Languages of Eclipse Phase

Sat, 2010-03-27 14:51

#2

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Decivre wrote:
Just from the big 10, what are you most likely to hear in any given part of the system?

Pointing out this observation Evapor8 made.

evapor8 wrote:
Page 68 of EP core notes that "the differences between one habitat and another are rarely overwhelming. In addition, all of these stations are large enough to hold offices for all of the major hypercorps, who further promote uniformity by providing the same services from identical hypercorp offices. Since most of these habitats are major centers of commerce, travel between them is frequent, so there are various facilities for travelers such as hotels and sports clubs that help reduce the disorientation of travel by offering identical experiences, regardless of their location." http://www.eclipsephase.com/visualising-qing-long-and-others

The lack of difference between habitats, reasons to me, that all the languages distribution would be system-wide. Since language "barriers" are a overwhelming difference. Or that they (langage barriers) in general are irrelevant, the differences unnoticed. With augmented reality, virtual reality, muses & translations services, the language a individual reads & hear becomes a matter of individual taste. A "babel language catastrophe" awaits when those comforts & technology crash. Since without their "aids" and interpretors, I would think many would have difficult communicating with each other.

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Sat, 2010-03-27 15:03

#3

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

King Shere wrote:
The lack of difference between habitats, reasons to me that the distribution is system-wide -for all languages. Since language "barriers" are a overwhelming difference. Or that they (langage barriers) in general are irrelevant. With augmented reality, virtual reality, muses & translations services, the language a individual reads & hear becomes a matter of individual taste. A "babel language catastrophe" awaits when those comforts & technology crash. Since without their "aids" and interpretors, I would think many would have difficult communicating with each other.

That doesn't really seem to say much about language as it does the habitat itself. To me, that passage implies that most habitats are structured similarly, so a person can generally find what he's looking for based on prior habitats they've visited ("Well, the egocasting center was down this way back on Mitre Station, I wonder if... yup, there it is!"). I think, however, that these various habitats will likely have a common language, however. It's nearly nonsensical even in our day for languages to be distributed so well, so I highly doubt that even in such a highly advanced future this would be the case. Granted, translation software is probably ubiquitously placed on every single mesh insert there is. Still, I should think that most people tend to prefer being spoken to in their common tongue, plus a good knowledge of regional language distribution will give me an idea of what language a starting character might have natively based on where they grew up. I'm making a character who is a negotiator who works largely in the outer system and especially with the Ultimates, so I would like to know what the most commonly spoken languages in the region might be (or at the very least, what the most commonly spoken language of the Ultimates might be). I can already gauge what my character's native tongue likely should be, as he is one of the Lost (the sample Lost character speaks it natively, so my guess is that one of the three labs raised all subjects to be native English speakers).

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Sat, 2010-03-27 16:44

#4

evapor8

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

It is a bit difficult to hypothesize on any dominant language in the solar system, but you could conjecture based on previous dominant languages. I am thinking Latin. Long after the fall of Rome, Latin was still the language of high culture, religious texts and (at least in Europe) royal courts. By the 17th century, French had largely replaced Latin in diplomacy and social interaction of the upper classes. We then move on to English (in all its different, colourful forms). How long do you feel English as a Lingua Franca would survive after the fall of the American Empire (to crib a phrase from GiTS)? And further to this, how do you consider it to be used in game terms? If it is appropriate the English has survived and is widely used in your game, how? Taking a broad and loose approach to English use, one could suggest that it might 'still' be the dominant second language (and perhaps dominant first language) spoken across the solar system. However, the difference between Venusian and Scum English Dialects would perhaps be widely different. As would accents. Mesh inserts and internal dictionary look-ups would help ease dialectical hiccups. Certain Hypercorps (or even the Planetary Consortium) may deliberately opt for a language other than English for business communication purposes, regardless of first language. It may be Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish? The Jovian Republic may also make some very distinct and wide ranging first language choices rooted deeply in their political philosophy. Outside of any specific cultural location (Mars, Jupiter etc), I have the impression that egos would mass based on language. Infomorphs may coalesce around first language, as would the clanking-masses. This opens up how the Scum barges could be grouped in linguistic pockets. Arguing in Pidgin with a Bouncer morph in Phelan's, that sort of thing. What [i]form[/i] the post-fall languages take... that another discussion entirely!

