

Ask HN: Have You Heard Conversations in a Constructed Language? - tokenadult

A year ago there was an interesting HN submission of newspaper article about conlangs (link to appear in comment to this thread), and I'm wondering how many HN participants have heard live conversations in a constructed languages. Some constructed languages, e.g. Volapük, are constructed to solve practical problems of worldwide communication, and others, e.g. Klingon, are constructed initially for entertainment but also as frameworks for investigating the nature of language in general. Some fans of conlangs investigate quite a few different conlangs and discuss the differing characteristics of each one. Have you ever heard a live conversation in a spoken conlang? Have you ever engaged in correspondence in a written conlang?<p>To the best of my knowledge and belief, the most I have heard of any conlang is one sound recording of a poem in Esperanto (one part of a much longer recording with samples of many world languages) and one Internet sound file of Klingon from an online reference webpage. I have participated in live conversations in English (goes without saying), German, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Hakka, and (barely) Spanish, have overheard conversations in several other languages I was able to identify by ear and others I was able to exactly or approximately by the setting of the conversation. I think some of you here on HN have greater experience with conlangs and I would be delighted to hear about it.
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tokenadult
Link to previous HN submission of news article about conlangs:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=54474>

Some good websites with lots of information about conlangs:

<http://www.zompist.com/kit.html>

[http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9219/conlangfaq.ht...](http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9219/conlangfaq.html)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language>

with links to more from those.

