New language for Mars?

louis · 2008-05-21 04:47:07

Does anyone think that there would be any value in having an entirely new language for the Mars civilisation?

I think my own answer is no. I would settle for English which has become (and will in my view remain) the lingua franca of Earth.

However, it is an interesting question and I can see some arguments for it as a way of creating a new identity and social solidarity.

I can only think of one instance where a new language has successfully been adopted somewhere in the world on a voluntary basis and that is Modern Hebrew in Israel. Although most people who emigrated to Israel were not Hebrew speakers, they nevertheless were familiar with many ancient Hebrew terms, so it had a cultural platform from which to work.

If a new language were to be created for Mars I think it should be
entirely new. We would have linguists work on a melded version of all the main earth languages in terms of phonemes they use. Then, perhaps try and develop a "rational" use of roots and stems. Eg. If the root word for "me" was say "zu", and "body" was "bay" and "extension" was "ho" and high was "fee" then for "my arm" it might be fee-ho-bay-zu maybe spelt Fehobazu (high-extension-body-me). Whereas leg using "gon" for low would be Gonhobazu. If you is "tu", then "your arm" would be "Fehobatu" and "your leg" would be "Gonhobatu".

Fun but ultimately a bit pointless!

Gregori · 2008-05-21 09:17:33

that would be stupid and inefficient,

the language of Mars will be whatever languages the majority of the martian population speak.

if we to impose a made up language, probably esperanto

louis · 2008-05-21 12:50:24

Yes - but nothing is more inefficient and potentially dangerous than people not sharing the same language - that's what has slowed up the new Airbus production in effect, because the computers in France and Germany are not speaking in a common language.

JoshNH4H · 2008-05-23 14:33:37

I would agree with esperanto, because it is more or less international, unnational

louis · 2008-05-23 17:33:48

Jumpboy -

Esperanto? It's very Euro-latin-centric. Complete ignores African, Chinese and Indian languages.

It's not that easy to learn either, being so inflected and is no more rational than most languages.

I see no reason to opt for Esperanto which is spoken by hardly anyone in any case. Better to start afresh if it were to be attempted.

Terraformer · 2014-02-04 08:01:39

Why not let a thousand tongues bloom? There will be plenty of micronations around, once colonisation gets into full swing.

martienne · 2014-03-30 09:36:48

louis wrote:

Jumpboy -
Esperanto? It's very Euro-latin-centric. Complete ignores African, Chinese and Indian languages.
It's not that easy to learn either, being so inflected and is no more rational than most languages.

Esperanto is really popular in Asia nevertheless. That's where it's growing the fastest. China, Central Asia, Vietnam, Korea (both) according to the Esperanto mag recently.

Learning Esperanto is 1/5 of the effort of learning English, for the same level of fluency.
There is a LOT of effort wasted towards learning English, then perfecting it. A natively English speaking scientist never has to waste all that effort but can get straight at writing his scientific paper and read whatever material without the effort.

English has irregular grammar, peculiar expressions and completely inconsistent spelling rules.

And I am certainly not supporting Russian, Chinese, French, German or any other existing language because each of these have their drawback too.

I know it's a pipe dream, but Esperanto would have been a much better choice. And it's a breeze to learn compared with English, trust me.

JoshNH4H · 2014-03-30 10:06:56

Martienne, would I be correct in asserting that you are a native French speaker (based Martienne being French for Martian)?

If so, you do perhaps have a leg up on most of the rest of the world's people when it comes to learning Esperanto, insofar as many of the words are based on romance languages. Having said that, this is as much a strength as a weakness because Romance languages are the most widely spoken language family on Earth.

Meanwhile, Martienne was correct in stating that Esperanto is easier to learn than any natural language. The reason for this is that there are no complicated grammatical structures: Verb tenses are reviewed here. You will see that only six tenses are pretty much sufficient to say anything you would need to. There is no very conjugation in Esperanto. The various forms of "esti", to be:

mi estas, vi estas, hi/sxi/li estas, ni estas, vi estas, ili estas

There are no exceptions to any grammatical rule in esperanto. Gxi estas lingvo tre bona kaj mi pensas ke gxi estas eventualon ke ili uzos sur Marzo.
Cxu vi estas esperantisto, Martienne?

martienne · 2014-03-30 11:11:10

Hi Josh, no, I can get by in French but it is not my native language. The nick just popped into my head, I couldn't think of anything good, Only expresses gender and my long fascination with Mars. Plus, I feel like Martian sometimes, lol a fish out of water.