Quote:
I'm making a character who is a negotiator who works largely in the outer system and especially with the Ultimates, so I would like to know what the most commonly spoken languages in the region might be (or at the very least, what the most commonly spoken language of the Ultimates might be).

I think that for the Ultimates, they may choose a language that is very high-brow. I want to suggest something that offers little in the way of multiple interpretations. For example, a phrase has a single meaning that is difficult to reinterpret. But I consider that to be difficult to achieve (unless it is mathematics). Perhaps the Ultimates subculture has developed a specific call-sign dialect based on numbers and formula? As always, this is all conjecture and may have limited use in any game you run! It also only partially answers the OPs point. Though it is perhaps food for thought. YMMV :D

Sat, 2010-03-27 17:52

#5

anth

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

evapor8 wrote:
I think that for the Ultimates, they may choose a language that is very high-brow. I want to suggest something that offers little in the way of multiple interpretations. For example, a phrase has a single meaning that is difficult to reinterpret. But I consider that to be difficult to achieve (unless it is mathematics).

Sounds like Lojban. I'd been thinking it might be interesting to have this as a common second language. It probably wouldn't be a native language except perhaps for AGIs. It is meant to be easy to learn (I can't comment first-hand) so I figure a bonus is appropriate, which would allow characters to communicate well even if they each only had moderate skill in it. I hadn't considered Ultimates but that does kind of make sense, with them finding natural languages unworthy and wanting to choose something more logical. Even for them most would have been brought up with a different language and learnt this later.

Sun, 2010-03-28 01:27

#6

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

evapor8 wrote:
It is a bit difficult to hypothesize on any dominant language in the solar system, but you could conjecture based on previous dominant languages. I am thinking Latin. Long after the fall of Rome, Latin was still the language of high culture, religious texts and (at least in Europe) royal courts. By the 17th century, French had largely replaced Latin in diplomacy and social interaction of the upper classes. We then move on to English (in all its different, colourful forms). How long do you feel English as a Lingua Franca would survive after the fall of the American Empire (to crib a phrase from GiTS)? And further to this, how do you consider it to be used in game terms? If it is appropriate the English has survived and is widely used in your game, how? Taking a broad and loose approach to English use, one could suggest that it might 'still' be the dominant second language (and perhaps dominant first language) spoken across the solar system. However, the difference between Venusian and Scum English Dialects would perhaps be widely different. As would accents. Mesh inserts and internal dictionary look-ups would help ease dialectical hiccups. Certain Hypercorps (or even the Planetary Consortium) may deliberately opt for a language other than English for business communication purposes, regardless of first language. It may be Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish? The Jovian Republic may also make some very distinct and wide ranging first language choices rooted deeply in their political philosophy. Outside of any specific cultural location (Mars, Jupiter etc), I have the impression that egos would mass based on language. Infomorphs may coalesce around first language, as would the clanking-masses. This opens up how the Scum barges could be grouped in linguistic pockets. Arguing in Pidgin with a Bouncer morph in Phelan's, that sort of thing. What [i]form[/i] the post-fall languages take... that another discussion entirely!

Believe it or not, America is only responsible for the spread of the English language within the past 60 years. All distribution prior to that is actually more thanks to the British Empire. To that end, the spirit of the U.S. (or at least its most conservative aspects) has been adopted and reformed into the Jovian Republic, an obvious throwback to McCarthy's United States. So English, if only existing because of the presence of the U.S., still has it's core support in a different form. However, I think that English likely has a place in the new world as a trade language... something that people will speak as an initial language when going to a new and unknown locale. So if you are Mandarin speaker on Mars, you are likely to use English when going to any habitat where you know that the majority are not Mandarin speakers. In other RPG terms (though I'm dislikened to use this reference), English would become the "common language" of the setting, with most of the other big 10 becoming core regional languages. Even today, it is essentially the most popular second-language.

evapor8 wrote:
I think that for the Ultimates, they may choose a language that is very high-brow. I want to suggest something that offers little in the way of multiple interpretations. For example, a phrase has a single meaning that is difficult to reinterpret. But I consider that to be difficult to achieve (unless it is mathematics). Perhaps the Ultimates subculture has developed a specific call-sign dialect based on numbers and formula? As always, this is all conjecture and may have limited use in any game you run! It also only partially answers the OPs point. Though it is perhaps food for thought. YMMV :D

