mastodon - Link to source

What language do you speak best? (Hypothesis: There are many French & German speakers in the Fediverse.)

:fediverse: Boosts appreciated!

  • French (15%, 1422 votes)
  • German (28%, 2508 votes)
  • English (30%, 2768 votes)
  • (Other) (25%, 2273 votes)
8971 voters. Poll end: miércoles, 14 de octubre de 2026, 11:44

Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 13 de octubre de 2026, 11:44)
in reply to Irina
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@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.

@Irina
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Irina

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).
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

David Penfold

@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).
@Irina
Esta entrada fue editada (lunes, 12 de octubre de 2026, 18:48)
in reply to David Penfold
mastodon - Link to source

Irina

@davep 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.
@David Penfold
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Harry Wood

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.

in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

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!

Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 13 de octubre de 2026, 11:02)
in reply to Sjaak K. 🇳🇱🇪🇺🍋
mastodon - Link to source

Irina

@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
@Axel Rauschmayer @Sjaak K. 🇳🇱🇪🇺🍋 @FvH 🦣
in reply to Irina
mastodon - Link to source

HighlandLawyer

@irina @sjaakkeuvelaar @hengstenberg
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.

@Irina @Sjaak K. 🇳🇱🇪🇺🍋 @FvH 🦣
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

David Penfold

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.

in reply to David Penfold
gotosocial - Link to source

Kermode 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Yeah, really just showing off! :-)
I am hoping to read a few languages, before I die.
I'm trying for german, french and spanish.
And those are most of my internet friends. Greek and Russian/slavik is very hard for me. Unlike e.g. @wim_v12e I don't even try asian langs. Although I really admire korean script. The best ever.
@Wim 🅾→Ⓣ
in reply to Adam van Sertima
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@adamvs1 I had Latin at school and hated it.

Since then:

• I found out that (e.g. in the USA) there are classes where people *speak* Latin. That must make Latin feel much more approachable.

• And I found “Lingua Latina per se Illustrata”. Reading for fun is something we never did in Latin classes. It was always slow and tedious.

@Adam van Sertima
in reply to Jehan Le Doe
mastodon - Link to source

kevin steinmetz

@Best_parolanto @mdione to me french is still a language of science and freedom. german was supposed to be the language of engineering. english, the language of business.

german taught me a lot about english. english is full of latin and greek vocabulary. i hate southern united states hick redneck english.

i met one american whom i thought was from ireland or somewhere in northern europe. he told me he was from kentucky.

i don't know how many dialects of american english there are.

@Marcos Dione @Jehan Le Doe
in reply to kevin steinmetz
mastodon - Link to source

kevin steinmetz

@Best_parolanto @mdione i watched a lot of british comedies so i have heard many dialects of english.

too many people "speak" english & i can hardly understand them. if i have to struggle to understand someone in english, i am not likely to pay them much attention.

i give credit to people learning the language & trying to ommunicate. i have met some foriegners with no english. i do my best to interpret them & help them.

i hate hindu english. it is rapidy spoken and heavily accented.

@Marcos Dione @Jehan Le Doe
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

Note: I randomly selected 3 languages that I was curious about—only because Mastodon doesn’t let me create surveys with more than 4 options!

It’d be very interesting to do a survey with a much longer list of languages—there is so much linguistic diversity in the replies!

in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

millennial fulcrum

@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
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Mark

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.

in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

tiagox

and of course, don't forget about sketchplanations.com/sampling-bias

Sketchplanations - Simplifying complex ideas in sketches

If you wanted to know who would win an election, then the only reliable (most of the time) way to do that is to ask everyone to vote for real and count them…
Sketchplanations
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Andreas, DJ3EI, he/him

🤔

Representative sample of users of a federated social network spanning several continents and diverse bubbles.

Interesting.

How would you go about even knowing what is representative?

in reply to Andreas, DJ3EI, he/him
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@dj3ei Indeed one of many challenges! Others: How would people name their languages? How would you combine different names for the same language? Etc.

The bubbles are what make the Fediverse so exciting! IIRC, there is a large Japanese bubble whose servers use Japanese software.

A post by the official Mastodon channel would help somewhat but would probably still mostly reach a Western audience.

@Andreas, DJ3EI, he/him
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Gary Houston

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

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.

List of languages by number of native speakers - Wikipedia

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
Esta entrada fue editada (lunes, 12 de octubre de 2026, 22:46)
in reply to Gary Houston
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

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

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

Axel Rauschmayer

2026-10-12 21:30:53

mastodon - Link to source

Note: I randomly selected 3 languages that I was curious about—only because Mastodon doesn’t let me create surveys with more than 4 options!

