ZBB Census 2013

[Radius Solis]

I wasn't specifically talking about you. But I noticed that people from most places say something like their ethnicitiy is Catalan/French/German/Russian/Flemish or whatever, but Americans say stuff like I'm white or mention their hair colour (as you did). So That left me wondering. What does the word ethnicity mean in America, or what else explains these responses.

Beyond the few who actually care about such topics, nobody in this country has a very clear idea what ethnicity means. So instead, we tend to take it as a scalar value loosely equivalent to foreign-ness; to be "ethnic" or to have "ethnicity" is to be anything other than Average Anglo-American, with the specific ethnic group in question being of somewhat less relevance. For instance going out for ethnic food means "Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Indian, or some other such". For another example, when I bought my current hair clippers set, the product line was named Ethnic Care and the box and manual were full of pictures of smiling black people giving each other haircuts.

[finlay]

Ethnicity in the UK tends to include skin colour. If you ever fill in a form asking about your ethnicity (many companies have to do this to show they're not being racist, for instance), you will get responses like White British, White European, White Other, followed by Black African, Black Caribbean, etc.

Ultimately I included it as a question of your identity.

[Grunnen]

Ethnicity in the UK tends to include skin colour. If you ever fill in a form asking about your ethnicity (many companies have to do this to show they're not being racist, for instance), you will get responses like White British, White European, White Other, followed by Black African, Black Caribbean, etc.

Ultimately I included it as a question of your identity.

It's funny how such a seemingly straightforward concept actually gets this complicated. But I suppose that's what happens if you try to somehow categorise people.

[ęzo]

[razed and salted]

[xain1112]

Basics
Username: xain1112
Name: Dan
Other nicknames: None
Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennylvania
Place of residence: Port Jefferson, Long Island
Occupation: SBU student

Identity
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship: none
Nationality: american
Ethnicity: white
Religion: technically jewish, but atheist
Politics: don't care

Measurements
Age: 18
Height: 6'
Weight: 250
Shoe size: 13
Handedness: left

Languages
Native language(s): english
Other languages: spanish, a little japanese
Your conlangs: cheksel, bübük

Favourites: 1 each!
Favourite language: spanish
Favourite colour: royal blue
Favourite food: spinach/feta pasta
Favourite drink: vanilla milkshake
Favourite sport: badminton
Favourite book: Carrie (Stephen King)
Favourite movie: dances with wolves
Favourite game: Skyrim

Extra credit
Name one interesting talent you have: near-photographic memory
Your favourite pun: I hate puns

[R.Rusanov]

protivotraditionalac, a? pa volis dunsany i staroslovenski? sramota

[Qwynegold]

@xain: Pickles and tea!

[Click]

protivotraditionalac, a? pa volis dunsany i staroslovenski? sramota

Umukni i odjebi.

[Znex]

Basics
Username: Znex
Name: Znex Znexson
Other nicknames:
Birthplace: Australia
Place of residence: Australia
Occupation: Student

Identity
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship: Single
Nationality: Australian
Ethnicity: Australian/British
Religion: Christian
Politics: Moderate?

Measurements
Age: 19
Height: ~1.6m
Weight: ~50kg if not more
Handedness: Right

Languages
Native language(s): English
Other languages: Attic Greek, Mandarin Chinese, French, Latin
Your conlangs: Proto-Oeg
Favourite language family: Semitic

[Drydic]

Basics
Username: Drydic.
Name: (redacted)
Nickname:
Birthplace: Idaho,USA
Place of residence: currently fucking Texas. Yuck.
Occupation: call center employee, attempting to be a non-drone

Identity
Sexuality: 80/20 attraction to female/male, respectively.
Relationship: freshly and slightly painfully single.
Nationality: North/Northwestern European migrant-to-the-US ancestors
Ethnicity: see above, for as much as it matters
Religion: casually.
Politics: jaded leftist

Measurements
Age: 30 minus 8 days
Height: 5'11 3/4"
Weight: I hate myself for it so I'm not saying.
Shoe size: US Mens 10
Blood type: fresh.
Handedness: Left.

Languages
Native language(s): American English
Other languages: Latin, Spanish (neither enough to be fluent), smatterings of dozens of others.
Your conlangs: major ones: Tzuman, Red Coast Iberian, Anadolic, Drydic (near-permanently in overhaul, its name is currently Drywəs but I'm not entirely happy with that), Salanjan, Scythian.

idk if I'll get around to the other ones, I have to get ready for work and I don't want this post to sit here and die when my browser crashes next.

[R.Rusanov]

protivotraditionalac, a? pa volis dunsany i staroslovenski? sramota

Umukni i odjebi.

eto tolerantan egalitarianac, bez mržnje

[Rhetorica]

Scythian.

...and suddenly I'm imagining a parody of Classical Greek interpretations of barbarian languages. *crosses fingers*

[Drydic]

Scythian.

...and suddenly I'm imagining a parody of Classical Greek interpretations of barbarian languages. *crosses fingers*

I'm afraid not. It's a novel branch of IE which got some severe Iranian influence before its speakers settled in Belgica.

