SF Xenolinguistics (JBR Primer) — eep opp ork ah-ah — Justin B Rye — ash nazg durbatulûk — TABLE OF CONTENTS — borag thungg — FANTASY EXOTIC TONGUES – An Introduction If you're here chasing the search-string +fantasy +exotic +tongues, then I'm afraid you've probably come to the wrong place.
This article is a companion to my guides to SF Chronophysics and Exobiology, dealing with another random feature of fictional world design. It is written in the same spirit as the chronophysics guide: I'm willing to tolerate any level of implausibility in the quasiscience as long as these flaws are irrelevant to the linguistic issues! By the way, when I say SF I don't mean to exclude Fantasy. . — klaatu barada nikto — LET'S SPEAK ALIEN – In Ten Easy Lessons Ever wondered how all those traditional space-opera and epic-fantasy races – the pig-faced warriors, the smug bumheads, and all the rest – came up with their wonderfully clichéd alien vocabularies? Initial K is especially popular (Kazon, Klendathu, Krell, K'kree).
Futurese (JBR Precoglang) Justin B Rye 2003–2013 (now fully Unicodified) Predicting the future of the English language is rather easy, in the short term. The odds are, over the next few decades its New World dialects are going to gain increasing global dominance, accelerating the demise of thousands of less fortunate languages but at long last allowing a single advertisement to reach everybody in the world.
Then after a century or two of US dominance some other geopolitical grouping will gain the ascendancy, everyone will learn Chechen or Patagonian or whatever it is, and history will continue as usual. Ho hum. (From the Colloquy of Aelfric.) FOREWORD – the above LANGUAGE SF – Futurese Bibliography LANGUAGE CHANGE – Progress and Decay LANGUAGE TRENDS – Causes and Effects INTERMISSION – Notation and Terminology EARLY AMERICAN – 2100 AD MIDDLE AMERICAN – 2400 AD CLASSICAL AMERICAN – 2700 AD LATE AMERICAN – 3000 AD EXAMPLES – Words and Phrases LANGUAGE SF – Futurese Bibliography Next Year's Slang Galactic Empires Sounds.
Pleistocenese (JBR Palaeolang) / PREFACE – First Words It seems to me that attempts to imagine the evolutionary origin of speech never make enough of an effort to account for the particular kind of language we've ended up with.
Alternatives may be far from obvious, but to demonstrate that they do exist, here's an illustrative “what‐if”. It also happens to shed some light on a question first raised by Arthur Dent: why are cavemen so bad at Scrabble? This page is a companion to the ones on Futurese and Alternese; readers may also wish to compare and contrast my notes on SF Xenolinguistics and SF Chronophysics. Or if you just want a run‐of‐the‐mill constructed language, there's a more detailed one over here. Table of Contents PREFACE – First Words PALAEOLINGUISTICS – Evolving Sciences INNATENESS – Early Talkers PROTOLANGUAGE – Origin of Speeches NEANDERTHALESE – Conlang of the Cave Bear PHONOLOGY – The Voice of the Mousterians GRAMMAR – Flint‐Axe Syntax EXAMPLES – Towards Babel HOLOCENESE – Scrabble for Survival.
Does Language Influence Culture? - WSJ. Shaka, When the Walls Fell. In one fascinating episode, Star Trek: The Next Generation traced the limits of human communication as we know it—and suggested a new, truer way of talking about the universe.
The opening scene of “Darmok,” the second episode of the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Paramount) On stardate 45047.2, Jean-Luc Picard leads the crew of the Enterprise in pursuit of a transmission beacon from the El-Adrel system, where a Tamarian vessel has been broadcasting a mathematical signal for weeks. The aliens, also known as the Children of Tama, are an apparently peaceable and technologically advanced race with which the Federation nevertheless has failed to forge diplomatic relations.
The obstacle, as Commander Data puts it: “communication was not possible.” Picard exudes optimism as his starship courses through subspace. DATHON, the Tamarian captain: Rai and Jiri at Lungha. FIRST OFFICER (laughing): Kadir beneath Mo Moteh. As morning breaks, Dathon rouses Picard.