While I’ve been out here on the boat, I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands and with that free time I’ve solved one of the greatest porblems of mankind. What language will the comeing galatic federation speak?
I’ve come up with a galatic pidgin that is easy to learn and pronounce in most possible alien languages, as long as they are vocalized.
In order for it to be easy to say I’ve limited it to 3 begining consonants, and 3 vowels. Thats it. Then you have a totality of 9 possible sylabes. This may seem like not enough to have a languge but if you combine these into words with a max of 4 sylables you have over 6000 possible words. The special english that the VOA uses only has 1500 words. Since this is just a basic language to make sure you don’t blow up each others starcruisers or when you met an alien in a bar you can order him/her a drink it dosn’t have to get too complicated.
So The three consonants should be easy to pronounce. I would suggest t, s, and m, I don’t know the lingusitic terms but all these are produced in different ways and are not easily confused (t and k are both produced in similar ways and thus could be easily confused). Alien races would then select consants that are similar to those three. For vowels I would have 0, A and E, but you could do three different tones if you wanted to get all chinese about it.
The grammer is an interesting question. SInce many words would sound similar, it woul dbe useful to have word endings, perhaps to indicate what part of speech a word is, or tense, but this wouldn’t be neccessary.
Writing in this language is even easier than speeking it. It’s alphabet is simply 1-9, each number coresponding to a predefined syllable. So even no vocal species could communicate using numbers.
More work needs to be done, but we are well on our way to completing a workable intergalatic language.
dude, you need to mingle with people on land for a while
John lives on land and he posts about this shit all the time
alfie poo! when are you coming home? we bought a house!
Alf,
My question refers to the simplicity of the language. We can’t make it too simple, otherwise what will the galactic rappers do? How will they change words such as “Fifty” to “fiddy” and “the” to “da”?
the system is also genius because the total character count is 9, meaning the number system (hoping the galactic federation will use a base 10 system) is easily tied into the alphabet. this being said, maybe rappers could do something with corresponding letters to numbers to beat counts, along with creating double entendres and other turn of phrases for the new coming galactic empire. and since alf has created the language, what better person to put in charge of the whole god damn thing? alf, i want a galactic ambassadorship to the planet with all the hot girls on it.
scrappenthal what’s your website? i’ve lost the link
Alf,
I’ll play along with you to a point. I think your choice of consonants suck.
M, for example, can only be pronounced by alien races with lips. How human-centric of you.
I also think T and S are too similar. Pretty much the same point of articulation. Some alien accents might screw that up.
Clearly you haven’t had enough time alone to really think about this. I think I’d go with S, L, and K.
Scrap - Each race has a bit of leeway in how they make the sounds, so the hip hoppinest planet could jsut enact those changes.
habib - base 10 isn’t necessary, but it would help. If I were to propose a galatic number system I would make it base 12 (12 being divisable by 2,3,4 and 6, instead of 10’s measly 2 and 5, 10 is such a worthless number, but that is a different post.)
John - I see what you are saying, but I didn’t explain myself clearly enough. The three consonants are to be chosen by each race and can be different for differnt races, but they should fall into three classes.
1. A “hard” consant class (T, K) a “frictiony class (s, sh, f) and a “hummy” class (m, n, l) or in species with no lips this could simply be left without a consonant.
I don’t think it matters much where the point of articulation is. Even from language to languge in human speak people are more likly to confuse chinese x with sh, than chinese x with j.
Each alien species will have it’s own unique accent that will take a bit to get used to.
i vote for k, s, l. although, that’s assuming they have tongues ot make the “L” and “s” sounds. and what about aspirated vowels?
L is a great choice for a sound, but let’s face it, some cultures have trouble with it. namely, east asians. ask any chinese student to say “plural”
Alf,
If you wanna get all badass linguisticky technical, I recommend you read up on manners of articulation.
English’s “sh” is a post-alveolar, whereas pinyin’s “x” and “j” sounds are both palatals. The two sounds–which sounds very similar to the ears of an English speaker–actually have quite close points/places of articulation. So I think your example just proves my point.
habib,
I think L isn’t the problem, but R. Besides, if you make L one of the sounds, then the R sound could be understood as a variant of L.
John, I know they have different points of articulation, but they still sound the same to an untrained ear, my point is that points of articualtion don’t matter that much when you are talking about communicating with a species that mai literally speak out of its ass.
hopefully the coming galactic federation will be a lot like starfleet in the star trek universe, with a majority of alien races being bipedal and speak like we do.
What sounds are easiest to articulate with a dick in your mouth? Because that way my alien shorty wouldn’t have to stop what she’s doing to answer my questions (or verbally indicate compliance with my demands).
nerdsglore
As tempted as I am to write something smart-assed, like, “I’m not linguist, but…”, I ‘ll just point out that “0″ could be used as a morphological boundary for purposes of disambiguation (i.e., a space between words).
Lennet is so my hero…once again.
Hi,
I am hangzhou from last two and half yrs and i would like to share….if you got chance to visit then must go these three places…Royal Seven Trees in West Lake, Longing Tea Garden and West Lake Lotus corner…..next Lingin Temple……..life is hangzhou is great!
hey, i appreciate that. coming from jizzamey dizzoom (around whom legends have grown) that mean alot. when you get back to The Worker’s Paradise we’ll sit out on the sidewalk on little tiny chairs and drink Reeb until we can drink no more. My treat. And that’s a promise.