Results of Poll by Email No. 23

        Last week's question was, "Do you use a conlang for purposes you would
otherwise use a natural language for? e.g. writing notes to yourself, keeping
a diary, praying?" We had 27 responses that broke down thusly:
        A. Yes (10 responses, 37%)
        B. No (17 responses, 63%)

        Several people said that they tend to use a constructed script for writing in
English, or to doodle when bored.

        Christophe Grandsire exemplifies the hazards of a maggelish brain: "It's not
that I *wouldn't* like to use a conlang for things I'd normally use a natlang
for. It's just that to do that I'd need a conlang I know enough of to do
that. When you think that I cannot even remember how to say "hello!" in
Moten, my conlang with the most lexicon (just checked: it's "mejto !" /mEjto/
:)) ), you can imagine what it means for the rest...
        "I'd just love to curse in my conlangs. But I need to develop that part of
their vocabulary first (I already know that Maggel speaker elevate cursing to
an art, a bit like French people ;))) )."

        Daniel Andreasson, on the other hands, likes to keep his readership
scintillated: "I wish I was fluent enough in one of my conlangs (or rather
had one developed enough) to be able to keep my diary in it. But I don't see
any particular use for it either. I guess I'm not very secretive with my
life. I'm a  reloader, and keeping my diary in Rinya or Piata would seriously
decrease the number of readers that I have. ;)"

        Steg writes, "I still write reminders and stuff sometimes on papers and stick
them on my desk; then i use conlangs and natlangs indiscriminately, but
usually my conlang Rokbeigalmki.  when i was getting ready to come back
to school this semester, i posted a group of reminders on the inside of
my apt door at home where each reminder was in a different language
and/or alphabet.  I'm too lazy to keep a diary, and i generally only pray
in Hebrew, but i have translated a few short religious songs (and parts
of songs) into Rokbeigalmki.
        "A few days ago i printed out an inspirational biblical verse kind of
thing.  it was five words long, one word in big letters on each page, and
under each word i wrote an additional message in Rokbeigalmki."
        There's a first: a conlang Bible commentary. :)

        Andrew Smith keeps a diary written in a conlang derived from Old English, and
Danny Wier uses conlangs as a social skill: "communicating with God, pets and
the voices in my head." Sarah Parker-Allen and others use conlangs for
writing notes; Dennis Himes has used his Gladilatian for work: "I had a
consulting job once where I kept track of my hours with Gladilatian numbers,
including the arithmetic for summing up a week's hours, etc."

        Robert Wilson not only composes songs in some of his conlangs, but also uses
conlangs to write about other conlangs. That takes meta-conlanging to a whole
new level!

        It looks like the most common use for conlangs is note-taking, followed by
composing songs. Only a few people use one for diaries or praying. I should
point out that a couple of years ago, we had a fellow on the list who posted
almost exclusively in his conlang; alas, that made communication rather
difficult. Don't do that unless you post a translation in Dutch, please.
        That's it for this week; stay tuned for Poll by Email No. 24!
        :Peter

--
Oh what a tangled web they weave who try a new word to conceive!

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