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Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2016 11:07 pm
by Zontas
I figure I should update everyone about my whereabouts, albeit in this roundabout way.

Basics

Username: Zontas
Name: Marty
Other nicknames (including good stories, if you have any): Helios
Birthplace: Greenbelt, Maryland, United States
Place of residence: West Hyattsville, Maryland, United States
Any particular reason you live there now?: I live with my parents.
Occupation: Unemployed; Student
Pets (+5 extra credit if you provide photographic evidence): An American shorthair cat named Lucy and a dog named Daisy.

Identity

Gender: Male
Sexuality: Straight, or at least I just like feminine people
Relationship: Single
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish
Religion: Agnostic
Politics: Progressive Lefty

Measurements

Age: 19
Height: 6 feet/ 183 centimeters
Weight: 190 pounds/ 86 kilograms
Shoe size: 12
Blood type: B+
Handedness: Right

Languages (including level of fluency!)

Native language(s): English
Other languages: Hebrew (mildly literate), Spanish (mildly literate), Japanese (cursory knowledge), German (cursory knowledge).
Your conlangs: None yet.
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: Talossan, North Picene, Etruscan, (Low) Saxon, Klezmer-Loshn, Esperanto, Russian, Irish, Cornish, Lingua Ignota.

Favourites - only 1 each!

Favourite language: Talossan
Favourite colour: (ocean) blue
Favourite food: (Utz) Carolina BBQ Chips.
Favourite drink: 2% cow milk.
Favourite animal: Longlegs/ harvester (Opilliones).
Favourite sport: Dodgeball.
Favourite book: King City by Brandon Graham.
Favourite movie: Kung Fury.
Favourite video game: Jazzpunk.
Favourite non-video game: Stratego.

Extra Credit

1) Link to the funniest picture you know of on the internet that isn't goatse. Here ya go.
2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? Disney World in Orlando Florida.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 4:56 am
by hwhatting
Zontas wrote:Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: North Picene
Well, if you've read a paper about it, chances are that you know it as well as anyone else alive today. ;-)

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 5:01 am
by Zontas
hwhatting wrote:
Zontas wrote:Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: North Picene
Well, if you've read a paper about it, chances are that you know it as well as anyone else alive today. ;-)
To be fair, that "paper" was Wikipedia.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 9:44 am
by Aili Meilani
Username: o rly
Name: Andrea
Other nicknames (including good stories, if you have any): Too many to list
Birthplace: Germany
Place of residence: Poland
Any particular reason you live there now? No, I could move at any time
Occupation: Programmer
Pets (+5 extra credit if you provide photographic evidence): Are cats pets?

Gender: Female
Sexuality: Lesbian
Relationship: Neither single nor taken
Nationality: German
Ethnicity: Cracker
Religion: I worship the devil
Politics: Anarchist communist

Age:
Height:
Weight:
Shoe size:
Blood type:
Handedness:
fuck off you're not my doctor

Native language(s): German
Other languages: Polish (functionally native), English (C1), Silesian (A2/B1?), Finnish (A1 would be a stretch)
Your conlangs:
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once:


Favourite language:
Favourite colour:
Favourite food:

Favourite drink: Water
Favourite animal: Humans
Favourite sport: Football (not handegg)
Favourite book: The Wheel of Time
Favourite movie:
Favourite video game: Tetris
Favourite non-video game:

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 1:00 pm
by Vijay
I have a funny picture to post for extra credit now! :D Well, OK, it may not seem very funny now that this whole deal is over, but I still can't think of any picture online that's made me laugh harder than this. (I also just noticed the one person in that picture holding a sign that says "Vote Leave").

