#uyld replies

[uyld]

hi, i was wondering why was may 7th chosen to be the day to celebrate the uyld?

Sorry this took so long! Unfortunately there's no cool reason for this. At the time the original post had gone viral, May 7th was a convenient date in the near future! It was soon, but gave the "official" post time to circulate. After that, it was always simpler to keep th date the same, since there's always a large number of people who share the old posts, and not the updated ones.

[uyld]

are you aware that telling people to tag their non-English posts because people may be distressed by seeing them is racist and normalizes complete anglophone-ness as default and perpetuates harmful ideas about using other languages "in public", as in where others can access? also places using your own language as an exception and an inconvenience to others?like there is no scenario in which this is neutral request to make and does not hold bad connotations when asked from thousands of people...

I did say I was not going to mod this year, because this day has become much more time consuming that I originally signed up for, but I’m going to for this, since this is a question that comes from some original phrasing of mine.

I definitely see your point, since that is the reason why I don’t tag my own posts in my own language on my own blog every other day of the year -- I am not a native english speaker, so my language comes as a part of me as a blogger. Over the years I came to value the tags more as a way of connecting people who were participating with each other, and especially for people speaking the same language to find each other. Since anglocentrism is so isolating for all of us non-native speakers on this website. 

In hindsight, the original phrasing was poor, and I see where the concept itself has bad implications, so I apologise for that. 

I do still think tagging can be valuable for community building purposes, like I mentioned, and my original accessibilty concern was in reference to not inadvertedly causing sensory overload for anyone. So that’s where that was coming from. If you have any suggestions on where to go from here, I’d be happy to know. In the meantime, I’m going to talk to the current mods to edit the 2017 post, and we’re going to keep the tagging strictly as a community building suggestion (the FAQ is already up to that with that concept, fortunately).

Unfortunately, as I’ve learned the hard way with the 2014 post, I have no control about posts that have been already circulated. 

[useless-philippinesfacts-archive]

Omg! "Use your language" day na ba!!! Na sayang, sa Canada ako ngayon. May wifi dito naman eh. 😂

Okay lang yan. Happy UYLD!!!

[useless-philippinesfacts-archive]

Ate! Alam mo ba? "Use Your Language Day" ngayon!

Yup alam ko po! Sorry na kung ‘di ako nakapag-post, busy po talaga ako kanina eh :)

[uyld]

What about conlangs? I didn't see anything about that in the FAQ but what if someone has a functioning Conlang, can they use it for UYLD? Or would that the out of place since UYLD is also about culture/heritage from what I gather and conlangs tend not to have that unless we are talking Tolkien or something. (But then, it's use /your/ language day and a conlang is literally its creator's.)

This is probably the first time since we started that I’m going to have to tell you that I don’t think that’s a good idea.

If you look at the ‘statement’ of UYLD, if you will, it was established to do two things: 1) to celebrate our native cultures and 2) to counter the primarily US-centric way things run on tumblr. 

Of course it’s broadened a bit, looking at the other questions in the FAQ.

But the core of it remains, yes, culture and heritage. So I hope you see why I feel conlangs would be out of place.

Once again, I’m not anybody’s parent and I can’t be in all places, so I can’t police anybody’s blog (and indeed have no interest in doing that), so please just use your best judgment. 

[uyld]

It's happening this year again right? :D

Yeeeeees it is, if people feel up for it! I’ll try to make a new post to go around sometime during April :)

[uyld]

I read the FAQ but I still want to clarify. It goes from midnight to midnight in my time zone? And I can REALLY switch between countless languages? Because that's great.

Yes that’s exactly it!

And yes you are completely free to stretch your wings and celebrate my friend.

-Serena

[uyld]

Im just worried theres not gonna be many greeks?

Hi!

I would keep an eye on the tags, #use your language day (but also “speak your language day” or “speak your own language day” because people who aren’t up to date are also likely to post there) because I am positive you are going to find other Greeks!

The tag for individual languages goes “uyld: [name if your language in your language]” but i would also look into “uyld: greek” for example, you may be able to find stray Greeks!

Hope that helped.