Well of Souls Forums

Trantor wrote:And this made my day:
http://www.well-of-souls.com/gallery/im ... edding.jpg

I couldn't agree more. It's hilarious AND cute!

I just found the new page in the insider on humanity and i have to say I really like your Carl Sagan .
He looks very much alike except much younger and more macho for some reason, like he's flexing his muscles (wouldn't that be something to see when he explains the universe to us laymen).

Thanks. I have, as you might imagine, a great fondness for the late Dr. Sagan. He was a great teacher.

The "Humanity in 2160" page isn't new per se, just edited and renamed (from "The Terrans").

Arioch wrote:Thanks. I have, as you might imagine, a great fondness for the late Dr. Sagan. He was a great teacher.

The "Humanity in 2160" page isn't new per se, just edited and renamed (from "The Terrans").

I don't think I've met anyone who's into science fiction and heard of Sagan without liking him. Something about his voice i think .

That being said i do like the name change of the page. I don't know why but the name Terran always bugged me when humanity refers to themselves as humans.
When and why did the humans in outsider decide it was time for a name change for their species?

Jericho wrote: I don't know why but the name Terran always bugged me when humanity refers to themselves as humans. When and why did the humans in outsider decide it was time for a name change for their species?

English-speaking humans, you mean. The majority of humans call themselves something else.

In Outsider, the species refers to itself collectively as "Humans" or "Humanity," but many official agencies (such as the TCA) are identified specifically as "Terran," so we still talk about the "Terran fleet" or "Terran warships." The reference to our planet of origin both emphasizes the dominance of Earth in this setting, but also has a cosmopolitan flavor in that it implies an off-world point of view. Here and now we don't call ourselves "Terrans" because there's no other planet on which Humans currently live.

I think a lot of science fiction embraces "Terrans" over "Earthlings" just because it sounds cooler. English usually has both Germanic- and Latin-derived words for the same thing, and often the Latin version sounds more intellectual (compare Germanic-derived "hound" with Latin-derived "canine"). And so many authors tend to find the Latin "Terra" as more futuristic-sounding that the Germanic Earth (Erde/Aarde). Latin versions also have a more international flavor, being used with only minor alterations in Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, etc.

On that subject, how does the general human population view themselves as? do they identify themselves as humans or as people of their own planets (i.e. Earthlings, Martians, Aldians, Esperanzians)?

manticore7 wrote:On that subject, how does the general human population view themselves as? do they identify themselves as humans or as people of their own planets (i.e. Earthlings, Martians, Aldians, Esperanzians)?

Is not the answer self evident? If I asked you where you were from, would you not answer; the United States of America? Perhaps, If I was an American too, would you not say for instance California?

So, I take it English is the dominant language for humanity above the national level?

Random Person wrote:So, I take it English is the dominant language for humanity above the national level?

Considering e.g. the number of languages in use in India today, that seems likely. For it to be anything else, you'd presumably need a few decades of a non-English primary language nation dominating the world, and China doesn't seem likely to have the longevity (due to an age-demographics problem that they have) or foreign speakers for that, leaving India (where English is apparently used between their US State equivalents, sometimes being the only language two people have in common), Brazil (Portuguese), and the rest of Latin America. You could point to Africa, but they use a mixture of local (just like India, though I understand Swahili to be notable), English, French (which has already fallen out of the #1 spot in the world, and presumably won't return), and I think some German, and presumably Portuguese. Most people in Europe apparently get taught English in school, too.

So, the likely candidates for international languages are:
1) English (non-native speakers apparently already outnumber native speakers, so it's got mind share; the #1 economy (USA); and India, which is projected to become the #1 economy in ~50 years; and Europe),
2) Spanish (lots of native speakers, but most native speakers live close to the USA, so constant influx of English, watering down matters),
3) Portuguese (to some extent you can roll this in with Spanish, due to limited mutual intelligibility; Portish, anyone?), and
4) French (if French had a real chance of retrieving that spot, it likely wouldn't have lost it in the first place).

Looking at this Wikipedia list, it looks like Hindi, Arabic, Russian, Bengali, Indonesian and Japanese would be possibilities (at least, if you consider French a possibility). In the case of Japanese this isn't realistic (look at the L2 speakers, and the fact that it's only spoken in meaningful volumes in Japan). Arabic is thus far a regional language, but not common in any of the current spacefaring nations, so we can ignore that too. Hindi and Russian are a bit more questionable: Russian presumably won't be able to become a dominant world language, but Hindi is native to India, which is a rising power, so maybe we'll all be learning Hindi in school in 150 years. Bengali and Malaysian/Indonesian I can't guess at, but once again, "spacefaring nations" comes up.

To the best of my memory, English is also the international language of aviation, so yeah, probably the dominant world language is English, and not just because that makes it easier for Arioch.

Well, the ICAO has French as a co-official language -- and so do a lot of other international bodies -- so I think by 2160 English and French will be the official language of mankind.

