ZBB Census 2018

[Tropylium]

LGBTQI+

me and half the board

Huh, I indeed count about 50% so far, and that's without subtracting replies that have no info either way. The LGBTQ lean in linguistics is a known phenomenon, but over here it seems still stronger yet than IRL.

(No especial concentration of lefthanded Lithuanians visible though.)

[Znex]

LGBTQI+

me and half the board

Huh, I indeed count about 50% so far, and that's without subtracting replies that have no info either way. The LGBTQ lean in linguistics is a known phenomenon, but over here it seems still stronger yet than IRL.

(No especial concentration of lefthanded Lithuanians visible though.)

From what I've noticed anyway, online linguistics communities tend to have quite strong LGBTQ communites. I couldn't say compared to IRL linguistics communities in general, though a good portion of my fellow linguistics students at uni were LGBTQ.

Basics
Username: Znex
Name: Simon
Other nicknames: Sim, Sy
Birthplace: Sydney
Place of residence: Sydney
Occupation: Unemployed
Pets: 9 yellow budgerigars

Identity
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Grey-straight
Relationship: Single/complicated
Nationality: Australian
Ethnicity: Anglo-Celtic
Religion: Christian

Measurements
Age: 25
Height: 5'6''
Weight: 145lb/66kg
Shoe size: 44/10
Handedness: Right

Languages (including level of fluency!)
Native language(s): English
Other languages: Ancient Greek (B1~B2), Ancient Hebrew (B1), Mandarin Chinese (A1~A2), Welsh (A1~A2), etc.
Your conlangs: A mix of a-posteriori and a-priori
Pofp'ash (abandoned NA-ish polylang)
Ikwawese (Austronesianish lang; on and off in progress)
Old Quelgic (Gaulish descendant lang; on and off in progress)
Nisukil (abandoned Etruscan/Basque-ish Undertale fanlang)
Kaptaran (Anatolian descendant lang; on and off in progress)
Apsish (Gothic descendant lang; on and off in progress)
Hawntow (PNG-ish lang; current)
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: Shall I number the stars? Minoan, Mongolian, Tagalog, Dharug, Hindi-Urdu, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Indonesian, Korean, Nahuatl, Cho'lan Mayan, Arabic, Guaraní, Pirahã, Maori, Tok Pisin, Kriol, Navajo, Cherokee, Salish, Sumerian, Lojban, Ithkuil, among many many others.

[TeddyMop]

Hey all, signed up a while ago but recently made a new year's resolution to get more serious about conlanging, getting mildly active on the board seemed like a way to begin.

Basics
Username: TeddyMop
Birthplace: New Haven, Connecitcut
Place of residence: Boston, Massachussetts
Any particular reason you live there now? I moved here after college for work about ten years ago, I've since stayed for graduate school
Occupation: Theology graduate student
Pets (+5 extra credit if you provide photographic evidence): One cat, no photos.

Identity
Sex: Male
Relationship: Married, no children yet.
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Yankee (Mostly Anglo by descent, small quantities of German and Irish)
Religion: Roman Catholic
Politics: Integralist

Measurements
Age: 33
Height: 6 feet and a barely perceptible fraction of an inch
Weight: ~220-230 lbs (haven't stepped on a scale in a while, fear it's closer to the latter than the former.)
Shoe size: 11.5-12 (USA)
Blood type: Can never remember
Handedness: Right

Languages (including level of fluency!)
Native language(s): English
Other languages: French (B2); German (B1); Latin and Greek (advanced reading proficiency); Hebrew, Anglo-Saxon, and Aramaic [various dialects: Syriac, Biblical, Talmudic) (intermediate reading proficiency); elementary reading proficiency / one semester's experience with about a half-dozen others.
Your conlangs: I'm in the process of creating a number of conlangs to match a conworld that's been in development since my teens. I made about a half-dozen languages about a decade ago, but I'm currently trying to reorganize and reimagine what used to be basically Pseudo-French, Pseudo-Greek, Pseudo-Norse, etc.
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: My advisor is pushing me to learn Old Georgian and Classical Armenian. I also have a casual interest in Nahuatl but I've never gotten serious about it. Since I married a Latina about four months ago I'm working to push my Spanish out of about an A1 in the near future.