It’d be very interesting to do a survey with a much longer list of languages—there is so much linguistic diversity in the replies!


@Gary Houston
in reply to Ana Tudor 🐯
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@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.).

@Ana Tudor 🐯
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Ana Tudor 🐯

I simply understood it as "any language other than the three explicitly named".

I get the number of options constraint, but it felt a bit like Western defaultism. Even though I don't think the expectation that there wouldn't be many of us from outside of it voting in the poll is entirely baseless.

Most people here don't even know/ care to know about masto, it's just tiktok, ig, fb. And most barely know any English, so even if they're on here, it's a completely different bubble.

in reply to will have been preventable
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@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.
@will have been preventable
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

perikitapreta

youtube.com/watch?v=Ec0X20thLqw

Nação Zumbi - Mateus Enter e Cidadão do Mundo

Produzido por Ana Almeida, Thiago Brigidio, Betania Silveira, Gabriel Izidoro, Pablo Lopes, Babel Produções e Fábrica Estúdios.Dirigido por Pablo Lopes, Fábr...
Estudio Case (YouTube)
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Le Notaire

also I wonder how many languages do people here speak, my guess would be that average will be nearer to 2 than 1, or even >2. For me it's Catalan as my family language, Spanish as required by law, English as required professionally and French due to proximity, in order of knowledge. Speaking so many languages is a blessing and a treasure very well worth keeping
in reply to Le Notaire
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@lenotaire Nice! I find that speaking a language connects me to that language’s culture—I don’t perceive it as “other” anymore.

I found this blog post: Apparently Catalan is more lexically similar to Italian than to French and Spanish—which surprised me.

jayeless.net/lexical-similarity

lexical similarity - Jayeless

One measure of how similar two languages are is lexical similarity, or how many words they share in common.
www.jayeless.net
@Le Notaire
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
gotosocial - Link to source

Kermode 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

This was very fun! :-) And I think it's because we are mostly geeks, and geeks are into language. Spoken and coded. It''s the same thing really. We love it! :-)
in reply to Kermode 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@gemlog True! My thought was: “Are there really many French and German people on the Fediverse?” I never expected such a big echo. I did expect making mistakes and learning a lot (doing surveys well is incredibly difficult).
@Kermode 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
gotosocial - Link to source

Kermode 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

I think there really are so many french and german speakers here in fedi, because of where it came from? And you and I are now writing in english...
in reply to vux
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@vux
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Ramón Corominas

@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
@sara
Esta entrada fue editada (lunes, 12 de octubre de 2026, 18:09)
in reply to ☭ Father Hardstone
mastodon - Link to source

Κ@§ђ!ƒ @ђм@đ

@harib_murshidi 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

#urdu #nativeurduspeakers #urdulovers @☭ Father Hardstone
in reply to Κ@§ђ!ƒ @ђм@đ
mastodon - Link to source

☭ Father Hardstone

@ChaiPaniEtc
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

#india #urdu @Κ@§ђ!ƒ @ђм@đ
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Alex / catileptic

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

in reply to Alex / catileptic
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@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).

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

Sebastian Stan - Wikipedia

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
@Alex / catileptic
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Jeroen Wiert Pluimers

ice.finnley.dev/notes/as8lzziejfn73dca

Finn

2026-10-12 09:23:46

iceshrimp - Link to source

I read some post about how Mastodon consists primarily of German-speaking creatures talking in English. I'm gonna do a poll, need to test that. Boosts highy appreciated!

So, do you speak German?


in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

sergidefe

ok, but i'm sure we are more that speaks spanish and other languages. I speak english to comunicate with greeks, i don't like the imposition of that. Here it's a collonitation by richs europeans and usa, that are speculating with buildings. And expats that dont learn spanish (less catalan)...
in reply to Mario Ostolaza
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@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!
@Mario Ostolaza
in reply to NullDott
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

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

Axel Rauschmayer

2026-10-12 21:30:53

mastodon - Link to source

Note: I randomly selected 3 languages that I was curious about—only because Mastodon doesn’t let me create surveys with more than 4 options!

It’d be very interesting to do a survey with a much longer list of languages—there is so much linguistic diversity in the replies!