As for Esperanto, I did a course on it in school and it was a lot of fun. Some very cool people around the world were into it, it's a very, very nice and positive movement.

The problem was, as you say - it really blurs into other languages, like French for example - and I needed to learn several "real" languages, so it quickly got too much. Esperanto was just a club, so I dropped it after a while.

Recently I decided to take it up as a hobby after I came across the Esperanto magazine by chance. So it was very cool to see it mentioned here.

I understand the question, but I'll respond in English. What about yourself you like it too?

I really think it would be fresh and cool for Mars - acknowledging that Mars is not an outpost of the any one country, region or worldview, but of something very international, and that among the first colonists there is not one group that constantly has to speak a foreign language, while others continue to speak their native language.

There is apparently another constructed language that is more "international" and less European, perhaps that would be fairer, however Esperanto has a much bigger following and something of its own culture.

Another aspect of all this: Even if English is choosen, then among the permanent inhabitants of Mars, I think there'd be plenty of new vocabulary and slang that did not exist on Earth, since the lifestyle and landscape is so different!
Plus, with an international crew, the standard of English would not necessarily improve if it's not the mother tongue of the majority. Any children born there would probably not speak it with either a British or US accent.

louis wrote:

I can only think of one instance where a new language has successfully been adopted somewhere in the world on a voluntary basis and that is Modern Hebrew in Israel. Although most people who emigrated to Israel were not Hebrew speakers, they nevertheless were familiar with many ancient Hebrew terms, so it had a cultural platform from which to work.

Nice comment! That's a really good and interesting example. I don't *think* the early settlers in Israel had any other second language in common though, possibly Hebrew was the closest?
My limited understanding is that the majority spoke either Russian, Polish, German or Yiddish. No idea as to whether most of them knew some Hebrew before, or not! But what a project, and what idealism! I really admire that aspect of Israel.

You really have to wonder how they had time to learn Hebrew with everything that was going on there in the early days of the country. Of course, it glues them together too!

Imagine if they had picked German or Russian, just because the majority of them could speak either one of those, and because they couldn't be bothered with the effort of Hebrew. They were really visionairies and idealists.

Last edited by martienne (2014-03-30 11:23:03)

JoshNH4H · 2014-03-30 11:36:54

Fair enough. I'm often asked if I'm from the US state of New Hampshire; In fact, the NH4H in my username references Ammonium Hydride, a nonexistent chemical compound that would be a fantastic rocket fuel if it did exist.

If you would like a language that is truly culture-neutral, there's Lojban. It's newer than Esperanto and it's claimed to be more logical, but by the same token it's also harder to learn because it is not based on any language.

I learned it over a summer a couple years ago. My knowledge was never complete and I have since forgotten some (As well as, most unfortunately, losing the book from which I learned it), but I still love the language. It feels like a natural language when speaking it, does it not?

As a language, English is not better than any other language; However, at the present time it is the international standard for communication. I would expect Mars to be rather like New York City in some respects: You go to Chinatown and hear Mandarin and Cantonese. Twenty minutes on the subway and you're in Washington Heights, surrounded by people speaking Spanish. Drive down to Brighton Beach and you hear Russian and Polish. Take the Long Island Esperessway to Queens and you'll hear Korean and Japanese. Drive back to Brooklyn and up Atlantic Ave and you'll see Arabic, Japanese, Portugese, Hindi, Swahili, Greek, Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, and even Yiddish and Hebrew on stores and buses. Walk down the busier streets or get on a bus or subway and you'll see European tourists speaking French and Spanish and Italian and German and other languages that I always try (and usually fail!) to identify. Meanwhile even among native English speakers each borough and certain ethnicities have different accents, and sometimes even each neighborhood.

But if you're walking up to a stranger, especially one who is not identifiably a member of your linguistic group, you'll assume that you should speak to them in English because there are more English speakers in the City than anything else and it's the language of commerce.

