It’s also remarkable how many people speak “Other”! 🙈

EDIT: I was trying to make a joke by pretending “Other” was a language. But that clearly didn’t work. 😬

I expected the Fediverse to have many English & German speakers and had read that it was popular in France. I wanted to check these assumptions via a survey and my instance only lets me create four options. Beyond that, I didn’t know what to expect but the replies to my initial post show just how linguistically diverse the Fediverse is!

It’d be very interesting to do a proper survey with a representative sample and an open set of languages!

@rauschma Norwegian

@rauschma (Other): Dutch

@jwildeboer @rauschma this 👆

@rauschma Polish

@rauschma yea you forgot Dutch 😏

@melroy @rauschma y español también ...

@rauschma other: Klingon

@hengstenberg Daj, qatlho’!

@hengstenberg @rauschma There are indeed native speakers of that, who are not Klingons!

@irina @hengstenberg @rauschma
How did you check if he is not a Klingon?

@sjaakkeuvelaar I don't know if that person is a Klingon! I do know that some human children have been brought up as native speakers of Klingon. Who this person may or may not be one of.
@hengstenberg @rauschma

@irina @sjaakkeuvelaar @hengstenberg @rauschma
To date, one reported case of a child being brought up to be a native speaker of Klingon. Failed, partly because insufficient pool of others to talk to, partly because the language is not yet developed enough to be used for daily tasks, and partly because the child (Alec Speers) simply refused to continue using the language once he reached about 5 years old.

By comparison there are a few thousand native speakers of Esperanto.

@rauschma I'm English with dual French nationality and speak French (despite a hideous accent). Spent a few years in Germany but never really picked up the language (in my defence, the languages where I worked were English and French). Also learned a spot of Other on the banks of Lago di Como, which was nice!

My daughter speaks all of them, and Dutch. Which is just showing off, really.

@rauschma somewhat surprised but maybe I shouldnt be?

@rauschma

potlhbogh wa' Hol neH tu'lu'!

@benroyce @rauschma

LOL

@rauschma Fluently

@rauschma We are otherians!

@rauschma why? Hundreds of millions speak Spanish, at least, and there are hundreds of other languages in Europe alone.

@mdione Apologies for the silly joke: I’m pretending that “Other” is a language.

@rauschma ah, I can barely see the emoticon, I can't see what it is or what it's doing :)

@mdione @rauschma please let us pretend french is still an international language. We are barely in the deny stage.

@rauschma I think you can add as many as you want?

@ellohir Nice! I can see that poll but I can’t create such a poll myself.

@rauschma @ellohir diverse languages and diverse polling capability!

seems like a collaboration between you two champions would be a very cool bit of business. looking forward to the next poll.

@ellohir @rauschma depends on your instance's settings

@rauschma
It can allow more options, but I believe that that has to be enabled by the instance admin.

@murdoc @rauschma

how you access mastodon may also makes a difference. I've used a different apps and the functionality changes radically.

@murdoc @rauschma people on Mastodon instances also cannot vote in 32-option polls. No idea where exactly the limit of their feeble software is.

@rauschma

I selected English only because it was the closest to my native tongue, which is Minnesotan. Not indigenous Minnesotan, but a variant of American English that is only spoken in Minnesota.

No one from Yorkshire would recognize my language as English; and while I would recognize Yorkshirese as English, I would not comprehend most of it.

@rauschma supposedly the most spoken by first language are 1. Mandarin Chinese 2. Spanish 3. English ... and you missed the first two.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

Edit: omitted the first two and included nos. 21 and 22. "Other" would get a lot more votes if poll-takers were representative of the global population.

@ghouston True! (As a silly joke, I pretended that “Other” is a language.)

Everything about this poll is indeed very unscientific (the sample etc.): https://fosstodon.org/@rauschma/117430069059928752

@rauschma I know of a considerably sized spanish speaking community.

@rauschma Remarkable how many of us aren't from the Western world, huh?