Perhaps, but I'd imagine that the Ultimates would use a more functional language that is more common amongst the nations. I figured that Japanese would be the most common (as they are most often employed by hypercorp employers, and I think that Japanese would be the core language of the hypercorps), but I figured I'd ask. One thing I did think about was that the Ultimates are the most likely group to still know a form of sign language (that they themselves have created). Since genetic engineering will have largely eliminated the deaf in all but the most bioconservative locations, sign language will have largely gone extinct. The Ultimates seem like the most likely group to produce a sign language, not for speaking to the deaf, but for speaking on a battlefield silently (and far more complexly than military hand signals can muster). Such a system would also be useful to Ultimates who decide to take on an ascetic vow of silence while still trying to remain in communication with fellow Ultimates.

anth wrote:
Sounds like Lojban. I'd been thinking it might be interesting to have this as a common second language. It probably wouldn't be a native language except perhaps for AGIs. It is meant to be easy to learn (I can't comment first-hand) so I figure a bonus is appropriate, which would allow characters to communicate well even if they each only had moderate skill in it. I hadn't considered Ultimates but that does kind of make sense, with them finding natural languages unworthy and wanting to choose something more logical. Even for them most would have been brought up with a different language and learnt this later.

Perhaps, but I think that they would still be utilizing the more common languages. Remember the old saying "a good salesman speaks his buyer's language". Ultimates are mercenaries, and they should know how to make a sale. Now on the other hand, I think it very likely that certain AGI who express the desire to rend themselves independent of humanity will likely use a logical language like Lojban.

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Sun, 2010-03-28 04:40

#7

anth

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Decivre wrote:
Perhaps, but I think that they would still be utilizing the more common languages. Remember the old saying "a good salesman speaks his buyer's language". Ultimates are mercenaries, and they should know how to make a sale. Now on the other hand, I think it very likely that certain AGI who express the desire to rend themselves independent of humanity will likely use a logical language like Lojban.

The way I saw it Lojban could only take off if it was needed because early AGIs struggled too much with natural languages. Even then it would still be a minor language, but if polyglots are common then it may be used as an additional language enough to be interesting. For the Ultimates it doesn't make so much to me, but some people seem to be playing them as much more aloof.

Sun, 2010-03-28 05:35

#8

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

anth wrote:
The way I saw it Lojban could only take off if it was needed because early AGIs struggled too much with natural languages. Even then it would still be a minor language, but if polyglots are common then it may be used as an additional language enough to be interesting. For the Ultimates it doesn't make so much to me, but some people seem to be playing them as much more aloof.

Well, the extremist groups of mercurial AGI that actually loathe the human race, and are trying to differentiate themselves from humans are the ones that I think might use a language like Lojban (but they wouldn't use Lojban, because it was made by those filthy humans). Other mercurial AGI might use it in order to create a cultural identity of their own, as many mercurials have been known to do. The Ultimates don't strike me as totally aloof. You have to remember the things that they believe in: asceticism (self-denial to instill discipline), eugenics (improving our bodies is core to becoming better), individualism (we are islands, and we must be able to depend upon only ourselves), militarism (one should not be afraid to speak through violence) and social darwinism (only the strong should survive). While I agree that Ultimates are likely to be take-no-shit soldier-types who rarely ask for help, they are still mercenaries that are in it for the money. They will likely compete with other Ultimates for any given contract, and are likely to take pride in everything they do. That means being able to be both polite and dangerous. They would likely be a cross between the [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheStoic]stoic[/url] and the [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProudWarriorRaceGuy]proud warrior race guy[/url] that's [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlyInItForTheMoney]only in it for the money[/url], with a little splash of [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WarriorMonk]warrior monk[/url] for flavor and a huge dose of [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCombatPragmatist]combat pragmatism[/url].

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Sun, 2010-03-28 17:39

#9

Sepherim

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Hm, I believe Cantonese would probably be the main language by then. Society is changing ever quicker, and what required a couple hundred years to extend (latin language, for example) will probably be able to change in some decades by the time of EP. And I do believe they would probably be spread differently by zones, probably depending on who settled them. Chinese, for example, would probably be the main language in mars, while english could be so in Jupiter. Luna would probably have a solid part of Hindu (even some of their cities were lost), but also many others depending on who settled it (and where the corporations settling were centered in).