@NullDott
in reply to René Moser (resmo) レネ
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@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.
@René Moser (resmo) レネ
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

René Moser (resmo) レネ

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. 😉

in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

wfk

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.
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

wfk

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.
in reply to wfk
mastodon - Link to source

Cliff'sEsportCorner

@wfk the joys of language, where meaning is seldom clear. In current era idk what one would even consider as credible authority for defining words. The online dictionaries are really lacking IME. Plus while language has always evolved (changed not in any particular direction) IMHO the net followed by phone use and world pop increase has vastly increased the rate of language mutation.
@wfk
in reply to Cliff'sEsportCorner
mastodon - Link to source

Cliff'sEsportCorner

@wfk And I say this as someone that has a physical personal library of ~literal ton of books, and literally no idea how many ebooks. Who actually spent time in college working through the giant dictionary on the pedestal in private college library. And for while in early testing of AI/LLM would use Floccinaucinihilipilific as insult to the AI.
@wfk
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 14 de octubre de 2026, 15:04)
in reply to Cliff'sEsportCorner
mastodon - Link to source

wfk

@CliffsEsport personally, I consider dictionaries to be descriptive, not prescriptive. So in a way always a bit behind. So when multiple dictionaries are fuzzy and/or inconsistent on some words, I conclude that actual usage is likely fuzzy or in flux.
For the English speaking world, some level of confusion over the finer points of "native language", "first language", "best spoken language", etc, is not entirely unexpected given the largely monolingual status of many native speakers.
@Cliff'sEsportCorner
in reply to wfk
mastodon - Link to source

Cliff'sEsportCorner

@wfk Probably just me yelling at clouds. Last traditional news source I still RSS at all is BBC. Well and the CBC. BBC writing level and coverage of any meaningful details doesn't seem to match State level papers of decades past from here in the States anymore. CBC is actually noticeably better in writing level and details but to focused on Canadian interests to be of use to me in general.
@wfk
in reply to 🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑
mastodon - Link to source

TomAoki

@brouhaha
When I was a college student, students of Electronic and IT course were "allowed" to learn Pascal, but students of all other course including me (I was of Material Engineering course) were "forced" to learn FORTRAN77. Ah... over 30 years has passed...
@🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

TomAoki

Yea, even NOT Ratfor!

Maybe the background of the thoughts was "How students other than IT course use computer in the future should be scientific computing, especially number crunchers. So no languages other than FORTRAN should NOT be needed FOREVER!". I believe learning "structured languages" before FORTRAN is worth enough to write "a bit readable" and less "wait, where am I at?!" programs even in FORTRAN77 and/or BASIC. (Features for structured programming on FORTRAN77 was still limited, early phase.) For scientific computing that require a plenty of "complex numbers" may fit FORTRAN.

At the era, there were no python ecosystem (I dislike, though) for scienticfic computings and even C++ was not popular (too heavy runtime!) for personal users in Japan.
Turbo Pascal was available via 2 small companies "Japanized", but for Turbo C, we need to wait for 1.5 (available via the same 2 companies).

in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Adam van Sertima

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.
in reply to the they who cried pronouns
mastodon - Link to source

the they who cried pronouns

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
in reply to Herr Dennis
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@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!
@Herr Dennis
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Yora

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.

in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Marcos Dione

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 :)

Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 13 de octubre de 2026, 8:27)
in reply to grinka
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@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).
@grinka
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

grinka

yeah russian sometimes spelled weird (е, э, ё, ши/шы, чи/чы and stuff). Maybe sometime I'll finally properly focus on language learning and learn German, seems like there a lot of FOSS folks in Germany
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
fedibird - Link to source

のえる

The media in this post is not displayed to visitors. To view it, please go to the original post.
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Elie ايلي 🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 (He/Him)

I I wish you would have used “mother tongue” instead of native language.
After living in Canada for the last 23 years I now consider english my native language instead of my original mother tongue: Arabic
in reply to Elie ايلي 🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 (He/Him)
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@elie True! Terminology is hard. When writing the post, I hadn’t considered all of the aspects of someone speaking a language: Is it the only language they speak? Is it their first language? Is it the language they speak best? Is it maybe not spoken at all (=sign language)? Etc.
@Elie ايلي 🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 (He/Him)
in reply to Ronald vd W.
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@ronaldb66 TIL that “Netherlandic” is a word (*)! I was only aware of the noun “Netherlands”. In contrast, „Niederländisch“ is a relatively popular word in German (alas, in addition to “Holländisch”).

(*) merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Netherlandic

@Ronald vd W.
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Ronald vd W.

Call it a personal defect.

I do remember that it's the "official" name for the language but I'd have to look that up to be sure.

In "Dutch" it's called "Nederlands". Wikipedia seems to call it "Dutch" as well; disappointing.

The typically English term "Dutch" seems a derivative from "Deutsch" (German) and most other references (like "Pennsylvania Dutch") are more related to Deutsch than to Nederlands.

Edit: a character.

Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 13 de octubre de 2026, 12:33)
Unknown parent
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@zlatko For sure! I was still young and naive when I created that survey. The replies taught me a lot!

For example, it occurred to me that people who use sign languages don’t speak at all. It reminds me of assumptions most of us make about names: kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names | Kalzumeus Software

Classic essay about how software routinely bumbles human names.
www.kalzumeus.com
@zlatko
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

SebasFC

I grew up in countries where these languages were spoken.
It is true that you require choosing a non Romance language not to mess up your database when learning a new one.
For example, I tried Italian for a year, but it didn't work out for me.
I understand 80%, I can make myself understood, but the quality of my Italian is not "Salonfähig"
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
mastodon - Link to source

Tanqisvi

@SebasFC An interesting observation that I've seen somewhere else from time to time, and has experience it myself... It seems the brain can only choose one language form one family as main, or they might confuse each other. But they can coexist fine if from different families.
@SebasFC
in reply to Tanqisvi
mastodon - Link to source

Axel Rauschmayer

@Tanqisvi I’ve read that context matters: If the brain can consistently associate a language with something then it’s fine. For example:
• Mum always speaks language A. Dad always speaks language B.
• Language A at home. Language B in the outside world.
@Tanqisvi
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
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Kermode 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

That seems about right. You should have asked for spanish though. That's prolly around 25% of us who have that.
But where are the asians?? Chinese and Indian? Not in the fediverse at all?
Why is that?
in reply to Kermode 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
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Axel Rauschmayer

@gemlog (On my instance: 4 options max.) There indeed seems to be a large Spanish community here—but it seems like English posts don’t reach them as much.

I did get a few people who spoke Chinese (standard or dialect). IIRC, there are also many Japanese people on here. China seems a little more isolated, digitally (e.g. they often have local versions of global social media networks). Some Indians may have chosen “English”.

@Kermode 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
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Karen E. Lund 💙💛

If you wish, there's time to refine the survey in time for World Mother Language Day in February. Maybe a bracket style to accommodate more options and a better definition of primary language? Get some volunteers to translate the survey to multiple languages.

Could be interesting.

#WorldMotherLanguageDay #LanguageDay #Language

unesco.org/en/days/mother-language

Request Rejected

www.unesco.org
#language #WorldMotherLanguageDay #languageday
in reply to Karen E. Lund 💙💛
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Axel Rauschmayer

@Karen5Lund Interesting idea! I don’t think you could do that with a fixed list, you’d want people to submit what languages they speak. For ease of use, they probably should not have to submit English words. But then disambiguation becomes challenging—e.g. Chinese has several words for “Standard Chinese”: 普通话, 国语, 中文, 汉语, etc.
@Karen E. Lund 💙💛
in reply to Scu, bousier jovial
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Axel Rauschmayer

@scudery That’s a very good question! How big are (e.g.) the communities that speak French, German, Spanish, Japanese and how much overlap is there with other languages?
@Scu, bousier jovial
in reply to Fortius
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Axel Rauschmayer

@fortius True! These are my thoughts:

Axel Rauschmayer

2026-10-13 15:50:33

mastodon - Link to source

So what does this survey actually mean? Hard to say because asking the question in English already introduces a ton of bias. As does who follows me. Etc.

Maybe: What languages do people speak who read posts written in English?


@Fortius
in reply to Nora Dimitrijević
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Axel Rauschmayer

@d10c Sadly, my poll is deeply flawed anyway. Interesting that you don’t speak your native language best anymore! Mine certainly has declined but not yet to the degree that it eclipses languages I learned later.
@Nora Dimitrijević
in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
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Tanqisvi

After some regretting, reconsideration, and reading many of the replies, I feel like I shouldn't delete my reply and let another language go extinct.

吾個母語是吳儂軟語個一種，現在嘸沒啥人聽得懂。交關詞拼音已經勿曉得哪能打。作興自家是最後一代。

in reply to Axel Rauschmayer
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PoLiTiPeT

amha, les Français·es/francophones natif·ves de la Fédi FR on soit snobbé ton sondage, soit pas vu passer. On avait fait y'a 2 ans une estimation avec @thibault en utilisant directement une requête db sur piaille.fr et on trouvait plutôt 40-50k utilisateur·es qui parlent français. De mémoire. Je peux retrouver le post de l'époque.

Pour moi, on tombe sur la limite de diffusion de l'info dans la Fédi. Ou peut-être de sa lenteur. Mais je pense plutôt que les gens peinent à booster, même les posts d'intérêt public comme le tien. C'est dommage.

@thibault
Esta entrada fue editada (miércoles, 14 de octubre de 2026, 20:18)