@anatudor Sarcasm? I was trying to make a joke by pretending that “Other” is a language (hence the emoji). It clearly didn’t work well. I’ll edit the post to either clarify or remove the joke. 😬

It’s such a big planet, I’m constantly humbled by how little I know about it. I recently started to learn Chinese and at the same time got to know so much new history (dynasties, colonialism, Mao, etc.).

@rauschma fwiw i lol'd

@virtulis OK, good! Humor is so tricky, I especially in writing. There were also a few self-identified Otherians in the replies—which made me chuckle.

@rauschma oh I absolutely do identify as Other and love to finally be represented!

note: "Otherian" generally refers to people living in or coming from Other, however when referring to language and culture of Other people the correct term is indeed "Other".

(this is also an attempt at humor)

@virtulis Random Other-related thought: I love trains and follow the Rail Baltica project with great interest. I hope Europe does much more with trains in the future—they are such a great way to travel.

@rauschma
Other: Farsi.

@rauschma Swedish.

@rauschma I would also guess this poll hasn't crossed to the Japanese side of Fedi, over at mastodon.social there is ALWAYS at least one Japanese tag trending. And sometimes all of them are.

@merri Interesting! I faintly remember several Fediverse server apps coming from Japan, which would fit.

@rauschma If that had been checkboxes instead of radio buttons I could have checked English as well (but Other it is).

@irina More than one native language, nice! Checkboxes would work well in some ways, but you’d also get the wrong impression that there are more people. That is, I hadn’t even considered using checkboxes, but I don’t see either approach as a clear winner.

You checking “English” would work, too, I think.

@rauschma I grew up *almost* bilingual (Dutch/English). I'm completely bilingual for reading, writing and listening, and practically bilingual for speaking (I have a bad all-over-the-world accent in my English).

@irina Leuk!

@rauschma @irina My daughter was born in France to an Italian mother and English father, and moved through all three as a kid. I wouldn't have a clue what her native language is (although she spent her formative years of school in England aged 4-11, which has a huge effect).

@davep @rauschma I know an almost six-year-old kid with Russian parents who lived in Turkey for a couple of years and now lives in Serbia with her father who speaks good English (and often does so in video calls), so she's fluent in all four languages.

@irina @rauschma

Brilliant!

@rauschma other: Hebrew

@rauschma
I have two native languages though

@mehdi_benadel Good point! I added an explanation.

@rauschma Swiss-german

@rauschma Other: Portuguese

@rauschma I'll put in a vote for English. ... boring!

I've noticed a psychological bias with surveys like this though. I wonder what it's called. It must have a name. People generally only participate in social media in general, but also in surveys like this, if they can make themselves seem more interesting. It applies even if a survey is anonymous, because that's the mode we're in when doing quick fun interactions on social media. If you have a boring response, you're likely to not bother.

@harry_wood This is not scientific for sure! I’d also guess that French and German people are more likely to boost it.

@rauschma My native language is Dutch.

@rauschma Dutch (NL)

@rauschma

Other: slovak

@rauschma other: Dutch.

@rauschma Thank god!

@rauschma
Wouah ça fait beaucoup de other, gloire aux otaries

@rauschma

Hey, I’m Dutch, not other!

;)

@rauschma
Other: Teochew.

@PhoenixSerenity @rauschma Thank you for commenting, I learned something new today!

@titia
You're welcome 😊
More about our peoples/culture/language:
https://www.theteochewstore.org/pages/teochew-history

@rauschma

@PhoenixSerenity I recently read about the movie “Dear You” being successful in China—which I found interesting! It’s mainly in Teochew, IIRC.

@PhoenixSerenity @rauschma oh I hadn't ever heard of this language before! Reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teochew_Min after seeing your comment

@rauschma other, Dutch

@rauschma Other: Spanish

@rauschma Other being Danish

@rauschma Other: Slovenian

@rauschma other — Russian

@rauschma ew why is fr*nch winning 😭

@rauschma@fosstodon.org Other is winning as expected, there are many languages besides English, German and French 😉 What about me, my native language is Russian.