In schools here, students must learn two. English to a level of no less than first additional. Three is not an uncommon number to learn here. I myself learned English and Afrikaans. I speak several Bantu langauges. I can understand but not speak Bulgerian. I can swear on both German and Portogease. I was learning Latin for a while but gave it up when i discovered how hard it was.

It might be that English is the international stardard today as well as tomorrow, yet, maybe more than one will taught in schools. French and German are both very common here.

CJ Miller wrote:Well, the ICAO has French as a co-official language -- and so do a lot of other international bodies -- so I think by 2160 English and French will be the official language of mankind.

I would rather think that a language from the East will take the place of French till 2160. Most likely Chinese, I guess, as it has around 850 million native speakers alone. However, I don't think that smaller languages are going to vanish. English and maybe Chinese will serve as some kind of lingua franca around the world and the colonies as well.

CJ Miller wrote:Well, the ICAO has French as a co-official language -- and so do a lot of other international bodies -- so I think by 2160 English and French will be the official language of mankind.

I'm fairly certain that that's simply because no one wants to go to the trouble of removing it. I don't think any new regulatory bodies are bothering with French anymore, or if they are it isn't #2. French simply doesn't have enough speakers anymore to make it a worthwhile #2 language.

I'm told that German is the best language for swearing.

I'm sure that earth will still be a very multilingual place in 2160, and each colony will have it's own language preferences. The most commonly used languages outside of Earth will probably be English, Mandarin and Spanish. TCA military organizations will probably need a standard language to operate efficiently; English seems as good a candidate as any, and is convenient for the story.

I agree with Fred that French is obsolete as a lingua franca. The time when all the courts of Europe spoke French is long past, and France's efforts to keep their language "pure" have worked against it's international appeal.

Suederwind wrote:

CJ Miller wrote:Well, the ICAO has French as a co-official language -- and so do a lot of other international bodies -- so I think by 2160 English and French will be the official language of mankind.

I would rather think that a language from the East will take the place of French till 2160. Most likely Chinese, I guess, as it has around 850 million native speakers alone. However, I don't think that smaller languages are going to vanish. English and maybe Chinese will serve as some kind of lingua franca around the world and the colonies as well.

It's worth noting that there's several "Chinese" languages, including both Mandarin (Arioch probably mentioned it because it seems the most widely spoken) and Cantonese.

Arioch wrote:I'm sure that earth will still be a very multilingual place in 2160, and each colony will have it's own language preferences. The most commonly used languages outside of Earth will probably be English, Mandarin and Spanish. TCA military organizations will probably need a standard language to operate efficiently; English seems as good a candidate as any, and is convenient for the story.

Do you think they're more likely to focus on "natively spoken" English, or on more of an "Internationally Simplified" dialect? And what's your opinion on the uptake of Hindi?

Arioch wrote:I agree with Fred that French is obsolete as a lingua franca. The time when all the courts of Europe spoke French is long past, and France's efforts to keep their language "pure" have worked against it's international appeal.

Apparently the Germans attempted to keep German "pure" for a while (and to some extent presumably still do), but there's some limits to it: they finally just gave up on pushing their own word for "computer".

It's hard to imagine India successfully exporting Hindi when English has such a significant foothold in the culture there.

I'll note as well the ICAO was founded in Quebec, if it was founded elsewhere I'd bet it wouldn't have had French as a primary language.

Arioch wrote:I'm told that German is the best language for swearing.

Let's say the language has its merits on the topic.

Arioch wrote:I'm told that German is the best language for swearing.

I'm sure that earth will still be a very multilingual place in 2160, and each colony will have it's own language preferences. The most commonly used languages outside of Earth will probably be English, Mandarin and Spanish. TCA military organizations will probably need a standard language to operate efficiently; English seems as good a candidate as any, and is convenient for the story.

I agree with Fred that French is obsolete as a lingua franca. The time when all the courts of Europe spoke French is long past, and France's efforts to keep their language "pure" have worked against it's international appeal.

I'd say German is the second best group of languages for swearing. The best set would be russian followed by many other slavic languages, which we might see in space as well.

In part just because the Russians still a space program of their own and do work with the ESA on a semi regular basis.

junk wrote:

Arioch wrote:I'm told that German is the best language for swearing.

I'm sure that earth will still be a very multilingual place in 2160, and each colony will have it's own language preferences. The most commonly used languages outside of Earth will probably be English, Mandarin and Spanish. TCA military organizations will probably need a standard language to operate efficiently; English seems as good a candidate as any, and is convenient for the story.

I agree with Fred that French is obsolete as a lingua franca. The time when all the courts of Europe spoke French is long past, and France's efforts to keep their language "pure" have worked against it's international appeal.

I'd say German is the second best group of languages for swearing. The best set would be russian followed by many other slavic languages, which we might see in space as well.

Russian is Slavic? I figured it would be Germanic, like the ancient Rus.