Favourites
Favourite language: Probably Greek, although Syriac is close.
Favourite colour: Blue.
Favourite food: Posole.
Favourite drink: I dunno - a fairly basic beer. Usually Sam Adams or Guinness?
Favourite animal: I collected stuffed owls as a child does that count?
Favourite sport: Baseball.
Favourite book: Hard to name a book, but my authors are Peter Brown, John McGuckin, JRR Tolkien, Evelyn Waugh and Christopher Dawson.
Favourite movie: I see literally one film a year at this point.
Favourite video game: In the past 10 years I've only played Crusader Kings 2 (loved it, still play on occasion) and Skyrim (didn't get it, dropped it.)
Favourite non-video game: Charades? I dunno I'm bad at chess.

[Das Public Viewing]

Just got here from the old board (college interrupted). Hi, everyone!

me and half the board

Huh, I indeed count about 50% so far, and that's without subtracting replies that have no info either way. The LGBTQ lean in linguistics is a known phenomenon, but over here it seems still stronger yet than IRL.

(No especial concentration of lefthanded Lithuanians visible though.)

From what I've noticed anyway, online linguistics communities tend to have quite strong LGBTQ communites. I couldn't say compared to IRL linguistics communities in general, though a good portion of my fellow linguistics students at uni were LGBTQ.

Maybë it's just me, but it seems like online communities in general have higher LGBT/GSM ratios. I know for a fact that speedrunning in particular has a similarly high percentage, and I've even seen a rather large presence on places like 4chan.

Basics
Username: Das Public Viewing
Name: a satire of German borrowing conventions
[stories omitted]
Birthplace: Denver, CO, USA
Place of residence: Denver, CO, USA
Any particular reason you live there now? I was born and raised in the same city, but I have indeed been to about half the states/provinces and a good chunk of W Europe (thanks budget-airline-man). Main reasons I'm staying here are 1) almost all food is local, 2) the everexpanding public transportation network lets me exercise without spending all day walking, 3) low-altitude weather is hard to deal with, and 4) I'm safe from both sea rise and droughts.
Occupation: College student (Biochem. Eng.)
No pets; sorry.

Identity
Gender: the F on my driver's license is for "failure"
Sexuality: No idea
Relationship: England is my city
Nationality: 'MURICA
Ethnicity: Yes
Religion: Evangelical Agnostic
Politics [because the guy before me did politics]: Ultrapluralist

Measurements
Age: My fake ID isn't old enough
Date of birth: 17/9
Weight: fat
Height: fat
Shoe size: f a t
Blood type: O
Handedness: Ambi

Languages (including level of fluency!)
Native language(s): English
Other languages: EO, FR (fluent); DE (A2~B1); RU (still pretty garbage)
Your conlangs: Theærlœk, Taxhji (+ another 2 I've been thinking about)

Favourites
Favourite language: PIE
Favourite colour: Purple
Favourite food: Guacamolë
Favourite drink: Malted Milkshake
Favourite animal: Platypus
Favourite sport: Calvinball
Favourite book: Book 3: Fire
Favourite movie: UHF
Favourite video game: Logan Kart
Favourite non-video game: ?????????
Favourite TV series: To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty.
Favourite video game: Freedom Force (the original)
Favourite book: The "Giants" Series
Favourite bands/groups: Steely Dan, Blue Stahli, Farin Urlaub, Psychostick
Favourite school subject: Theory of Knowledge (highschool)
Least favourite school subject: Theory of Knowledge (highschool)

Extra Credit
1) Link to the funniest picture you know of on the internet that isn't goatse or in the same spirit.
2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? Berlin, both for the obvious reasons and the fact that it's so modern, yet so old. The Bundestag building in particular captured a lot of this; the outside was all sleek and modern, but inside, several loadbearing walls were literally from the original Weimar Reichstag building. The Soviët graffiti from the fall of Berlin was still visible in one hallway! AND there was a direct view from the upper floors to the office buildings on the other side of where the wall used to be. Wow. The wall itself was pretty cool too.