@rauschma to be fair, je parle français und ich hab' auch ein bisschen Deutsch.

(I'm apparently the perfect Mastodon user lol.)

@tess @rauschma naturisch.

@tess @rauschma

Anglophone, der kann un peu Frazösisch et aussi ein bisschen Allemagne? Auch moi!

@rauschma@fosstodon.org German, but I'm not on Mastodon …

@DerEmil @rauschma but from the Fediverse.
Which application?

@rauschma

Norwegian

@rauschma@fosstodon.org nice try government surveillance ​​

@rauschma Armenian

@hiker @rauschma I am not as manly as you, nevertheless, Akkoma is my Fediverse software and I am German – which is a kind of man. ;-)

@rauschma clumping *all* of the other language into one category pretty much guarantees it's going to be the largest one!

@rauschma still, reality is apparently proving me wrong :-)

@rauschma Czech (see my own poll)

@rauschma Dutch

@rauschma make a new poll with the languages mentioned here as well.

@rauschma We are the world!

@rauschma English (US), but trying to emigrate to France, so I'm learning French.

Not doing terribly at it, but once I start University it should get better.

@rauschma Chinese

@vux55 普通话还是一个方言？

@rauschma 普通话加方言，大部分中国人都是和我差不多这样的吧？台湾应该和中国差不多

@vux55 同意！在德国，方言渐渐消失。比如：我和我的弟弟都说一个方言，但是我的弟弟的女儿不会。我很好奇未来全球的方言会变成什么样。

@rauschma
Alemannic.

They had to teach me "proper German" in school, so it's not my native language.

@rauschma

Danish, And it is not a breakfast treat 😉

@rauschma Spanish (and then Catalan)

@rauschma Cantonese 粵語

@rauschma Not in here!

@rauschma The vibe in the Fediverse is Netflix meets Arte, yes.

@rauschma Finnish 🇫🇮

@rauschma Spanish, in my case

@rauschma
I speak fluently Other. With a slight Dutch accent.

@Branwen74 @rauschma
Best answer so far!

@rauschma
Dutch, but able to speak English, German, French, Spanish and some Italian as well… and posting in 4 languages…

@rauschma Other: Finnish

@rauschma Dutch (Nederlands)

@rauschma spanish

@rauschma Other: Dutch, of course 😉

@rauschma meine Muttersprache ist Niederlaendisch, spreche aber auch Deutsch, Franzoesich und Englisch.

@rauschma Dutch.

Now, this is confusing …

@rauschma Other: Bangla

@farah Nice! I recently came across that language when reading about Mamdani’s campaign in New York City: There seems to be a sizable Bengali community there.

@rauschma There is! I’ve never been but part of my dad’s family live there

@rauschma

Other: Spanish

@rauschma @timbray
My first language is Swedish, although I was raised in the UK.

@rauschma i am an arab so it is arabic

@rauschma I selected the one I speak the most I am not a native speaker but I rarely use my mother tongue to justify selecting it.

@rauschma There are borderlines: I grew up bilingual, French and Hungarian. (I voted 'other')

@rauschma
Other: Dutch

@rauschma Finnish 🇫🇮

@rauschma Native French, but more comfortable in English.

@rauschma Other : Português

@rauschma There is as well a lot of people here who speak Chinese and Arabic.

@rauschma native Dutch. But I can read and speak all of them.

@rauschma @sagilca Other: Spanish. I guess that only people that speak English will answer this poll, so maybe it is not representative of any person that doesnt speak/understand English

@tinitun @sagilca ¡Sí, tiene/tenés razón!

@rauschma I do like that the native English speakers aren't a majoroty. It's almost like the rest of the world uses feddi.

