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Post by allie on May 17, 2023 19:10:00 GMT
Besides English and Interspec, I mean.
Spanish is the obvious one: it's been the second language of space travel since Quito was chosen as the site for the Skyhook. The Athena Project brought at least a smattering of it to Poseidon (somebody decided to call the Sierra Nueva that), and Biogene and GenDiver both have reasons to learn it as a second language even if they're Anglophone institutionally.
(Since MacLeod started work on the Mombasa skyhook, Swahili's probably a growing part of interstellar pop culture; space traffic controllers don't speak it, but their kids might be taking classes. How much this shows up in the Serpentis System, I have no idea.)
German and Arabic are both relevant for being backed by Incorporate powers. Of the two, Arabic's growth is slower but more organic; people are learning Arabic on Poseidon, whereas German's growing explosively because Hanover is importing entire extended families from Niedersachsen.
Russian and Japanese are notable languages on Poseidon, but they're definitely B-list. You don't need to learn them to deal with their speakers, and neither the NIS nor the Gorshkovs seem like the type to offer classes for prospective hires.
These are my guesses, anyways. I'm curious to hear yours.
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Post by Pawel on May 17, 2023 19:34:36 GMT
Besides English and Interspec, I mean. Spanish is the obvious one: it's been the second language of space travel since Quito was chosen as the site for the Skyhook. The Athena Project brought at least a smattering of it to Poseidon ( somebody decided to call the Sierra Nueva that), and Biogene and GenDiver both have reasons to learn it as a second language even if they're Anglophone institutionally. (Since MacLeod started work on the Mombasa skyhook, Swahili's probably a growing part of interstellar pop culture; space traffic controllers don't speak it, but their kids might be taking classes. How much this shows up in the Serpentis System, I have no idea.) German and Arabic are both relevant for being backed by Incorporate powers. Of the two, Arabic's growth is slower but more organic; people are learning Arabic on Poseidon, whereas German's growing explosively because Hanover is importing entire extended families from Niedersachsen. Russian and Japanese are notable languages on Poseidon, but they're definitely B-list. You don't need to learn them to deal with their speakers, and neither the NIS nor the Gorshkovs seem like the type to offer classes for prospective hires. These are my guesses, anyways. I'm curious to hear yours. I think you've pretty much nailed it, Allie. Instant translators are so common in 2199 that language is never really a barrier, but of course language also means culture. GEO is delightful hodgepodge of member nations that probably frowns at a concept of a single official language but most Incorps have strong national identities. I tend to allow certain languages dominate in smaller settlements (like British English in Longshore for example - I believe neil originally came up with this?) and definitely in Incorp towns, but I completely mix it all up in places like Haven or Second Try or Harmony.
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Post by allie on May 17, 2023 21:19:35 GMT
I don't think canon ever talked about it before, but I always assumed the GEO's de facto official languages are the six UN languages plus Interspec.
Also that the Armed Forces speaks something much closer to Shadowrun slang than standard military English, but that's neither here nor there.
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Post by Pawel on May 17, 2023 21:22:42 GMT
I don't think canon ever talked about it before, but I always assumed the GEO's de facto official languages are the six UN languages plus Interspec. Also that the Armed Forces speaks something much closer to Shadowrun slang than standard military English, but that's neither here nor there. Yeah, there isn't much in a way of official canon info on the matter, but island and town naming patterns surely give us an easy enough guideline to follow.
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Post by neil on May 19, 2023 12:38:55 GMT
I think the Biogene official language is Spanish: El Dorado is in Colombia. (Is El Dorado an enclave? How large?) On the other hand "Cliffside" isn't very Spanish.
Looking at the World of Hurt stuff, it seems that South America and southern Africa have more influence in 2199 than today, with North America and Europe having less. It looks like the China / India combination keeps itself to itself. That suggests that both English and Spanish are the main "international" languages in the world.
I imagine that the GEO armed forces would still be organised on a local level, so would speak the language of their home. Officers would probably be expected to speak English and/or Spanish as well.
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Post by allie on May 19, 2023 17:54:18 GMT
It looks like the China / India combination keeps itself to itself. I wouldn't say China keeps to itself, but Mandarin's offworld spread has almost certainly been hamstrung by PRC-GEO relations. (Can the GEO threaten to lock bad and naughty countries out of Port Horizon? My money's on yes.) The Mombasa skyhook is changing that, but not in time for gameplay set in 2199.
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Post by Pawel on May 20, 2023 5:40:38 GMT
Ha, and now we have a spin-off from this discussion in the Undercurrents section! Awesome work, Allie! It reads so well. And it can add a layer of mystery to a vast range of scenarios.