[Frislander]

LGBTQI+

me and half the board

Huh, I indeed count about 50% so far, and that's without subtracting replies that have no info either way. The LGBTQ lean in linguistics is a known phenomenon, but over here it seems still stronger yet than IRL.

(No especial concentration of lefthanded Lithuanians visible though.)

Speaking about my linguistic community, I have noted that there is in my reckoning exactly 1 entirely straight cis man in the entire year of 30-odd students. That's partly I think because of the strong female-bias on the course; I'm not sure how many of the women are LGBT, but the men are near universally queer, myself included, so the male-bias of this forum may further accentuate the LGBT bias.

OTOH my morphology supervisor told me about 80% of her group was LGBT, so I also wouldn't say this forum is necessarily exaggerated in this respect.

[Xwtek]

me and half the board

Lucky you, in Indonesia, there is no such thing as gay right.

[evmdbm]

Basics
Username: evmdbm
Birthplace: Hexham, England
Place of residence: Leeds

Identity
Gender: Male

Measurements
Age and date of birth: 43

Languages (including level of fluency!)

Native language(s): English

Other languages: French, German, Spanish, Latin (intermediate); Russian, Japanese (beginners);

Your conlangs: Notalin (set in a fantasy world from my teens – a bit rubbish obviously as a conlang therefore although I remain weirdly proud of the conworld - I am going to redesign it as a standard average European language, despite the fact it is spoken by a bunch of non-human tiftular - didn’t want to call them elves - living on a collection of islands mid-ocean. If I’m feeling ambitious I’ll do proto-tiftular and work forward);

Vedreki and Cheyadeneen currently in progress (again I had this idea of what if a bunch of humans were just dropped on an inhabited alien planet in the Alpha Centauri system; Cheyadeneen is the prestige human language and Vedreki the language of the humanoid aliens (Azdrai species) in the Empire of Cheyaden); Uralan, Katrardheen and Nakhese – naming languages in the same (Central) language family as Vedreki. At some point might get round to some other unrelated Azdrai languages on the planet like Verekeen or Tarkentian.

Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once. Thai (my wife is Thai but I never really got past “Do you speak English?”)

[rotting bones]

Zoroastrianism

The tradition that absolutely forbid homosexuality and miscegenation, claiming that the original sin was Ahriman having anal sex with himself to spawn the race of devils (classical) from which black people are descended (medieval)?

[Travis B.]

Zoroastrianism

The tradition that absolutely forbid homosexuality and miscegenation, claiming that the original sin was Ahriman having anal sex with himself to spawn the race of devils (classical) from which black people are descended (medieval)?

By that logic you can remark upon anyone's Catholicism that they must be against abortion, contraception, and gay people.

[Man in Space]

Basics
Username: Man in Space (styled after an influential book I received in my childhood)
Name: Galen
Other nicknames (including good stories, if you have any): Pogostick Man (Happy Wheels), Linguifex (changed because I'm not the Linguifex, which I didn't realize existed until after I'd adopted the nick)
Birthplace: Cleveland
Place of residence: Ohio
Any particular reason you live there now? I have family, a dog, friends, and a death-metal band here
Occupation: AML compliance analyst, death metal drummer
Pets (+5 extra credit if you provide photographic evidence): Margo!

