>== Part A: Personal and demographic data. ==
>
>01. a. What is your name (or online handle)?
G.V. Pieterson (or something like it)
> b. May I quote you by name or handle in an article or talk about
> conlang fluency?
yes
> c. If not, may I quote you anonymously?
>
>02. a. What is your preferred email address (if not the address you
> are sending the survey response from)?
> b. May I contact you with follow-up questions?
yes
>03. Do you have a website relating to your constructed language(s)?
> If so, what is its URL?
pieterson.atspace.com (though a bit outdated at the moment)
>04. a. How old are you?
22
> b. How old were you when you first started creating languages?
17 or 18
> c. How old were you when you first attained significant fluency
> in (one of) your constructed language(s)?
I still haven't
>05. Are you male or female?
male
>06. a. What is your nationality?
> b. Where do you live now?
> c. Where were your ancestors from?
Dutch, Netherlands
>07. What is/are your native language(s)?
Dutch
>08. What natural languages other than your native one(s) have you
> studied? What degree of fluency have you attained in them?
I once tried Spanish and gave up, and I just started Icelandic and Japanese;
not fluent at all in any of these langs.
>09. What constructed languages created by other people have you
> studied? What degree of fluency have you attained in them?
none
>10. What is your level of education? What is/was/will be your major
> or specialization?
Bachelor business intelligence (if that's the correct English term)
>11. What is (was/probably will be) your trade or profession?
Not sure yet, perhaps consultancy or market research
>12. Do you work part time? full time? Are you a student or retired?
Student
>13. a. What is your (approximate) income?
N/a
> b. What was your family's approximate income when you were a
> child?
I don't know; average, maybe below average
>14. Are you single, married, divorced, widowed, remarried...?
Single
>15. a. What is your religion, if any?
None
> b. What was your religious upbringing, if any?
Protestant Christian
>16. Are there other facts about yourself that you think might be
> relevant?
Don't think so
>== Part B: The nature of your conlang. ==
>
>If you have devised more than one conlang, please focus in these
>questions on those you are most (nearly) fluent in.
>
>17. What is the name of your primary conlang (the one you have
> invested the most effort in or are most fluent in)?
Neimalu
>18. What are the basic purpose(s) and design goals of your conlang? Is
> it associated with an imagined world or culture? If so, are the
> speakers human?
As a child I once had a secret script (for my own world made of Lego :) )
but to prevent it from being decyphered I made up different words for
often-used words. When I rediscovered this a few years ago, I came up with
the idea to just create a whole new language, but I no longer have an
associated world or culture – it's just a private language now.
I like the vocabulary to be small to make learning easier. New words are
compounds whenever possible.
>19. Is your conlang a priori (devised from scratch) or a posteriori
> (based on a specific natural language or language family), or a mix
> of a priori and a posteriori elements?
Mostly a priori, but with influences from many languages (when I see a
language feature I like, I just copy it)
>20. Describe the typology of your conlang - what is its primary word
> order (SVO, SOV, VSO...; pre- or postpositional; etc.)? Is it
> isolating, agglutinating, fusional, polysynthetic? Is its case or
> word order system primarily accusative, ergative, active,
> other...?
Mostly SOV, prepositional, fusional, accusative
>21. a. How extensive or complete do you consider your conlang to be (in
> grammar and vocabulary)?
Grammar is good enough, but may need some work in the future. The vocabulary
is still quite small (over 2800 entries including derivations).
> b. If you are not yet fluent in it, do you consider the language
> complete enough for fluency to be attainable, or would it need
> considerably more development for that to be possible?
It's good enough for simple texts/conversations, but it needs expanding.
>22. Does your conlang have features that might be expected to make it
> especially difficult for speakers of your native language?
Perhaps phonetically, /T/, /D/ and /Z/ may be difficult for some. Grammar
should not give too many problems.
>23. Does your conlang have possibly unnatural features that might be
> expected to make fluency difficult or impossible for humans?
No
>== Part C: Fluency in your conlang. ==
>
>24. a. Do you intend to become fluent in your conlang, or did you when
> you started creating it?