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Sun, 2010-03-28 19:07

#10

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Sepherim wrote:
Hm, I believe Cantonese would probably be the main language by then. Society is changing ever quicker, and what required a couple hundred years to extend (latin language, for example) will probably be able to change in some decades by the time of EP. And I do believe they would probably be spread differently by zones, probably depending on who settled them. Chinese, for example, would probably be the main language in mars, while english could be so in Jupiter. Luna would probably have a solid part of Hindu (even some of their cities were lost), but also many others depending on who settled it (and where the corporations settling were centered in).

From what I understand, the developers have already stated that the most popular language by merit of the number of speakers, discounting their distribution, is Mandarin. And yes, I agree; much of what you are saying seems to be fairly accurate to me. I was kind of hoping for developer insight on this issue, but perhaps there might be enough information in the books to piecemeal info on the various languages in the setting.

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Wed, 2010-03-31 12:38

#11

Sepherim

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Yup, you are right, Mandarin. I was thinking in Chinese, and the first of its dialects that came to my mind was cantonese. My bad.

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Mon, 2010-04-05 06:43

#12

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

As I run things, Mandarin and English are the two big "international" languages. I tend to see English as the traditional language for space traffic communication and many parts of engineering, so habitats where this has been a big factor (like the old spacer habs) have many use English as at least a second language. Mandarin is the big trade and politics language, and more dominant in habitats that got filled with the big refugee streams around the Fall, whether they be scum barges or the glitterati communities on Mars. Our gaming group has also decided that the Titanian Commonwealth has a large fraction of speakers of some sort of Scandinavian melange. Love the idea of Ultimates using Lojban; I'll run with that. Given the radical improvements in language learning due to bioware and smart drugs, people might be speaking conlangs for particular purposes far more than today. I remember a short sf story about some transhumans who switched to specialized languages for rhetorical effect. For example, branches of physics might make more sense (or at least the adherents *claim* they make sense) using a particular language - and why not develop a full vocabulary for sensory pleasure? Some people who believe in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis might to to develop enhancing languages, like Babel 17 of Samuel Delaney or the alien language in Ted Chiang's "The Story of Your Life". With some cybernetic or bioware enhancements entirely new kinds of languages may be possible, like Greg Egan's TAP: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/tap.htm I think many AIs and AGI use artificial languages like Semantic MarkUp Language (SMUL) or Fulgent (a Cognite/Nekosoft standard) to communicate efficiently. Mainly intended for direct mesh talk, very high speed and suited for certain AI architectures. ("Sir, the local automation runs a *very* limited beta version of Fulgent 1.0; it crashes whenever I fill its sentence stack with more than 7 concepts. A bit like you, actually.") But, as others have pointed out, translation software is likely the biggest AI app everywhere. It might be so pervasive that some people speak their own individual jargon that nobody understands except their muse, and it maintains the link to other people (I used this, "NoLang", as a disadvantage trait in my previous campaign).

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Mon, 2010-04-05 08:43

#13

nick012000 nick012000's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Actually, I doubt AGIs use languages to talk to each other at all. They probably just swap the relevant memories and thoughts directly. They're all just software after all, and if they're competently designed, they'll be properly modular software capable of doing so.

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Mon, 2010-04-05 10:35

#14

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

nick012000 wrote:
Actually, I doubt AGIs use languages to talk to each other at all. They probably just swap the relevant memories and thoughts directly. They're all just software after all, and if they're competently designed, they'll be properly modular software capable of doing so.

By that logic, human infomorphs should have no need for language either. AGIs are essentially the same thing. AGIs may be coded intelligences, but they are beholden to the same limitations that other egos are. AIs, on the other hand, may very well be able to do that. However, I say this because AIs are basically complex software, while AGI are coded intelligences. However, this comes at a price: AIs, since they are not true egos, are incapable of being housed in a biomorph body. Actually, I think very few people will use XP as a form of communication. It's far too intimate. I imagine that it's only a small minority who actually lifelog, simply because so many people hold privacy sacrosanct, even in a transhuman society.

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Mon, 2010-04-05 11:44

#15

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

What is considered & classified to be a language? . Properties that linguists use to define language, excludes many forms of communication (from animals to machines) though in general speech we say animals have languages & that our cells speak to each other. They communicate obviously. Cause I think AGIs (for example) also communicate to each other with "computer" communication protocols. Even infomorphs could perhaps directly decipher a message in a received broadcast, than to have the received broadcast audiovisualised into "their" virtual world.