Fun fact, by the way: My grandpa's best friend once dated L.L. Zamenhof's granddaughter

martienne · 2014-03-30 12:10:10

JoshNH4H wrote:

I would expect Mars to be rather like New York City in some respects: You go to Chinatown and hear Mandarin and Cantonese. Twenty minutes on the subway and you're in Washington Heights, surrounded by people speaking Spanish. Drive down to Brighton Beach and you hear Russian and Polish. Take the Long Island Esperessway to Queens and you'll hear Korean and Japanese. Drive back to Brooklyn and up Atlantic Ave and you'll see Arabic, Japanese, Portugese, Hindi, Swahili, Greek, Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, and even Yiddish and Hebrew on stores and buses. Walk down the busier streets or get on a bus or subway and you'll see European tourists speaking French and Spanish and Italian and German and other languages that I always try (and usually fail!) to identify. Meanwhile even among native English speakers each borough and certain ethnicities have different accents, and sometimes even each neighborhood.

Hm, I see what you are getting at. Well maybe that's what will happen.

But I would prefer if it was a sort of America style melting pot where all languages and cultures were equal and well mixed, not the groups living in little cliques next to each other, and white Western, English speaking being the norm, and anything else being "Chinatown" or the like.

Ideally, "when you arrive at Mars you leave your nationality behind, and become a "Martian".
A new start for a new kind of human; scientific, ethical, fair and compassionate. Not a narrowminded person who thinks in terms of nation states, ethnicity, profitability and egoistical concerns.

I am thinking that the first few settlers would be some of the best and brightest from Earth. Extremely smart and well educated (you'd have to be, to join a science program, wouldn't you), adventurous, curious and hopefully idealistic.
I think some of the emigrants to North America had some of those qualities and perhaps that explains parts of how the US grew successful.

But to continue with the language of British imperialism, or the US and its various endeavours over the last few decades.. Well just seems like extending the same system of society to a new planet.

I hope Mars will become something better and more enlightened. Perhaps that's a pipedream, and Mars could never be any more than a scientific research station or some kind of mining community. But one can dream!

JoshNH4H · 2014-03-30 12:37:20

While the melting pot is a wonderful ideal, and one which I think we as a country really do try to live up to, we have never completely done so. The existence of ethnically distinct neighborhoods in this country is not new and goes back a long time. Typically it's the second generation that integrates fully while the first often self-segregates, at least to some degree, for economic and cultural reasons. We do all participate in the same institutions, however, and from coast to coast we are all American. It's really surprising to me, sometimes how a nation can be so diverse and so homogeneous at the same time.

I would expect that Mars would be more communal than anywhere on Earth, and this will certainly help to forge a single Martian identity out of all of Earth's nationalities. It won't happen instantaneously, though, and no matter how interlinked people from different places are I would expect them to bond both with those of similar origin and with others in two relatively separate groups.

Tom Kalbfus · 2014-03-30 17:37:28

JoshNH4H wrote:

While the melting pot is a wonderful ideal, and one which I think we as a country really do try to live up to, we have never completely done so. The existence of ethnically distinct neighborhoods in this country is not new and goes back a long time. Typically it's the second generation that integrates fully while the first often self-segregates, at least to some degree, for economic and cultural reasons. We do all participate in the same institutions, however, and from coast to coast we are all American. It's really surprising to me, sometimes how a nation can be so diverse and so homogeneous at the same time.
I would expect that Mars would be more communal than anywhere on Earth, and this will certainly help to forge a single Martian identity out of all of Earth's nationalities. It won't happen instantaneously, though, and no matter how interlinked people from different places are I would expect them to bond both with those of similar origin and with others in two relatively separate groups.

New arrivals keep on showing up, that is how the ethnic neighborhoods maintain themselves.

JoshNH4H · 2014-03-30 17:48:17

^In fact, 36% of the population of NYC is foreign born.

Of course the neighborhoods do change quickly. Little Italy (in Manhattan), for example, is not all that Italian anymore, and what Italians are left are Italian Americans. The Bronx and Harlem are at least as hispanic as they are black, white yuppies and hipsters are moving into formerly black/hasidic areas in north Brooklyn, Queens is increasingly Asian (Less than 20% of people in Flushing speak English at home). Meanwhile the non-hasidic jews are moving out of South and Central Brooklyn to North Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Suburbs, and upper-middle class suburbanites are moving in. The lower-east side used to be filled with tenements that were German, then Irish, then Italian, then Eastern European and Jewish, and have slowly turned into all of the diverse neighborhoods we see today.