Yes
> b. If not, did you find yourself becoming fluent as an unexpected
> result of developing and using it?
N/a
>25. If you intend to become fluent in your conlang, what are your
> goals or purposes for learning it?
Not sure, maybe teach it to someone else?
>26. What do you use (or intend to use) your conlang for?
> a. Prayer?
No
> b. Meditation?
Not likely
> c. Thinking?
Intend to
> d. Taking notes in the course of study?
Perhaps
> e. Writing notes to yourself (grocery lists, etc.)?
I try to and intend to
> f. Writing a diary?
Yes
> g. Writing poetry or other literature?
Maybe
> h. Singing?
No
> i. Writing the grammar or lexicon of the conlang itself?
No
> j. Pretending in public that you are a native speaker
> of your conlang?
Good idea, I might try that
> k. Anything else?
Possibly
>27. Can you write original text in your conlang, at least on some
> subjects, without looking up words or grammatical structures?
Very limited
>28. Can you compose well-formed sentences in your conlang about as
> fast as you can handwrite or type?
No
>29. Can you read text you wrote some time ago in your conlang without
> looking up words in the lexicon or pausing to consciously parse or
> translate it?
No
>30. a. Do you find yourself thinking spontaneously in your conlang?
No
> b. Are such thoughts often full sentences rather than single
> words or short phrases?
> c. Are they usually grammatical (as you intend your conlang to
> work)?
N/a
>31. a. Can you think in your conlang, without deliberately constructing
> sentences word by word?
> b. Are such thoughts usually grammatical (as you intend your
> conlang to work)?
No, I usually only know some basic words; I think word by word, placing the
words in wrong parts of the sentence.
>32. a. Have you ever dreamed in your conlang?
> b. Did the speech or writing in your conlang from the dream turn out,
> when remembered on waking, to be grammatical and/or meaningful?
No, but I dreamt about Siling Dilai once, whatever that might mean.
>33. Can you read aloud at conversational speed from text written in
> your conlang?
Usually yes, but long compounds are hard and I often misplace stress.
>34. Can you speak spontaneously in your conlang at conversational
> speed? If native speakers of your conlang existed, could they
> understand your pronunciation?
No, yes
>35. If you have recorded speech in your conlang, have you been able to
> understand it in real time when played back a considerable time
> after you spoke and recorded it?
I did record something, just to hear the sound of the language. I probably
won't understand what I say if I'd try.
>36. If you are fluent in your conlang only when speaking or writing
> about certain subjects, what are those subjects?
N/a
>37. Have you found anyone willing to learn your conlang and speak it
> with you, or correspond with you in it? If so, please describe
> the experience.
No
>38. a. What methods have you used to study your conlang and improve your
> fluency in it?
> b. Which have you found most effective?
I translate texts and thus learn by using the language.
>39. How do you do most of the primary work on your conlang? In your
> head, writing stuff down later if at all, or on paper with
> pencil/pen, or with a voice recording/playback system, or at a
> computer, or...?
I do my work at my computer and sometimes I make notes on paper when I can't
sleep
>40. Have you made significant changes in your conlang due to your
> experience using it? In what way?
Yes, I have restarted my language from scratch, keeping some of the vocab,
after that I changed the phonology a couple of times.
>41. Has your more or less fluent use of the language changed its
> phonology, grammar or semantics in ways you did not consciously
> intend? Have you, for instance, changed the description of the
> language's grammar based on the way you've noticed that you
> actually use it, or changed a word's lexicon entry when you
> realized you were using it in a different sense than the way you
> originally defined it?
Yes, I didn't distinguish between /x/ and /h/, so I deleted /h/.
>42. Has your developing fluency in your conlang slowed down its rate
> of change? Have you refrained from making changes in the language
> that you would otherwise make because they would require
> re-learning words or structures you already use fluently?
I don't want to change too much
>43. Has your handwriting in your conlang changed as you became more
> fluent in it? In what way?
No
>44. Has your fluency in your conlang influenced the way you speak your
> native language, or other languages you are fluent in?
No
>45. Is there anything else you would like to add?
No