hey it’s me jan Misali, the guy who allegedly makes Conlang Critic.
it’s uh, been a while since I’ve done that and no the next video after this isn’t
going to be Conlang Critic either.
I’m just on a real genuine not Conlang Critic streak and I’d hate to break it so HERE
WE GO Q&A
What made you want to start Conlang Critic?
I was reading about conlangs and I thought “hey, I wonder if anyone’s ever done like
conlang reviews or something” so I googled “conlang critic” and I couldn’t find
anything.
I then thought to myself “darn, I kinda wanted to watch a conlang review series.
I guess the only way for that to happen is for me to make my own, but I don’t really
have any strong enough conlang opinions to justify doing that.
oh well.”
then I learned what the lojban word for 42 is and the rest is history.
lfalch asks: What is your favourite phonological feature in any language?
the uvular implosive.
Do you think the Conlang community (espeecially the subreddit) could do with being a little
less snobby?
yes, absolutely.
everyone always forgets to have fun!
Do you have a linguistics background or are you currently studying linguistics?
uh, no to both!
I’m just a casual language fan.
everything I know about linguistics is stuff I figured out on my own from reading Wikipedia
and stuff.
When you say that toki pona is a good IAL, do you mean for international politics/science
or just for casual communication between people who speak different languages.
right, so I called toki pona a good “interlang”, which, you might notice, is a slightly broader
category than “international auxiliary language”.
toki pona’s ambiguity deffo prevents it from being a full IAL, but the incredibly
short amount of time it takes to learn it makes it perfect for casual conversation.
as of now, I have yet to come across a language that could honestly work as an international
auxiliary language, which is either because all the good IALs have bad marketing or because
there aren’t any good IALs.
cripplingdoubt asks: I’m trying to get my partner into conlanging, where should I start?
just keep making ejective sounds at them until they break up with you.
Why do almost all conlangs have both m and n even when those two are sometimes difficult
to distinguish from each other.
the bilabial and alveolar nasals are two of the most common sounds cross linguistically.
it’s pretty weird when a language doesn’t distinguish between them.
Could you review natural languages in the future?
the thing about reviewing natlangs is that whereas conlangs are made by specific people
and are usually trying to do specific things, natlangs just sorta come about without any
clear purpose.
you can’t point your finger at anyone and say like “why is this vowel system so asymmetrical?”
because it isn’t really anyone’s “fault” and it there isn’t really a reason.
quasarbooster asks: Considering how your previous icon was John Bowers, are you aware of the
small branch of math called googology?
If so, what are some of your favorite things about it?
for those of you who don’t know, this
is a highly edited image of this guy,
who, famously, once said the word “gongulus” and everyone took him seriously for some reason.
that, right there, is what I love about googology.
it’s this whole field of mathematics where people come up with these really silly names
for numbers that are way too big to ever be used.
it’s so great.
what is your favorite retired toki pona word?
kijetesantakalu.
ellie asks: why exactly do you say seximal/base 6 is the best base?
TOP THREE REASONS WHY SEXIMAL (aka senary or heximal) IS THE BEST BASE:
NUMBER 3: when you’re counting on your fingers, the only amounts of fingers a five finger
hand can have extended are zero, one, two, three four, or five.
unless you wanna do some advanced finger counting techniques and do some more complicated gestures,
this is the limit for how high you can count on one hand.
this “after you get to five you need to start using your other hand” concept is
very easy to compare to “after you get to five you need to add another digit”, and
so using both hands, counting in seximal, you can go up to thirty five.
or uh, fifsy five, for five sixes plus five.
NUMBER 2: if we define “a simple representation” of a rational number as having either four
or less terminating digits or three or less digits that include a repeating section, seximal
is the smallest base with a simple representation of one half, one third, one fourth, one fifth,
one sixth, one seventh, one eighth, one ninth, and one tenth.
NUMBER 1: “seximal” has the sex word in it!
someone of “the underground” mu Pixane asks: Your excessive forcing of people to
follow with your political stance of liberalism on your Discord server is blatantly ridiculous.
Also, the other bans on your server are because you felt the necessity to ban someone to demonstrate
your “authority”.
man, who knew that jan Misali was a full blown sjw this whole time? that guy keeps strictly
enforcing his extremist political ideas like “nazis are bad” and “slurs are offensive”
and “non binary people exist”.
it’s like he’s TRYING to alienate this entire side of his audience!
what’s the deal?
ihatenumbers234 asks: Other than the one you’re working on, what other ideas do you have for
Retconlang?
first off, I’ve seen a lot of confusion about this so I’m just gonna clarify it
now: Retconlang is a new side series for Conlang Critic where in each episode I’ll present
my own version of a conlang that has interesting ideas that I don’t think were executed very
well.
the first episode is going to be my take on a future version of English, like Futurese.
anyway, as of now, I don’t have very many ideas of what sorts of things will work for
later episodes of Retconlang?
I know eventually I’m gonna make an IAL, but that’s probbo not gonna be like, episode
two.
I guess I’ll just wait for inspiration to strike or something.
In English, some words describe basically the same thing, but with positive or negative
connotation, such as “tease” versus “harass” or “fib” versus “lie.”
Let’s pretend that you were in the process of inventing your own language and that you
wanted to make some normally shunned thing more appealing.
What word would you make more tame or playful?
Alternatively, what currently existing ‘tame’ word would you change to sound more despicable?
this is more of a cultural thing than a language thing, but I like the idea of having a word
for “strange” or “weird” that doesn’t have any negative connotations.
for whatever reason, those sorts of words keep getting used as insults.
oh, and I’d love to have a clearer distinction between “logical” as in “thinking things
through before doing them” and “logical” as in “not having any basic empathy and
calling yourself smart for it”.
why dont you remove the comments on your youtube videos being anti-gender-nonconforming or
anti-feminist or etcetera right, so, I’m not nearly as strict with
the youtube comment section as I am with the discord server.
I usually make sure to remove all of the, like, really bad stuff?
generally though I think it’s more fun to just make fun of them.
horrible people have a tendency to think that if you “silence them”, then that means
you’re just “too afraid to debate them”, which is dumb and they deserve to be mocked
for thinking that.
it’s always really funny when I call someone a goofus and they say I’m using an ad hominem
attack or something because they’re too much of a goofus to realize that I’m not
actually debating them.
but hey, I am specifically all about alienating right wingers who think their opinions matter,
so if any of you think handling the comments more strictly will be a more effective way
of doing that, please let me know.
Do you smoke weed?
nope.
okay we’re done, see you later this month maybe with that Retconlang thing.