Edit: In case you haven't noticed, I'm Jewish so I know more about where Jewish people live than anything else.

Also in case you haven't noticed, I know absolutely nothing about Staten Island except that it should be in New Jersey.

Glandu · 2014-03-31 05:01:34

IMHO, it's rather tough to control what language people speak. Usefulness usually precedes standard. I know it from near because I'm french, my wife is polish, & we speak together in english. that is, each year God makes, the "english" is more & more polluted by Polish or french words, or even sentence structures. My own daughter is perfectly biligual, yet clueless in english(age 6).

Therefore I've read quite a few books on the topic, and my uneducated guess is that there will be a local pidgin for Martians, a kind of mix between origin languages, plus new words specific to local conditions. Later it should evolve in a creole, and, finally, after a few centuries, in a full language, as wicked as current ones. I don't believe in a standardized, simple language like esperanto, for the very reason that useful languages evolve as quick as their environment. Whatever the original language.

louis · 2014-03-31 16:29:32

Glandu wrote:

IMHO, it's rather tough to control what language people speak. Usefulness usually precedes standard. I know it from near because I'm french, my wife is polish, & we speak together in english. that is, each year God makes, the "english" is more & more polluted by Polish or french words, or even sentence structures. My own daughter is perfectly biligual, yet clueless in english(age 6).
Therefore I've read quite a few books on the topic, and my uneducated guess is that there will be a local pidgin for Martians, a kind of mix between origin languages, plus new words specific to local conditions. Later it should evolve in a creole, and, finally, after a few centuries, in a full language, as wicked as current ones. I don't believe in a standardized, simple language like esperanto, for the very reason that useful languages evolve as quick as their environment. Whatever the original language.

You can work it both ways. My grandmother was beaten at school for speaking her home language in school. The state can have a big effect on what languages are spoken.

Quaoar · 2014-11-12 12:30:58

JoshNH4H wrote:

I would agree with esperanto, because it is more or less international, unnational

Why Esperanto? It's an absurd language created by an ophtalmologist. Sindarin is a far better language, created by a linguist. Even Klingon is better than Esperanto: why not adopt it for Mars colonists?

Last edited by Quaoar (2014-11-12 12:31:46)

RobertDyck · 2014-11-12 12:59:48

The Big Bang Theory Amy's secret language

Terraformer · 2014-11-13 12:05:34

Some kind of simplified language would be useful to have, though not for everyday use - people have their own languages for that. But such a language, easy to learn and useful as a common tongue, is probably emerging at the moment from business english...

I do like the creation of new languages, though. Maybe one language isn't enough, much like how one computer language won't be optimised for everything. Maybe we need to have multiple languages in our toolkit - they *are* tools, after all. I want to speak one that is based around things being spectrums rather than binaries, waves as opposed to particles. That would prove useful I think.

Komiyama · 2017-10-12 19:24:57

Initially, I was in favour of something like Esperanto, but after reading some of the comments in this thread, maybe not so much now. English would be the obvious answer, but as others have noted, it comes with a sense of parochialism. That being said, trying to invent a new language would be a waste of time when there will be more important things to focus on for first-gen Martians. It's not without its faults, but I think English would be best and most efficient. In time, no doubt, it will evolve into something like Martian English.
Now, with all that being said, one shouldn't be discouraged from speaking their native Earth language in a non-official environment.

louis · 2017-10-13 16:27:53

I think English is the best solution. It is the language of nearly all international conferences. Of course people can still speak their home language with others who speak the same language. There should be no language oppression on Mars.

Whether Mars English and Earth English will diverge significantly is an interesting question. I doubt it. I think there will be so much cultural interaction that it will be a bit like American English and British English - pretty close with only occasional crises of comprehension.

Komiyama wrote:

Initially, I was in favour of something like Esperanto, but after reading some of the comments in this thread, maybe not so much now. English would be the obvious answer, but as others have noted, it comes with a sense of parochialism. That being said, trying to invent a new language would be a waste of time when there will be more important things to focus on for first-gen Martians. It's not without its faults, but I think English would be best and most efficient. In time, no doubt, it will evolve into something like Martian English.
Now, with all that being said, one shouldn't be discouraged from speaking their native Earth language in a non-official environment.

clark · 2017-10-15 03:24:26

Whatever language the manual on how to keep the power reactor running will automatically be the default language. Everything else is just poetry.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-06-29 15:57:58

Hand signals could be important outdoors but on Earth did you know there is no universal sign language.

SpaceNut · 2021-06-29 20:27:45

Throwing rocks would be out for sending messages tied to them....

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-07-14 11:25:07

Forget English! France puts language in the crosshairs - 'We CANNOT be happy with this'
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/14 … rexit-news

Komiyama wrote:

Now, with all that being said, one shouldn't be discouraged from speaking their native Earth language in a non-official environment.

Would have been interesting to speak with this guy, don't see him around anymore. I wonder how he wrote his name in Japanese-Chinese alphabet maybe it would have been wrote using the pic symbols for 'Ko' aka 'Old' 古 + 'Look' 見 + Mountain

louis wrote:

Jumpboy -
Complete ignores African, Chinese and Indian languages.

I would Not support forcing languages into space or imposing a language or a weird new mix-Language on Mars unless its say a specfic country and they want their people speaking their language on Mars. Say a Russian funded mission and they the Russians themselves want their Russian colony to speak Russian or its an American funded city and they want the people there speaking US English or for some strange reason the British Queen's version of English that's ok. I don't support forced langaue into people of Mars unless it was a nation, for example China and they put huge time and effort into building their Chinese colony and they want all stuff wrote and spoken in Chinese, they want all their 'Art' to say China.

As for a multi-national effort and an imposed new mutli-national language, Esperanto I can maybe understand but the whole idea it seems forced like forcing Christians to study old Latin, we already have a Multi-Cultural international mission on the Space Station and as it is getting the mission communicating smooth was already a great challenge with American and British English, Russian, Brazilian-Portuguese, Japanese language, German, French and all the other languages of people working Europe/ESA I don't see the need to start adding more to this multi-cuture of complexity just for the sake of try to be more and more and more diverse. The people of Mars might decide one day by their own self that hand signs and sign-language or some other unforseen thing is a very important part of their own cultures communication, they may invent their own words for different types of colored Sunsets, or Orange or Reds or Sand and words to describe their Biodomes and have their own expressions and it might become 'Mars Standard'. Some languages are simply not read for Mars they are Earth rooted “tribal language” they have only 5 consonants and 5 vowels just two or 3 roots, and a grammar system and syntax consisting very few loosely defined rules. Is such a simple less defined less accurate language a good thing to operate some Anti-Matter particle smashing machine on Mars?

The Japanese for example can have both a simple langauge and highly complex in their own way, they have spaceprobes, they operate nuclear reactors, they have high speed bullet trains but as for their language it can be simple to speak and very hard to read, it also can be hard to translate the subtleties of it, they have honorifics and cany different ways of saying the word 'I', I'm your humble servant, you can say 'I' in a way it means the cool dude samurai, or I myself the teenage variant or I a geisha girl, the language can be both masculine and feminine and gender-neutral . You can say 'I' in a way that calls yourself a young adult or teen, 'I' am above a kid in social class I'm a respectable relaxed young adult but using this 'I' you are of lower class to an older man who owns a company..using different ways of saying 'I' the Japanese can put themselves inside a class, another thing is they normally do not use I...they can simply say cake was ate or 'cake was eaten' there is no I ate the cake...but it makes less sense in the English language, also 'beer was drank' instead of I drank the beer. A langauge like Japanese can put less emphasis on ownership the subject or person, it is the event that is of importance and classed in their langauge that is what is important. Now can you imagine the complexity of operating the ISS, an international station of people from the USA and English speaking nations, Russia, Japanese, French and to translate every daily event every Astronaut and Cosmonuat flight from Russia, USA, and the whole of Europe accurately? What a challenging task that would be!!! if the ISS is already a super challenge why would you add more layers of linguistic complexity to a Mars colony!?

If people settle and stay on Mars the local language of Mars will probably evolve by itself. For reasons I won't get into now I believe culturally and descriptively English is a better language than Spanish although Spanish can be spoken well, in general it is not, as for forcing a mix of Chinese India maybe...let them prove their cultural worth on an international project getting to Mars. Yes the Chinese are on Mars now with Robots. I see the Chinese cultural worth I understand since their space program advances each year and they are ahead of the even Europeans and even Japanese in many ways. However why do you think a language from a less advanced culture and lower tech nation with no launch rockets, no history of Mathematics, no Historical experiences of Biology studies, no long History of Writing and Sciences and other such things in our modern scientific and logical world of study these old languages they simply have no word for this stuff. Africa has something like 1800+ languages some of them Bantu related, some of the language families are part of a jihadi Islamic Arabic history, adding these languages will open a possiblity of not being able to understand something your are also adding religious mohammedan stupidity, some African languages have no word for a 'thing' no words for this-or-that, some African languages have no measurements they have just up and more up or use down and lower down, and low low down, some langauges are poor at expressing ownership no Prepositional, bad use of subject matter and adverb phrases, there are ‘Anumeric’ people and languages, people who don't have a concept of time or exact numbers, some languages do not express a nothing and can not express the concept of "one" some languages use two hands for counting the left and right for "one" and "two" and anything more is called "many". Some languages out ther have no words for 'Thankyou', some African countries continue to use the lnagues of their colonizers because they consider the foreign languages more culturally advanced, Some langauges have no counting words, there are the four major language families acorss Africa, you have Niger-Congo Bantu the Niger-Kordofanian language family, you have anothehr Bantu type a lingustic and new race and language linekd to genetic homogeneity across Bantu-speaking groups from Mozambique and Angola this is another seperate language even though it is also classed by lingustics as a Bantu language, you have languages of Sudan and Kenya which have Arab influences and you have the North African islamic Arab influenced languages Barbary an Afro-Asiatic group, theer are Indo-European to the South and the former British protugese and French colony languages, Kwadi languages of Angola which might eb sperate again, Madagascar language although African might be non-African and closer related to Indonesians and Australaisn and finally all the way down to South Africa you have the clicking sound languages, its like clicking a knocking of the mouth or tongue a Chuff or Ticking noise, or an odd sound like calling a pet dog or horse. Within these African language groups there can be thousands of other sub language, the language can be very regional with thousands upon thousands of sub dialects.

Some African Alphabets were wrote down for the first time only 20 years ago, some Spanish or British or a local African or an Jewish or French guy came along and gave them a new Writing system in Africa, some adapted writing systems only 10 years ago, some got syllable and orthography and speech sounds and writing systems for the first time over 100 years ago some for the first time 30 years ago or only 70 years ago, the Bassa Vah, Vai syllabary, N'Ko script, Loma language...all 'new' languages. Some use these odd form of creole pigin Ebonics version of English, almost all former Colonies have a more Ebonic Pidgin English Creole form of langauges like French or English or Spanish other languages, think of a guy in America who finished school early and never went back to school, they have news sites that even print this stuff like the BBC, they might read
'Obama say sorry helps quakey quake go boom boom Iran Earthquake don kill lots over end di di Wound sum die for day time dey quick heal '
''Diz animal dem dey hide from people because dem dey kill-kill di gorillas dis done corruptions und poo-poo trap woman for window'
Other news headlines might read like -
'Yuz no no islami iz dem fur Africas Wetin dem u BlackWhitey know wey bi Biafra? Form Pres tell News say to divide di country no be di solution'
'Iz cuz Man wey spen years for jail ontop crime e no commit dey face new rape accuse wey dem free from life imprisonment afta dem throway rape accuse against am dey face anoda rape accuse.
Dis Trump Donald say no no de olympic wuld cup so go to Merica place, da international go do im wey go clear road for di Everton Paris Cup Soccer Tennis Williams to join di new place for Olympic not go Japan cuz virus in Japan.'
Communication Breakdown!?
This would be printed documents of live speeches, real talking from real African people. These would be actual offical printed headline in their broken tongue in their offical news
https://www.bbc.com/pidgin
Some of these who read this stuff would be the 'higher educated'