@rauschma Tigrigna

@rauschma

Other with a native language Urdu 🇵🇰

@ChaiPaniEtc kabhi lagta hay sirf idhar 2 banday hi hain Pakistan se 😁

@harib_murshidi @rauschma Hahahahahahaha, no there are many, but most of them are unconnected - also, internet is not supporting Urdu very much as Chief of Google is Indian and they are supporting Devanagari Font & Hindi over Urdu

#Urdu #NativeUrduSpeakers #UrduLovers

@ChaiPaniEtc @rauschma

I don't think it has much to do with the chief of Google, local people don't work for it ! The most used #Urdu Software (InPage) came from #India, as well as the best online Urdu dictionary (Rekhta) . When somebody from here does something good it gets global recognition (the Sindhi keyboard was introduced by somebody from Pakistan)

Waisay Google ne recently Punjabi Shahmukhi translation start kardi jo pehli nahi thee

@rauschma Italian here!

@rauschma other (see flag)

@rauschma Other: Polish.

@rauschma Finnish!

@rauschma norsk!

@rauschma
Japanese.

@rauschma my native language is Romanian

i'm looking forwards to the day where it won't be surprising anymore for native German / French / English speakers to learn that folx with other native language share the same digital space as them ^^ here's to more diversity

@catileptic @rauschma found my tribe 😄
Romanian, also

@catileptic I recently watched an interview with Sebastian Stan (*) in Romanian. It sounded interesting—a bit like Portuguese to my (ignorant) ears. I recognized some words from French and Spanish (which is not surprising—it is a Romance language after all).

(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Stan

@rauschma Italian

@rauschma English English. As spoken in the UK. Not the American version. Recognising that there are other Englishes too.

@rauschma I suggest the label for each checkbox could be in the said language. IMO it is the user freindly way

@rauschma I can't speak my native language, because genocidal colonialism, so I selected English.

@rauschma "IM SpEaK"

@rauschma

Me mother language is #Bandari and #Persian.

@rauschma@fosstodon.org only allowed for mastodon user, or for the whole Fediverse,?

@fabos You may not see the edit I did a few hours ago: I initially wrote “Mastodon” and then changed it to “Fediverse”.

@rauschma Spanish

@rauschma
English with lots of Scots dialect.

@rauschma I do speak German, but you are asking about my native language and that is Russian. German is my second, English being third.

@rauschma
Spanisch. Since 30 years I live in Germany and speak German.

@rauschma Other = Finnish 🇫🇮

@rauschma Dutch

@rauschma My native language is German but honestly my English is better now than my German (which I almost never use anymore)

@rauschma anglais est ma langue maternelle mais j’habite en France donc je parle aussi français.

@rauschma https://ice.finnley.dev/notes/as8lzziejfn73dca

@rauschma Spanish

@rauschma Finnish.

@rauschma other: Catalan

@rauschma@fosstodon.org It’s a shame I can’t take part.
I’m not on Mastodon in the Fediverse

@crossgolf_rebel You can: https://fosstodon.org/@rauschma/117429942971637144

@rauschma@fosstodon.org 😘

@rauschma
Other: Dutch (sorta)

@rauschma Polish and English both.

@rauschma other: Spanish

@rauschma@fosstodon.org

Spanish

@rauschma (Other:) Italian.

@rauschma turns out fedi is actually German.

And no surprise there, bc Mastodon is a GmbH ;)

@hypolite @rauschma

thanks for the mansplanation

seen that little fella at the end of my comment?

@rauschma czech

@rauschma Nederlands

@rauschma Lithuanian 👋

@rauschma spanish, portuguese, and all languages in "other"?, eurochovinism superiority, my friend.

@sergidefe Alas, Mastodon surveys only support 4 choices. It’d be awesome to do a survey with a much longer list of languages!

(Por ejemplo, estoy seguro de que mucha gente habla castellano en el Fediverso.)

@rauschma What if we grew up bilingual?

@thepurpleoctopus You may not be able to see the edit I made a few hours ago: “If you have more than one native language then check the one that you speak better and/or the one that is listed below.”

