As others are joining in, I may as well ..... ;)
> == Part A: Personal and demographic data. ==
>
> 01. a. What is your name (or online handle)?
> 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?
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Glosso/Glossopoeia.html
> 04. a. How old are you?
69
> b. How old were you when you first started creating languages?
10
> c. How old were you when you first attained significant fluency
> in (one of) your constructed language(s)?
Don't know - I recall I had some fluency in the many conlangs of my
teens, now all lost. But most of them were Euroclones, so fluency wasn't
too difficult :)
> 05. Are you male or female?
Male
> 06. a. What is your nationality?
British (UK)
> b. Where do you live now?
Surrey, UK
> c. Where were your ancestors from?
I have a great grandfather who came from Pomerania (then part of
Germany, now part of Poland) - otherwise AFAIK all from English stock.
> 07. What is/are your native language(s)?
English
> 08. What natural languages other than your native one(s) have you
> studied?
As many as I've been able to in the last 59 years :)
Europe: all major ones and many minor ones; Africa: Swahili, Hausa, Luo,
Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, Ancient Egyptian; Asia & Oceania: Hebrew,
Arabic, Hindi/Urdu, Tamil, Malay/Indonesian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese,
Tagalog, Samoan inter_alia; America: sadly only Quechua (maybe more
someday).
> What degree of fluency have you attained in them?
Can read Latin, French, Spanish, Italian & Ancient Greek with reasonable
fluency; have read German & Welsh, tho dictionary & grammar book is
usually required. When I left school I had some spoken fluency in
French, but haven't kept it up - but usually understand spoken French.
> 09. What constructed languages created by other people have you
> studied? What degree of fluency have you attained in them?
Esperanto, Novial, Volapük, Interlingua, LSF, Speedwords inter_alia -
can read Novial, Interlingua & LSF well enough. At one time (late teens)
I was fluent at writing Speedwords.
> 10. What is your level of education? What is/was/will be your major
> or specialization?
B.A. Combined Hons. in combined Latin & Greek; M.Litt. (research into
Pre-Greek speech on Crete); M.Sc. (Computing).
> 11. What is (was/probably will be) your trade or profession?
Schoolteacher - and last 14 years of my working life, I was College
lecturer in Computer Science.
> 12. Do you work part time? full time? Are you a student or retired?
Retired.
> 13. a. What is your (approximate) income?
(Teacher's Pension + State Pension) - Tax.
> b. What was your family's approximate income when you were a
> child?
Haven't a clue - father was self-employed electrical engineer &
contractor; mother was housewife.
> 14. Are you single, married, divorced, widowed, remarried...?
Married (44.5 years)
> 15. a. What is your religion, if any?
Roman Catholic
> b. What was your religious upbringing, if any?
Middle to Low Anglican (definitely Protestant)
> 16. Are there other facts about yourself that you think might be
> relevant?
No.
> == 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)?
Piashi
> 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?
{quote}
To create a language:
1. which, when written alphabetically, can serve as an alphabetic
shorthand*
2. which can, if desired, serve as an international auxiliary
language (IAL)
{/quote}
For a fuller explanation of its 12 design principles, see
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Briefscript/ObjAndDesign.html
> 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?
Mixed
> 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...?
SVO - probably agglutinating and primarily accusative (I suspect ;)
> 21. a. How extensive or complete do you consider your conlang to be (in
> grammar and vocabulary)?
Alas, far too incomplete. TAKE ('Greek without inflexions'), a conlang I
have invested much less time in, is more complete as regards grammar &
vocabulary; see:
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/TAKE/index.html
> 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 needs considerably more development for that to be possible.
> 22. Does your conlang have features that might be expected to make it
> especially difficult for speakers of your native language?
Not that I am aware of.
> 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?
Probably, when I began it - but that was long ago & I have no such
intention now.
> b. If not, did you find yourself becoming fluent as an unexpected
> result of developing and using it?
It would be nice if this proves to be so.
> 25. If you intend to become fluent in your conlang, what are your
> goals or purposes for learning it?
N/A
> 26. What do you use (or intend to use) your conlang for?
> a. Prayer?
> b. Meditation?
> c. Thinking?
> d. Taking notes in the course of study?
> e. Writing notes to yourself (grocery lists, etc.)?
> f. Writing a diary?
> g. Writing poetry or other literature?
> h. Singing?
> i. Writing the grammar or lexicon of the conlang itself?
> j. Pretending in public that you are a native speaker
> of your conlang?
> k. Anything else?
N/A - essentially its creation is a mental exercise.
> 27. Can you write original text in your conlang, at least on some
> subjects, without looking up words or grammatical structures?
N/A
> 28. Can you compose well-formed sentences in your conlang about as
> fast as you can handwrite or type?
N/A
> 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?
N/A
> 30. a. Do you find yourself thinking spontaneously in your conlang?
> b. Are such thoughts often full sentences rather than single
> words or short phrases?
N/A (but I do recall doing this with the Euroclones of my teens)
> c. Are they usually grammatical (as you intend your conlang to
> work)?
My teenage thoughts would have been so.
> 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)?
N/A
> 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?
AFAIK I don't dream - if I do, I forget them when I wake up!
> 33. Can you read aloud at conversational speed from text written in
> your conlang?
N/A
> 34. Can you speak spontaneously in your conlang at conversational
> speed? If native speakers of your conlang existed, could they
> understand your pronunciation?
N/A
> 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?
N/A
> 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.
N/A
> 38. a. What methods have you used to study your conlang and improve your
> fluency in it?
> b. Which have you found most effective?
N/A
> 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...?
In my head, with paper & pencil, on a computer.
> 40. Have you made significant changes in your conlang due to your
> experience using it? In what way?
Nope - but significant changes have been made as a result of discussion
on Conlang & other fora.
> 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?
N/A
> 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?
N/A
> 43. Has your handwriting in your conlang changed as you became more
> fluent in it? In what way?
N/A
> 44. Has your fluency in your conlang influenced the way you speak your
> native language, or other languages you are fluent in?
N/A
> 45. Is there anything else you would like to add?
No.
--
Ray
==================================
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==================================
Entia non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitudinem.