[conlang_learners] Submission of conlangs

[Sai Emrys]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Jim Henry<jimhenry1973 at gmail.com> wrote:
> And, as Amanda wrote, I'd rather pick a language that's worth sticking with
> for a good deal long than six months, and hope that the community that
> learns it will have enough people who feel the same, and will pick up
> additional learners over time to replace the members who drop out
> after 3 or 6 or 12 months, so that it builds a stable, lasting speaker
> community.

Certainly. The reason for my suggestion of 3-6 months is because
that's about the time for the acute phase of language *learning*.

I figure that if you then have the critical mass to establish a real
Foolang community of its own, that becomes its own thing. You wouldn't
necessarily halt learning new languages because you're at a
maintenance level into Foolang.

Also, it's short enough that people for whom Foo didn't really work
out won't completely forget about it by the time Barlang comes on
deck.

Re. attrition: it's my experience (though I don't know whether
applicable here) that the vast majority of attrition happens within
the first couple 'instances', whatever that means situationally (e.g.
the first week of class; the first two parties; whatever). These are
the people for whom whatever it is just ain't clicking, and you never
know what it's going to be for something new until it's done.

After that you lose only ~10% due to all the usual causes (aka Life™).

> The more people we start with the better, since several will probably
> drop out over time for various reasons.

The more *keepers* the better. Having extras who aren't among those
who will actually follow through (viz. my previous comment about why
teaching-only people should be quiet) is actually a bad thing IMO/E.

But again, this is something you'll find out pretty quickly once you
actually start the first round, and tends to just sort itself out
however it will.

- Sai