Identity
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Relationship: Forever alone
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Polish, Sicilian
Religion: Quasi-Lutheran (haven't been catechized yet)

Measurements
Age: 27
Handedness: Right

Languages (including level of fluency!)
Native language(s): English
Other languages: French (quatre années suivi du lycée), Arabic (five semesters in college), Latin (three semesters in college), Polish (trying to teach myself and failing), Klingon (very minimal)
Your conlangs: Too many to list because I get bogged down in creating things for my conworld; Classical Ĝate n Tim Ar is probably my main focus at present, though I've also done extensive work on Caber
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: Nyarafolo, Oneida, basically any Pama-Nyungan languages, Dené-Yeniseian if it's valid

Favourites
Favourite language: Arabic
Favourite colour: Red
Favourite food: Grandma's mashed potatoes
Favourite drink: Red Bull
Favourite animal: Dog
Favourite sport: American football
Favourite book: The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds
Favourite movie: Avengers: Infinity War
Favourite video game: Depending on the value of "video game", either Town of Salem, Tetris, or Civilization V
Favourite non-video game: Dungeons & Dragons, 2e

Extra Credit
1) Link to the funniest picture you know of on the internet that isn't goatse or in the same spirit. I hope GIFs count.
2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? Roswell, New Mexico. I went there for spring break once. (Yes, seriously.)

[rotting bones]

By that logic you can remark upon anyone's Catholicism that they must be against abortion, contraception, and gay people.

"Liberated" white nationalists are expressing solidarity with Iranian nationalism. I was the one who posted the link to Jason Jorjani in the old forum, so it's my responsibility to poke holes in the propaganda directed at fence-sitting liberals that paints Zoroastrian Persia as a "progressive" bastion of civilization overrun by Islamic barbarians. I can only hope this is unrelated to dhok's neocon policy proposals. Nevertheless, I understand this is a pattern with Europeans. The Middle Ages were shaped by Greek idealism, and just read the anti-Greek propaganda from the Fourth Crusade. Similarly, early modernity was initiated by an intellectual emulation of the Arabs, so naturally it's their turn. Asians should watch out because the West is starting to imitate them. Soon the novelty will wear off and they'll turn back into the corrupt, cruel scumbags they used to be during the Opium Wars.

Personally, I don't care if someone is Zoroastrian. Wasn't Freddie Mercury technically Zoroastrian? But if people are mistaking Zoroastrianism for the lost agalma just because myth busters don't target it like Abrahamic religions, I should remind you that in Zoroastrianism, homosexuality itself is the original sin. By contrast, homosexuality was de facto tolerated in medieval Islam. The effect on policy direction by the interests of wealthy merchants might have had something to do with that. Muslims learned to invest so much energy into opposing homosexuality from English schools, and Muslim masses share their radical intolerant stances with peasant classes everywhere on earth. The tragedy is that most Muslims seem too invested in amour-propre to realize that religion itself keeps them in chains.

[ˈdʲeɰʌ̜ ʔɾul̪]

God, I'm finally back


Basics
Username: ˈdʲeɰʌ̜ ʔɾul̪
Name: used to use it as my username on incatena + deductible from my current username if you think about it + a pretty unique combination
Other nicknames (including good stories, if you have any): Korean Jesus - people not understanding my homemade hanbok + long, brown, curly hair
Birthplace: Rzeszów, Poland (a beautiful place)
Place of residence: Łódź, Poland (much less picturesque)
Any particular reason you live there now? Gotta finish highschool, next year probably Leiden or Amsterdam (I hope)
Occupation: high school student doing two years in one year so no normal lessons
Pets (+5 extra credit if you provide photographic evidence): a toller, the only ginger on the block

Identity
Gender: male
Sexuality: I guess straight but it never worked out with anyone
Relationship: ^^^ still true
Nationality: Polish
Ethnicity: half Polish, half Italian, told there was some Eastern Nomad ancestor
Religion: nope