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 3:35 pm
by Frislander
Vijay wrote:I have a funny picture to post for extra credit now! :D Well, OK, it may not seem very funny now that this whole deal is over, but I still can't think of any picture online that's made me laugh harder than this. (I also just noticed the one person in that picture holding a sign that says "Vote Leave").
:-D

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2016 4:39 am
by finlay
Aili Meilani wrote: Age:
Height:
Weight:
Shoe size:
Blood type:
Handedness:
fuck off you're not my doctor
no need to be aggressive, it's not like they were ever compulsory. we made stats a few years ago, that's why they're even in there at all.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2016 2:38 pm
by Pole, the
finlay wrote:
Aili Meilani wrote: Age:
Height:
Weight:
Shoe size:
Blood type:
Handedness:
fuck off you're not my doctor
no need to be aggressive, it's not like they were ever compulsory. we made stats a few years ago, that's why they're even in there at all.
fuck off you're not her doctor

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 7:12 pm
by kodé
Basics
Username: kodé
Name: Peter
Other nicknames (including good stories, if you have any): Ara
Birthplace: Nevada
Place of residence: Glendale, CA
Any particular reason you live there now? School
Occupation: PhD Student
Pets (+5 extra credit if you provide photographic evidence): nope, but I have a 16-month old. He fulfills a similar cute/naughty/silly/hungry niche.

Identity
Gender: Cis Male
Sexuality: Hetero
Relationship: Married <3
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Armenian
Religion: Presbyterian Panentheist/Trinitarian Contextualist
Politics: Pragmatic Libertarian Egalitarian

Measurements
Age: 29
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 110~125 kg (varies)
Shoe size: 12 1/2 US
Blood type: Yes, please!
Handedness: Correct

Languages (including level of fluency!)
Native language(s): English (US West dialect)
Other languages: Armenian (Heritage speaker, Low-Intermediate); Spanish (Low-Intermediate)
Your conlangs: Snr/Old Sanhr, Tl'acho
Natlangs or conlangs you have interest in but have never actually learned any of aside from maybe reading a paper on it once: not sure if this is the place for it, but I've done fieldwork on Chukchansi Yokuts and SaySiyat

Favourites - only 1 each!
Favourite language: right now? Creek/Muskogee
Favourite colour: Rainbow
Favourite food: can't choose
Favourite drink: coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffee
Favourite animal: Walrus
Favourite sport: Baseball (it's just so damn arcane!)
Favourite book: All the King's Men
Favourite movie: not sure
Favourite video game: Civ (II, III, and IV)
Favourite non-video game: Poker

Extra Credit
1) Link to the funniest picture you know of on the internet that isn't goatse. Too Lazy :\
2) What's the most interesting place you've ever been to? hard to choose. Probably mountain aboriginal village in Taiwan?

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 7:29 pm
by Vijay
kodé wrote:I've done fieldwork on Chukchansi Yokuts and SaySiyat
Wow, that's cool! :)

I wonder how many people on the ZBB have done fieldwork before (I haven't). It seems the only people who have even mentioned doing fieldwork here are Viktor (on language contact in Belgium), sirdanilot (on Anyi and some variety of Saxon), and Radagast revived (on Otomi).

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:52 pm
by kodé
Vijay wrote:
kodé wrote:I've done fieldwork on Chukchansi Yokuts and SaySiyat
Wow, that's cool! :)

I wonder how many people on the ZBB have done fieldwork before (I haven't). It seems the only people who have even mentioned doing fieldwork here are Viktor (on language contact in Belgium), sirdanilot (on Anyi and some variety of Saxon), and Radagast revived (on Otomi).
Yeah, it's pretty cool. :D Not a hard field to get into, either, if you have the interest and the request nerd skills (and at least passable people skills). I think with a BA in Linguistics you could get started. Hell, if you live in a diverse enough area, you can probably find an understudied or endangered language. In LA (my current metropolis), there are dozens, if not hundreds of such languages (more if you count non-standard dialects). I once met a random dude who spoke an Austronesian language of the Philippines that I had never heard of (Kalampangan).

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 9:41 pm
by Vijay
Well, okay, I technically haven't done fieldwork before, but learning Malayalam honestly has been a lot like fieldwork. :D

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 11:33 pm
by jmcd
Maybe speaking with my girlfriend and taking notes for my Creole-French French-Creole dictionary counts as fieldwork?

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 12:16 am
by kodé
Fieldwork is a continuum: you guys are on the starting end, and can eventually work your way to the other end. Which is wandering the mountains of Papua New Guinea armed with nothing but a notebook. Someday, grasshoppers...

