled this hangman part 4: the awakening

[@user-id9bn1ic9v]

I’ve been here for about 2 years, just now subscribed. Love conlang critic!

[@donaldfrankcheadlejr.1244]

I've been watching this series for years but a good chunk of it goes over my head so the explanation was actually very appreciated

[@spegnagmaglorious3590]

I clicked faster than you could say "I'm a bit excited"

[@i_teleported_bread7404]

VOTGIL

[@illusionlife9962]

To elaborate on grammatical gender a little further, while it is true that most objects' classes are pratically unpredictable (German: die Tür (the door, feminine), der Computer (the computer, masculine), das Boot (the boat / ship / submarine, neuter)), a lot of things are quite predictable grammatically. In German at least, a lot of suffixes change the gender of a noun quite predictably: -chen, -lein (diminutive) always makes a word neuter, -er (agentive) always makes a word masculine, while most nominalisation suffixes (-tät, -heit, - keit, -e) make a word feminine. This is also the reason why Mädchen (girl) is neuter: It used to be the diminutive of "die Magd" (the maid), which was feminine. As for random objects, again, they are mostly unpredictable.

[@RealMcoy1000]

I’ve been binging the past month like a lot of other people, though I have watched and enjoyed some of your videos in the past. I really appreciate this introduction! I wanted to study linguistics in college, and your videos have been the best free alternative. However, it’s been like starting with an advanced classes. Thanks for finally letting me take Misali 1010

[@Zizumia]

Im quite glad this got recommended to me while binging your videos because I had no idea what you were talking about and I would just guess how you'd feel about certain parts of a language. Something I'm glad you don't do anymore is talk a mile a minute. Those older videos were hard to get through because not only did I not understand the subject but I couldn't understand you sometimes hahaha

[@jordan2911]

this is highkey so useful because i already watched the whole series and understood none of it

[@codygriffin299]

“No views”??? Well I’ll be *more* than happy to change that 🔥

[@stephenjohnson9745]

I watched all the previous entries to the series and kinda constructed what these various things means through context and repeated entries, it is nice to finally be able to concretely have definitions. It was like reading Problem Sleuth and getting to the summary page. You could, theoretically, have a complete understanding of the story up to that point based purely on what you've seen thus far, but the summary gives distinct shape to the more nebulous cloud of information in your head

[@penderrin1637]

Subscribed after hangman is a weird game, and proceeded to binge all the episodes of conlang critic and now am really interested in conlanging, Great video btw

[@joycelinlgbtq]

I always thought of the 5 vowel system as 'bread and butter'. The 3 vowel system can be water.

[@Yoreni]

heres the whole list 1 vowel system -> air 2 vowel system -> rotten water 3 vowel system -> water 4 vowel system -> flavoured water 5 vowel system -> bread and butter 6 vowel system -> toast and butter 7 vowel system -> toast with butter and jam 8 vowel system -> toast with butter, jam and peanut butter 9 vowel system -> chips 10 vowel system -> chips with ketchup 11 vowel system -> chips with salt and ketchup 12 vowel system -> sweet potato chips 13 vowel system -> sweet potato chips with ketchup 14 vowel system -> sweet potato chips with salt and ketchup 15 vowel system -> a pile of lettuce 16 vowel system -> salad 17 vowel system -> super healthy salad 18 vowel system -> fruit salad 19 vowel system -> super healthy fruit salad 20 vowel system -> super healthy fruit salad deluxe 21 vowel system -> pizza 22 vowel system -> two pizzas stacked on top of each other 23 vowel system -> three pizzas stacked on top of each other 24 vowel system -> five pizzas with mushrooms and cheese stacked on top of each other lets carry this on

[@melwugon3687]

Yoreni number 15 is lettuce. Hmmmm

[@dreamers_descent]

I'm currently laughing uncontrollably at "ngarf", perfect delivery!

[@novideoshereable]

As a new subscriber and also an Esperantist, I was not interested in watching you because I had heard you were extremely harsh and I saw you had a video on Esperanto, which made me think you were one of the billion other guys who've done some top-tier super-original criticism of Esperanto which no one has ever heard before, but a friend of mine told me some good stuff about you, so I watched your Esperanto video and to my joy found that the harshness people had complained about was... basic sarcasm, a sense of humor and an idea of what you were talking about. Subscribed and binged every video and never looked back.

[@puffyhowler615]

Thanks for this intro video. Honestly I didn't fully understand some of the more complicated ideas and concepts but I enjoyed learning about the basics and it was really cool to see this language I just learned about deconstructed