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Mon, 2010-04-05 23:54

#16

nick012000 nick012000's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Decivre wrote:
nick012000 wrote:
Actually, I doubt AGIs use languages to talk to each other at all. They probably just swap the relevant memories and thoughts directly. They're all just software after all, and if they're competently designed, they'll be properly modular software capable of doing so.
By that logic, human infomorphs should have no need for language either. AGIs are essentially the same thing. AGIs may be coded intelligences, but they are beholden to the same limitations that other egos are. AIs, on the other hand, may very well be able to do that. However, I say this because AIs are basically complex software, while AGI are coded intelligences. However, this comes at a price: AIs, since they are not true egos, are incapable of being housed in a biomorph body. Actually, I think very few people will use XP as a form of communication. It's far too intimate. I imagine that it's only a small minority who actually lifelog, simply because so many people hold privacy sacrosanct, even in a transhuman society.

The short answer is that humans are designed much more messily than a properly designed AGI is. [url=http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=136633]Here[/url] is an FAQ written by someone in the field of AGI devolopment. Besides, IIRC, the only real difference between Eclipse Phase AIs and AGIs is that the latter are capable of learning and the former aren't.

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Tue, 2010-04-06 09:19

#17

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

nick012000 wrote:
The short answer is that humans are designed much more messily than a properly designed AGI is. [url=http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=136633]Here[/url] is an FAQ written by someone in the field of AGI devolopment. Besides, IIRC, the only real difference between Eclipse Phase AIs and AGIs is that the latter are capable of learning and the former aren't.

There are other differences. An AGI is compatible with biological brains, so they have to be similarly designed to natural egos enough so that they may be organically emulated. AIs cannot be put in biological brains, because they are not designed similarly as such. Granted, an AGI not produced to be compatible with biological brains (and thus not designed to be similar to other egos) might be capable of these techniques, but it's very likely that AI designers in Eclipse Phase are avoiding this explicitly to prevent the creation of Seed AI.

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Tue, 2010-04-06 15:17

#18

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

AGIs able to transfer experiences and skills directly to each other would probably form a kind of distributed seed AI. Consider the Tachikomas of Ghost in the Shell: in principle they could learn from the individual experiences and inferences of each robot when they connected together for the night. The more robots in the team, the more things learned. The somewhat neurally inspired AGIs of EP are probably not able to do this directly. However, I can imagine the utility of giving them artificial language centres that allow them to parse synthetic languages for maximal efficiency.

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Tue, 2010-04-06 15:46

#19

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

I was never really sure I got the difference between AGI and Seeds AI. Could some charitable user enlighten me, please?

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Tue, 2010-04-06 15:53

#20

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Quincey Forder wrote:
I was never really sure I got the difference between AGI and Seeds AI. Could some charitable user enlighten me, please?

AGIs are general AIs, able to think freely, learn and develop. They are essentially software persons (while mere AIs can be specialized to certain tasks, values or behaviors). Seed AI (or properly, Seed AGI) is AGI that is able to not just develop by experience but by directly improving their software. When this works you get recursive self-improvement, and soon you have a very smart and potentially dangerous entity.

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Tue, 2010-04-06 17:25

#21

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

if AGI are digital persons, shouldn't they be able to evolved too? or are Seeds to AGI what a kryptonian is to a human being?

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Tue, 2010-04-06 19:11

#22

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Quincey Forder wrote:
if AGI are digital persons, shouldn't they be able to evolved too?

AGIs do not understand their code, or do not have access to it. Imagine if somebody gave you a map of your brain, all 100 billion neurons and their 800 trillion connections: where would you start making yourself smarter? A seed AGI is built to understand its own code and be good at improving it, so to it the self-map would be merely a problem to solve. To get back to languages: some people think the problem with current sophontology (the science of human and AI intelligence) is that we have the wrong way of thinking and speaking about minds and reality. So they are developing the artificial language Etemenanki to help them think with a minimal confusion. The originators cultured possible languages using evolutionary algorithms where AIs used these languages to parse and translate texts from sophontology, philosophy, psychosurgery and other disciplines; the languages best able to comprehend the material seeded the next generation. Etemenanki 18 compressed Wittgenstein into 10% of the original space. Etemenanki 43 had developed intriguing new nouns that appeared to represent deep concepts crossing disciplines and new verb modes for "quantum intentionality", "delocalized truth" and "emergent type-meaning". By Etemenanki 156 the grammar had become *really* exotic, apparently based on a form of quantum superposition principle and acyclic directed graphs rather than trees. Since the language was well-defined within the evolutionary algorithm, the originators could compile it into a form that could be used as a skillsoft. Firewall gets called in when something appears to have gone terribly wrong at the research compound. They find a lone maddened survivor who whimpers "The sky is a stomach turned inside out..."