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 12:26 am
by Vijay
kodé wrote:Fieldwork is a continuum: you guys are on the starting end, and can eventually work your way to the other end. Which is wandering the mountains of Papua New Guinea armed with nothing but a notebook. Someday, grasshoppers...
And then getting caught in the middle of civil war? :( :P

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 12:37 am
by kodé
Vijay wrote:
kodé wrote:Fieldwork is a continuum: you guys are on the starting end, and can eventually work your way to the other end. Which is wandering the mountains of Papua New Guinea armed with nothing but a notebook. Someday, grasshoppers...
And then getting caught in the middle of civil war? :( :P
Fieldwork is dangerous business.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 12:46 am
by mèþru
Ah, so everyone lied to me when they said Indiana Jones I and III were unrealistic (II and IV are never mentioned, as I deny their existence).

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:03 am
by Vijay
Yeah, come on, Indians don't eat tarantulas beetles and eyeball soup! And I didn't even know there was a IV. :P

I have to admit, though, I never stopped finding it hilarious that in II, Indiana Jones was basically looking for the Hindu god of destruction's penis, and they conveniently neglected to mention that little detail. :D

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 10:35 am
by mèþru
Well, between II portraying a major and revered Hindu god as an evil being demanding human sacrifice and the bit with the dinner, I do not feel comfortable with that film. Also, since it takes place before I, Indy should know better about supernatural objects existing, so it kind of causes a canon inconsistency.
IV is Indian Jones and the Crystal Ball, and fans says that it is to Indiana Jones what the prequel trilogy was to Star Wars. It features aliens, ridiculously giant ants, an Australian faking a Russian accent and a wedding.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 4:20 am
by kuroda
Not sure whether it's fieldy-enough work to count, but as far as high-risk linguistics go, I've been the target of death threats and a casual rifle potshot -- along with the language speakers who brought me on look at documenting/revitalizing their language. It turns out a lot of white boys were really angry that they decided to let their language go, when it 'belongs to humanity', i.e., to white boys.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:23 am
by Vijay
Ugh, I'm sorry to hear that. But yeah, I used to work on Romani, and no matter what you say about Romani, there's bound to be someone out there who wants to kill you for saying it.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 11:54 am
by mèþru
I haven't done fieldwork (I barely know linguistics and am learning it purely for conlanging), but I can imagine that working on languages of hated ethnicities could get you in trouble with their haters.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:25 pm
by Vijay
It can get you in trouble with like everybody. It can get you in trouble with their haters because they hate people doing anything remotely nice for them. It can get you in trouble with the people themselves because how are they supposed to know what your motivations are for documenting their language (and in particular, whether it will benefit them, hurt them, or neither)? It can get you in trouble with funding agencies because they don't get why it's important. It can get you in trouble with fellow colleagues because of politics within academia...so yeah.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:55 pm
by mèþru
Getting in trouble with academia due to academia politics is a given no matter what you do. Funding agencies for the sciences and parasciences (by which I mean psychology, linguistics and etc., not astrology) always don't understand what they fund. I never considered that the people don't want their language documented.

Re: ZBB Census 2016

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 3:05 pm
by kodé
kuroda wrote:Not sure whether it's fieldy-enough work to count, but as far as high-risk linguistics go, I've been the target of death threats and a casual rifle potshot -- along with the language speakers who brought me on look at documenting/revitalizing their language. It turns out a lot of white boys were really angry that they decided to let their language go, when it 'belongs to humanity', i.e., to white boys.
Not sure exactly what you're referring to, but it seems like it has to do with people outside of a community being angry that the community hasn't been preserving their language. This is a tricky issue for field linguists: as lovers of language, of course we want all languages to be preserved, but really, a language belongs to a community (or several), and if the community doesn't want to use a certain language, it's pretty imperialist to judge them for that. Peter Ladefoged, who did a hell of a lot of fieldwork in his career, once penned an article explaining to other linguists several reason why a community member might not want to preserve their ancestral tongue. It's one thing to personally disagree with them on the intrinsic value of every language, but insisting the community is wrong or short-sighted or deserved to be shot at is pretty vile imperialism.