What language do you speak best?

[aslakr@mastodon.social]

@rauschma Norwegian

[jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net]

@rauschma (Other): Dutch

[ammdias@masto.pt]

@rauschma

Other: Portuguese.

[hatetsu@mastodon.com.pl]

@rauschma Polish

[rauschma@fosstodon.org]

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!

[irina@wandering.shop]

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

[hananc@tooot.im]

@rauschma other: Hebrew

[mehdi_benadel@mastodon.balamb.fr]

@rauschma
I have two native languages though

[rauschma@fosstodon.org]

@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.

[adipoeserpursch@troet.cafe]

@rauschma Swiss-german

[rauschma@fosstodon.org]

@mehdi_benadel Good point! I added an explanation.

[nfabreu@ciberlandia.pt]

@rauschma Other: Portuguese

[harry_wood@en.osm.town]

@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.

[grillchen@brot.eus]

@rauschma so dont answer if u dont use mastodon?

[rosita311@mastodon.social]

@rauschma My native language is Dutch.

[bartknubben@mastodon.nl]

@rauschma Dutch (NL)

[largo@mstdn.social]

@rauschma

Other: slovak

[remyzandwijk@mastodon.social]

@rauschma other: Dutch.

[jajo@mastodon.nu]

@rauschma Thank god!

[melroy@mastodon.melroy.org]

@rauschma yea you forgot Dutch