[Click]

.

[R.Rusanov]

nije ovaj egalitarianac, nije traditionalac, onda kako je, se cudim?

[WeepingElf]

Stop crocodiling.

[jmcd]

Basics
Username:jmcd
Name:James McDonald
Other nicknames: IRL: Jamie (more common than James with a lot of people, usually those I already knew before 2009), l'Ecossais i.e. the Scotsman, Shaggy/Samy, Thor; online: Grazikon, Munci
Birthplace: Edinburgh, Scotland
Place of residence: Saint-Denis, La Réunion
Occupation: I give chess lessons

Identity
Gender: Male
Sexuality: gynophile
Relationship: Unfortunately not
Nationality: Scottish
Ethnicity: German, Scottish
Religion: none
Politics: environmentalist, independentist, socialist, pragmatist

Measurements
Age: 24
Height: 172cm
Weight: 60kg
Shoe size: unknown
Blood type: unknown
Handedness: right

Languages
Native language(s): English, Scots
Other languages: French, German, Réunionese Creole, others not-so-fluent (e.g. Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Dutch, Mauritian Creole)
Your conlangs: All half-done at best: Smaldgian, Olarre, Sihoyuan, 3x unnamed

Favourites: 1as many as I feel like each!
Favourite language: Scottish Gaelic
Favourite colour: green
Favourite food: rougail boudin i.e. black pudding rougail
Favourite drink: rhum arrangé banane i.e. banana-flavoured rum (alcoholic), mango lassi (non-alcoholic)
Favourite sport: athletics
Favourite book: Describing Morphosyntax (non-fiction), Kidnapped (fiction)
Favourite movie: Princess Mononoke
Favourite game: go (without chance element) and mahjong (with chance)

Extra credit
Name one interesting talent you have: Chatting shite
Your favourite pun: all of them, all the time. The only ones I can think of right now are crocodile ones though. e.g. J'aime pas gaspiller ; je suis un écosse-citoyen.

EDIT: reduced crocodiling, removed one like.

[Rhetorica]

I presume you've seen Cyan's Kickstarter campaign?

I was going to bring it up; sorry I missed your post. Yes, I chipped in an obscene amount. It was probably wildly irresponsible, but it seemed like an important idea at the time.

[hwhatting]

Basics
Username:hwhatting
Name: Guess
Other nicknames: ---
online: ---
Birthplace: Mönchengladbach, Germany
Place of residence: Bonn, Germany
Occupation: Consultant

Identity
Gender: Male
Sexuality: yes
Relationship: Married
Nationality: German
Ethnicity: German, some Dutch and Polish ancestors 4-5 generations back
Religion: none, but underwent a Catholic emergency baptism after birth - does that count?
Politics: mostly liberal (in the European sense)

Measurements
Age: 47
Height: ca. 170 cm (didn't bother measuring height for decades)
Weight: 65kg
Shoe size: 40/41 (German size)
Blood type: 0
Handedness: right

Languages
Native language(s): German
Other languages: English, Russian (fluent), Dutch, Polish, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Ancient Greek (in roughly descending order by reading ability); there are some more that I started learning at some point, but am not able to read with both a dictionary and a reference grammar by my side (e.g., MSA, Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkish, Latvian, Croattian, Czech); able to roughly understand written texts in Portuguese and most Slavic languages due to my knowledge of other Romance and Slavic languages
Your conlangs: The only ones I'm still working on are Tautisca (IE a posteriori) and the Romlangs of Tarra, the island Tautisca is spoken on

Favourites: 1
Favourite language: Currently none
Favourite colour: blue
Favourite food: stuffed peppers
Favourite drink: black tea, type depends on mood and time of day
Favourite sport: football (mostly passive)
Favourite book: I did't have one favourite book since my twenties
Favourite movie: I did't have one favourite film since my twenties
Favourite game: Tabletop: Settlers of Catan, PC: Civ IV

Extra credit
Name one interesting talent you have: good at learning languages (but that prolly doesn't count as an "interesting talent" here)
Your favourite pun: None at the moment. Come back tomorrow.

[Znex]

Favourite book: I did't have one favourite book since my twenties
Favourite movie: I did't have one favourite film since my twenties

haven't had* because perfect construction.

[Drydic]

Alternatively, I didn't have any one favorite _____ after my twenties.

[Salmoneus]

Religion: none, but underwent a Catholic emergency baptism after birth - does that count?

I realise this is an emergency baptism that was Catholic... but I do like the idea of a Catholic emergency. "Quick, quick, there's a Catholic emergency! We need more baptisms, people! EMERGENCY!"


Drydic: grammatical, but ALIMI that would strongly imply that he had a favourite now: "I didn't have any one favourite book after my twenties... until I read X". In any case, the perfect construction would be a lot more common alimi.

[hwhatting]

Znex, Sal, Drydic: Thanks!
That's what happens when I want to avoid the perfect because it sounds too German...

[Drydic]

what the fuck does ALIMI stand for

[hwhatting]

what the fuck does ALIMI stand for

I assume "at least in my idiolect".