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Post by allie on May 20, 2023 6:47:46 GMT
Ha, and now we have a spin-off from this discussion in the Undercurrents section! Awesome work, Allie! It reads so well. And it can add a layer of mystery to a vast range of scenarios. Thank you! I've had the concept of "proprietary language" bouncing around in my head for awhile, but that was the first time I figured out a way to use it that was actually fun. (It's very mean, but hey, that's espionage for you.)
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Post by neil on May 20, 2023 7:58:49 GMT
It looks like the China / India combination keeps itself to itself. I wouldn't say China keeps to itself, but Mandarin's offworld spread has almost certainly been hamstrung by PRC-GEO relations. (Can the GEO threaten to lock bad and naughty countries out of Port Horizon? My money's on yes.) The Mombasa skyhook is changing that, but not in time for gameplay set in 2199. There's something about China in the upcoming section on the Outback. I'll let Jeff handle what gets relased when, so I won't say more before he does.
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Post by Pawel on May 20, 2023 8:02:40 GMT
I wouldn't say China keeps to itself, but Mandarin's offworld spread has almost certainly been hamstrung by PRC-GEO relations. (Can the GEO threaten to lock bad and naughty countries out of Port Horizon? My money's on yes.) The Mombasa skyhook is changing that, but not in time for gameplay set in 2199. There's something about China in the upcoming section on the Outback. I'll let Jeff handle what gets relased when, so I won't say more before he does. Very much looking forward to your work, Neil!!
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Post by neil on May 20, 2023 8:06:19 GMT
Ha, and now we have a spin-off from this discussion in the Undercurrents section! Awesome work, Allie! It reads so well. And it can add a layer of mystery to a vast range of scenarios. Thank you! I've had the concept of "proprietary language" bouncing around in my head for awhile, but that was the first time I figured out a way to use it that was actually fun. (It's very mean, but hey, that's espionage for you.) I take it you know about the Code Talkers, mainly in WW2?
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Post by allie on May 21, 2023 18:06:09 GMT
It was definitely an influence, but one I tried to avoid because code talking works too well; there's almost no way to defeat it without rubber-hose cryptanalysis, and it feels like poor game design to give players a problem that's non-interactive. (I rewrote Smoke and Jaguars to use Nahuatl specifically so players would be more likely to respond with "Aztec still exists?" than "is that even a real language?")
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Post by allie on Jun 9, 2023 23:02:48 GMT
Unrelated to cryptography, but I fell down a rabbit hole trying to name a boat this afternoon and now can hazard a guess as to the colloquial name for xenosilicates in multiple East Asian languages if anyone's interested.
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Post by Pawel on Jun 10, 2023 5:18:13 GMT
Unrelated to cryptography, but I fell down a rabbit hole trying to name a boat this afternoon and now can hazard a guess as to the colloquial name for xenosilicates in multiple East Asian languages if anyone's interested. Haha, that's the best kind if research hazard! Go ahead, Allie! What's Long John in Chinese?
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Post by allie on Jun 10, 2023 17:59:29 GMT
What sent me down the rabbit hole was wondering how you say "Poseidon" in Chinese. Most European languages (except Greek, but I'm not sure that matters post-Blight) use the localized spelling of Poseidon, and Japanese can follow suit with ポサイドン Posaidon, but Chinese has its own naming convention for planets that's shared with a bunch of other languages in East Asia.
I am a fanwriter and can't establish canon, but my guess-proposal is that Poseidon's Chinese name would be 波王星 Bōwángxīng "Wave King Star," alluding to both the planet Neptune (海王星 "Sea King Star") and the phonetic 波塞冬 Bōsāidōng used internationally.
Hanzi working how they do, one happy side effect is that the character 波 is usable as a shorthand for anything Poseidon-related - most notably Long John, which would be 波矽 bōxī if you're Taiwanese, 波硅 bōguī if you're anyone else, and calqued as "wave silicon" either way. (There's definitely a proper scientific translation for xenosilicates, but I can't guess it and it's not that important.)
In Japanese 波 is pronounced ha, resulting in the planet being Haōsei and Long John being 波珪素 hakeiso. (You can use ロングジョン rongujon casually but that's not what you find in dictionaries.) 日波 "Nichiha" deserves special mention as a shorthand for planetside NIS operations; if you're around Simushir in any capacity you'll definitely see and hear it a lot. (Hinami is a rarer reading of the same kanji, and Nichinami's an outright incorrect one, but the NIS probably trademarked both for branding purposes.)
In Korean 波 is spelled 파 and pronounced pa, which gets you 파왕선 Pawangseong "Poseidon" and 바규 pagyu "wave silicon" — but since Korea's officially the Chaoxian Autonomous Region or something these days, this doesn't have to matter much.
Again, take all of this with a grain of salt; I can't establish canon. But I do know just enough to offer plausibility.
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