Measurements
Age and date of birth: nope but I'll finish highschool while still <18
Height: ugh
Weight: ugh
Shoe size: 42
Blood type: O-
Handedness: right, although I eat soup and brush my teeth with my left hand

Languages (including level of fluency!)
Native language(s): Polish
Other languages: English (hella good), Russian (can actually pretend to be Russian for a day), French (of course reading texts + I can communicate if I feel like talking), Spanish (talking to myself + reading), basic Korean (I hate hangeul), Silesian and Ukrainian
Your conlangs: n o p e
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: all the Altaic languages

Favourites
Favourite language: ALL OF THEM
Favourite colour: metallic light blue as long as it is not liquid and >1.6 m deep
Favourite food: pasta
Favourite drink: anything of orange color
Favourite animal: platypus/otter
Favourite sport: downhill skiing
Favourite book: currently 'Dziady' by Adam Mickiewicz, changing frequently
Favourite movie: always Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Favourite video game: Kingdom Come Deliverance
Favourite non-video game: durak (a Russian card game where you can only lose, never win)

Extra Credit
2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? the outdoor museum of abandoned animal stuffies in Lviv

[Vijay]

Welcome back!

Favourite non-video game: durak (a Russian card game where you can only lose, never win)

This type of card game is called a shedding-type card game. The one I'm most familiar with is Speed.

2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? the outdoor museum of abandoned animal stuffies in Lviv

You mean stuffed animals?

[Pabappa]

I've heard the term "stuffies" a few times when I was working in a store that sold stuffed animals. I think there's a difference in target market between people who use that word, people who say "plushies", and people who just say "stuffed animals".

[ˈdʲeɰʌ̜ ʔɾul̪]

This type of card game is called a shedding-type card game. The one I'm most familiar with is Speed.

At least here in Poland the rule's that the first player to shed all their cards is the winner (that's how I play Uno/Makao and Mao), so the concept of considering the last person a loser instead seems funny and interesting to me, people are usually more satisfied when they don't lose compared to when they win.

2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? the outdoor museum of abandoned animal stuffies in Lviv

You mean stuffed animals?

Yeah, probably, I don't really know what they're usually called in English. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Vijay]

At least here in Poland the rule's that the first player to shed all their cards is the winner (that's how I play Uno/Makao and Mao), so the concept of considering the last person a loser instead seems funny and interesting to me

I'm confused; if the first person to lose all their cards is the winner, isn't the last person to lose all their cards a loser (in the context of the game, of course)?

[Ryusenshi]

Maybe because they stop the game when one player has shed all the cards, instead of continuing until there's only one person left?

[Vijay]

Oh, I didn't know rules on that differed by country. Usually when we play cards in my family, we keep going until everyone has shed all their cards just to see out of curiosity how long it takes. It's a little longer but also funnier that way.

[benadam]

Basics
Username: benadam
Name: wouldn't u like to know
Other nicknames (including good stories, if you have any): none yet, soz
Birthplace: London
Place of residence: Bristol
Any particular reason you live there now? Literally, I could find an affordable place here, and it's not London. Thankfully, it's also pretty damn nice.
Occupation: musician/violin teacher/aspiring violin-maker
Pets (+5 extra credit if you provide photographic evidence): The house I'm in has a cute lil kitty, but I wouldn't say she's my pet.

Identity
Gender: male
Sexuality: straight
Relationship: single
Nationality: bold of you to assume I recognise such a thing
Ethnicity: Irish & Ashkenazi Jewish
Religion: Jewish, but not particularly religious
Politics: anarchist. Just anarchist, without any qualifiers please.