@rauschma Oh, thanks. Great. :)

@rauschma Spanish

@rauschma Other (Dutch), I speak English at near-native level but can't claim actual native-speaker-ness.

@rauschma No #spanish in the #fediverse? Maybe you're overstating central European languages...

@marioostolaza Just a random selection forced by Mastodon only supporting a maximum of four options. It’d be interesting to do a proper survey with many more languages! ¡Parece que hay una gran comunidad hispanohablante aquí!

@rauschma English but I can speak German, Spanish, a smattering of French and some Welsh. My grandfather spoke Wisconser Deutsch so my German is heavily influenced by a dead dialect.

@rauschma Other (though I do not speak it much after moving away): Gaeilge/Irish!

@rauschma not so many frenchies then, in proportion?

@paul_denton @Khrys @jeanneadebats vous avez vu (et boosté) ce sondage ⬆️ ?

@politipet C’est déjà pas mal je dirais ! (Vu le nombre de personnes germanophones et anglophones qui me suivent.)

@rauschma https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zL8ylX8Ao3A&pp=ygUacG9sYWsgdyB1ayByb3ptb3dhIHRlbGVkb24%3D

@rauschma English is my native language, but I also speak Esperanto, French, and Irish.

@rauschma let me drop "Czech" here.

@rauschma

UbbuDubby…

@rauschma *se ofende en español*

@NullTheFool ¡Disculpe! Tenía que elegir: https://fosstodon.org/@rauschma/117430069059928752

@rauschma
even if the entirety of "others" is just spanish, is still low

@rauschma I’m amazed how evenly this is split.

@rauschma I'm equally fluent in German (native language) and English (having lived in the US most of my life).

@rauschma
(Other): European Spanish speaker here

@rauschma Hungarian

@rauschma swiss german actually, but i checkmarked german.

@resmo Bin immer wieder überrascht wie gut Schweizerdeutsch klingt und wie wenig ich verstehe! Deutsche Dialekte nehmen gefühlt stark ab (ich spreche auch Bayerisch), aber in der Schweiz ist ja sogar viel Fernsehen in Schweizerdeutsch.

@rauschma naja "viel" nid aber sogar der schweizer tatort ist in schweizerdeutsch (wobei ich den nie schaue weil schweizer können keinen guten tatort...)

schweizer haben generell eine art superpower um andere deutsche dialekte zu verstehen, wir sind das gewohnt. ich war grad aufner nordseeinsel und da war es dann schon schwieriger was zu verstehen. 😉

@rauschma italian

@rauschma oy, don’t edit polls, that will lose votes

@rauschma Diese Umfrage ist jetzt Eigentum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. *scnr*

@rauschma Netherlands / Dutch

@rauschma @CStamp Chose English, as it’s the one I learned first.

Alternative choice: French 😅

@rauschma I had to check the definition of "native language". Conclusion: By the literal description as given by dictionary.com, German does qualify as that. However, given that it is also considered synonymous to "first language", I am not entirely sure what the actual intent of the dictionary editor was, as I would not consider it my first language...
Generally, the use of the terms "native language" and "first language" in English seems very fuzzy and ill-considered.

@wfk True! I thought they were the same, but "first language" seems like an overall better/clearer term.

@rauschma for me, German is "second language" by a very thin margin...
Things get confusing when you are born in one country, grow up in another, live on a site with a third language in active use, your parents natively speak one language but have been using another on a daily basis for years.
It seems that many implicit assumptions of many (monolingual) native English speakers start falling apart at that point.

@rauschma EN:GB, as it happens.

@rauschma
5400 votes, c'est probablement le sondage qui a le plus de votes dans le fediverse jusqu'ici

@rauschma typescript

@fartnuggets Definitely a global language!

@rauschma But I also get by in French.

@matt @rauschma Brazilian Portuguese.

@rauschma Spanish here

@rauschma Dutch

@Orca 👍 简体字。普通话，对吧？

@rauschma I speak English as well as Swedish. Currently learning Haitian Creole at the moment.

