[tlhIngan Hol] Number of speakers

[De'vID]

On Sat, Jul 13, 2024 at 9:09 AM Lieven L. Litaer via tlhIngan-Hol <
tlhingan-hol at lists.kli.org> wrote:

> Many many years ago, Lawrence gave an interview and mentione dthere were
> about "30-40 fluent speakers". This is quoted everywehere in the web,
> also in Arika Okrants book.
>
> That interview is quite old, and the number of speakers has with no
> doubt increased.
>
> But Wikipedia is no asking for a citation.
>
> As of today, I would guess there are about 100 people who speak Klingon
> fluently, but my number is based on experience, not statistics. So, in
> which way could we get a good number of fluent speakers?
>
> (PS: no need to discuss what "fluent" really means. There are no native
> level speakers.)
>

I'm not sure how one can go about counting "fluent" speakers without
defining what "fluent" means in this specific context.

I think one also has to count "speakers" and "readers/writers" separately.
I think the number of people who *speak* the language remains quite small.
I think the number of people who can *read* and *write* the language is
considerably larger, due to programs like Duolingo. But those are just my
perceptions, and data may contradict me.

Another consideration is whether to count people who have been "fluent" in
the past, but are no longer. It may be that as new learners gain fluency,
older members of the community drop out and so the overall count of current
fluent speakers remains roughly the same.

-- 
De'vID
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