Measurements
Age and date of birth: 29 (agh), nearly 30 (AGH)
Height: 6 foot (imperial measurements ftw)
Weight: 12 stone
Shoe size: 11 (UK)
Blood type: lmao I have no idea
Handedness: right

Languages (including level of fluency!)
Native language(s): English
Other languages: Modern Hebrew (not fluent, but acceptable)
Your conlangs: Akhiranda, Yhliao, Fhalĕnoh (need work, will write them up on ZBB for criticism in due course)
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: Oh man. Yiddish, Irish, Finnish, Japanese, Basque, Georgian, Ainu, Sindarin, Toki Pona, but as soon as I press "submit" and go browsing on youtube or wikipedia I'll be like "OH YEAH what about THESE ones"

Favourites
Favourite language: holy shit man I don't know, that question is way too hard
Favourite colour: green
Favourite food: roast chestnuts, but only when they're in season
Favourite drink: fresh coconut water (but again, only as a delicacy)
Favourite animal: fox
Favourite sport: I used to do Taekwondo, haven't for years now but I still love watching it (a friend from my old dojang is now a serious international competitor, so it's fun rooting him on), also love Rugby.
Favourite book: It's a big toss-up between Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, by Susannah Clarke, and of course Lord of the Rings
Favourite movie: I don't really know movies well enough to say, I'm afraid
Favourite video game: Pokémon 4 LYF
Favourite non-video game: OK so now we're here, I feel like con-gaming is a really underappreciated, underexplored part of conworlding. I've invented like 3 or 4 abstract-strategy board games, and a card game, and I have no-one to play them with to see if they really work.
That said, I love chess, stratego, obscure variants of noughts-and-crosses, and of course Mao.

Extra Credit
1) Link to the funniest picture you know of on the internet that isn't goatse or in the same spirit. OK here
2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? Tzfat, Israel. Closely followed by Glastonbury, England, for much the same reason.

[rotting bones]

Basics
Username: rotting bones
Other nicknames (including good stories, if you have any): Somi, the name of a tree the Pandavas rested under during their exile.
Birthplace: Kolkata
Place of residence: Kolkata
Any particular reason you live there now? Job
Occupation: Software developer

Identity
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship: Single
Nationality: Indian
Ethnicity: Bengali. In America, they routinely mistook me for a Saudi, saying I'm very pale for an Indian.
Religion: Social science skeptic. My main beef is not even with theologians. I don't care if some people are religious. What I fundamentally disbelieve in are certain conclusions of social science. I think religion will always lead to fundamentalism because it's fake, and therefore leads to the subordination of the intellect under dogma. It makes no sense to try and refute this with examples like Britain, one of the most irreligious countries on earth. The problem is that moral intuitions feel subjectively irrefutable, but are objectively relative. This is why trying to base society on strong accounts of morality as opposed to rational self-interest splits it into warring camps. Each group oppresses its dissenting minorities and feuds with the other philosophical tribes. And it is precisely this ridiculous struggle that small groups bond over. Furthermore, morality strictly applies only to the non-prestigious. By default, most people are well-disposed towards those on top of the social hierarchy. This is why religion is incapable of building a just society.

Languages (including level of fluency!)
Native language(s): Bengali
Other languages: Hindi and English. My other best language is currently Italian. I have a basic comprehension of other languages like Japanese and Russian. I have an even more elementary understanding of Mizo and German. I've been compulsively learning and forgetting languages for years.
Your conlangs: The ones near completion include Alexandrian, Gsaid, Umuyrut, Rosenian and Calabrian. I've uploaded none of these yet.
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: Korean, French and Chinese, among others.

Favourites
(Disclaimer: I might have borderline personality disorder.)
Favourite language: Ancient Greek
Favourite colour: Purple
Favourite food: Mushroom quesadilla
Favourite drink: Fruit slushy
Favourite animal: Water bear
Favourite sport: I hate sports.
Favourite book: I recommend Contending Economic Theories by Wolff and Resnick.
Favourite video game: Dwarf Fortress
Favourite non-video game: Shogi is probably the game I've played most of.

Extra Credit
2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? I was once trying to find a Chinese restaurant. Google Maps send me wandering off into the countryside for hours until I randomly ended up near a private airport. They called the police, who took me back to my apartment.