@its_not_lee Fascinating! It contains quite a bit of French, I assume?

@rauschma
Pascal

@brouhaha Such a great language! I used it a lot in the 1980s. Also, Wirth’s “Compiler construction” book is a great introduction to grammars and parsing.

@rauschma
I really like the Algol family of languages, including Pascal, Modula 3, and Ada.
These days most of my actual programming is in C++, C, and Python.

@brouhaha Same here! I used Pascal, Modula-2 and Oberon/F in the past (among other non-Algol languages). Now almost exclusively TypeScript.

@rauschma I like my instance, and the fediverse, because it is multilingual. I’m English-speaking, but I can read and speak French. I’m slowly learning German and a bit of Spanish, mostly by osmosis. When I retire, I’ll try learning one of the indigenous languages, probably Mohawk, from my area. Perhaps Chinese or Arabic if I’m around long enough.

@rauschma@fosstodon.org

Test

@griff 👍 I can fill in such a survey, but I can’t create it on my Mastodon instance.

@rauschma@fosstodon.org

I'm sure it's something to do with the instance. I had never created a poll before. Thank you for giving me an excuse.

@rauschma Portuguese!

@rauschma Chinese

@rauschma

I know many Germans in weird, niche forums who write in English of a standard that puts the average pensioner, raging in the comments on a BBC news article, to shame.

@rauschma

ok i choose other
for me it is
Greek and German

@rauschma je me demande combien de gens parmi les (Other) parlent polonais comme langue maternelle, je me sens en avoir vu plusieurs

@rauschma en effet j'ai vu beaucoup d'anglais bien sûr, et de français, d'allemand, de polonais, d'espagnol, mais aussi d'hébreu et de néerlandais. peut être c'est une métrique de la population locutrice d'une langue qui parle bien l'anglais aussi

@rauschma relativement très peu de chinois, arabe, etc.

@rauschma My native language is Portuguese (Brazilian).

@rauschma
Other: Catalan

@rauschma Finnish here. (The Finnish Fedi is quite active!)

@rauschma Warum sollten viele Menschen im Fediverse ausgerechnet Französisch sprechen? Ich suche da gerade eine passende These.

@DennisKuester Kann sein, dass sich das mittlerweile geändert hat, aber nach Musk bei Twitter war das Mastodon-Wachstum in Frankreich ziemlich groß. Ich habe aber leider keine guten Quellen dazu gefunden!

@rauschma Alles klar, klingt zumindest plausibel.

@rauschma
Silesian.

@rauschma
My native tongue is Dutch, but I'm fluent in English.

@rauschma while I speak mostly English in fedi and French is my daily language, my native language is Portuguese.

@rauschma There are 7 people in French speaking regions for every 10 people from German speaking regions in Europe.

With the English posting parts of Mastodon seeming a mostly European and North American thing this looks like the French aren't that far behind the Germans in being into this stuff.

@rauschma I had to chose between french and german... I feel kinda pointed at...

@rauschma
C'est difficile vu que, français, j'ai appris à parler avec des vietnamiens 🤔

@rauschma Swedish

@rauschma cc @aemarielle

@k1tteh A voté 😁 @rauschma

@rauschma Finnish

@rauschma two reasons you have to take your result with a big grain of salt:

* the question is in English, so many (most?) people that speak those languages might not be able to read it, or even filter out the language entirely.
* even with 1.8k boosts (!!!), you might not reach all the fediverse[1]
* (The Spanish Inquisition reason) not everyone like answering polls :)

@mdione For sure! It’s surprisingly difficult to do surveys well. (But even in failing, I always learn a lot. 😀)

@rauschma
Other = Finnish for me.

English is only my 3rd and French 4th.

@rauschma didn't see anyone in thread like me, so, (other): Ukrainian

@grinka I recently took a quick look at Ukrainian and it looks really interesting! Well, there are seven cases (compared to German’s four cases) but the spelling seemed nicely phonetic (simpler than Russian, AFAICT).