Some Tribal or African languages are too simplified for complexity, some tribal Native American, African and Amazon languages do not have words to describe colors, were the original speakers color blind? Some can not add or subtract they do not have words for numerals except for one and two and words that describe which is nothing but a change in tone, some language do not have colors they have 'stripes poison' word they have a rainbowy word but no other color word, maybe they could not read or write maybe the original village elder did not see colors well? Some of these languages are from cultures that still do not build great wonderous civilsations, they are still simple and tribal and nomadic, they do not describe the modern complex world they are too busy surviving. Some langauges are not exact or precise like take for example a word in English, like 'Snap' it can mean a card game, it can mean to break, Snap can mean to loose one's mind and go crazy, it can mean the opposite and mean to wake up and have a moment of clarity to 'snap out of it', the word Snap it can have a meaning to take a photograph, it can mean to close a jacket or fasten a seatbelt on an aircraft flight, a guard dog can snap and it can mean 'bite' in some of these languages One Word or Phrase can mean A Lot of things... You have homophobes in languages 'air' can sound like a royal 'heir' or a local English person can have a local dialect and accent so strong they might even say 'here' or 'hair' all the same sounding word, then you have all the accents and dialects of English from Aus, South Africa, Scotland and other places. Do you want your colony to have all langauges on Earth to spend money on these universal translator people to try design the a blend of multi-cultural langauges? There are simple city town language, are Creole Jive talking languages that make weird mixes of African and ghetto hood culture of French and English that are so urban strange that only people in their own ghettos and their own city can understand them. Some are from more simple times and in tune with nature but they do not build aircraft, they do not have a Navy, they are not space faring people, some of the cultures have never seen an Ocean, they chuck spears and run from wild animals and pick fruit from African trees. There are thousands upon thousands of localized smaller language families of Africa, there is perhaps no reason to force these languages and minds and peoples into outer space and force the culture into a complex space colony on Mars. I do not see any point in adding more and more tribal syllabary symbolism and alphabets and foreign languages into an already complex place that will be a Mars colony.

clark wrote:

Whatever language the manual on how to keep the power reactor running will automatically be the default language.

We might also assume there might be more than one nation or culture on Mars, as I undersdtand it US Astronauts who go to fly from Russia learn Russian and Russian Cosmnuats who fly with NASA study the English language or they at least try their best to do a 'crash course' in each others languages. Astronauts learn not just the Russian English language, but the specialty language of what will be happening on the ISS, the hand signs the codewords – the "language of the astronaut." I believe it became one of the requirements for its astronauts entry, knowing Cyrillic alphabet characters and to learn the Russian language in preparation for the ISS.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2021-07-15 03:32:01)

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#1 2008-05-21 04:47:07

Re: New language for Mars?

#2 2008-05-21 09:17:33

Re: New language for Mars?

#3 2008-05-21 12:50:24

Re: New language for Mars?

#4 2008-05-23 14:33:37

Re: New language for Mars?

#5 2008-05-23 17:33:48

Re: New language for Mars?

#6 2014-02-04 08:01:39

Re: New language for Mars?

#7 2014-03-30 09:36:48

Re: New language for Mars?

#8 2014-03-30 10:06:56

Re: New language for Mars?

#9 2014-03-30 11:11:10

Re: New language for Mars?

#10 2014-03-30 11:36:54

Re: New language for Mars?

#11 2014-03-30 12:10:10

Re: New language for Mars?

#12 2014-03-30 12:37:20

Re: New language for Mars?

#13 2014-03-30 17:37:28

Re: New language for Mars?

#14 2014-03-30 17:48:17

Re: New language for Mars?

#15 2014-03-31 05:01:34

Re: New language for Mars?

#16 2014-03-31 16:29:32

Re: New language for Mars?

#17 2014-11-12 12:30:58

Re: New language for Mars?

#18 2014-11-12 12:59:48

Re: New language for Mars?

#19 2014-11-13 12:05:34

Re: New language for Mars?

#20 2017-10-12 19:24:57

Re: New language for Mars?

#21 2017-10-13 16:27:53

Re: New language for Mars?

#22 2017-10-15 03:24:26

Re: New language for Mars?

#23 2021-06-29 15:57:58

Re: New language for Mars?

#24 2021-06-29 20:27:45

Re: New language for Mars?

#25 2021-07-14 11:25:07

Re: New language for Mars?

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