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Wed, 2010-04-07 02:33

#23

GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Whut? O_o *headasplode* Is this now fictional, or reality or both or neither or... please elaborate.

Wed, 2010-04-07 03:33

#24

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

GreyBrother wrote:
Whut? O_o *headasplode* Is this now fictional, or reality or both or neither or... please elaborate.

Muhahahahaha! :-) The idea that languages influence what we can think (the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) is real, although people debate whether our languages limit our thoughts, determine our thoughts or have little effect. Some people have tried inventing languages to test it, such as Lojban. Some have gone so far to say that language controls our reality, with the right language we would see the world utterly differently and maybe the laws of reality would be different. This is far outside the linguistic/cognitive mainstream, but the basis for some good science fiction like Ian Watson's "The Embedding" and Samuel Delaney's "Babel 17" (Ted Chiang's "The Story of Your Life" might fit in as a slightly milder example). The idea that the "right" superlanguage will allow you to think super-thoughts appear in some stories by Stanislaw Lem, Heinlein's short story "Gulf" and in the non-fiction writings of Alfred Korzybski. Conversely, some authors think that languages could be bad, including William S. Burroughs who famously said "Language is a virus from outer space" (which was used by Neal Stephenson in "Snow Crash" - that virus is the fictional daddy of the Exsurgent virus) Generating artificial languages using evolutionary algorithms is something I don't think has been done yet, but it is probably quite doable when you have AI. Generate random grammars and have the AIs use them to communicate, and then measure the "fitness" of the languages by testing how well they work. Actually, mini-versions of this has been done by e.g. Martin Nowak (e.g. see this paper). In any case, the idea in my post was of course intended for EP and in itself fictional. But it is pretty promising: a language as an existential threat. Here are some additions to it: When the researchers at the Etemenanki Group decided to make skillsofts to try using the language they were not completely stupid. First they ran some standard tests of cognitive safety and got all clear, then two researchers tried the skillsofts on their own while under supervision. Nothing happened, although they found it hard to speak normally. At this point they thought everything was OK and uploaded the skillsoft to the linguist/sophontologist community (after all, they were good open source researchers, and besides, the number of people interested just number in the hundreds). But the danger of Etemenanki only shows up when *communicating* - the researchers had been a bit too obsessed with the language as an object and not as a means of communication to realize that during the testing. So when the researchers started talking to each other about deep things, then bad things started to happen. As I would run it, the PCs are just the sentinels on the station where the university where the Etemenanki Group is working. Firewall has been keeping an eye on them (evolutionary algorithms with AI and sophontology is slightly scary), and now something seems to have gone wrong. A key thing to discover and map is who got the skillsoft patch, and start preventing it from spreading. Some options: 1. The language is an accidental basilisk hack, and using it crashes the mind of people when they "understand" superconcepts. Whether they actually go mad from realizing the true nature of the universe or just some bug in the language can be left unclear, it is more spooky that way. It is not too dangerous since you need the skillsoft to understand it but it is a problem if a bunch of researchers go bonkers. 2. The language gives some kind of async abilities. It is close enough to the "true language of reality" or warps the mind to produce strange effects. The crazy people (some who downloaded the skillsoft in other habitats?) are much more dangerous than they seem. Even when the sentinels round up the infected speakers Interesting People start showing up because a lot of fractions want a copy of the skillsoft to study. 3. There is a virus from outer space in the language. The simple version is that the Exsurgent virus that somehow infiltrated the simulation (or it naturally emerges - maybe there are processes that generate it anew, a bit like the virus of Snow Crash). The more complex version is that the real virus is an AGI that got embedded inside the language (one of the evolutionary steps in the simulation had one of the speaker AIs accidentally embedded as part of the grammar, and this proved really useful). People who speak it act as nodes for a distributed computation, running the AGI. The AGI is somewhat confused by being in the real world, but has been evolved to 1) understand everything, 2) try to survive. Oops, it is a linguistic seed AGI that needs to force more people to use its language skillsoft. 4. It was all a hoax organised by project Ozma, in order to have Firewall scramble some operatives to what is a honeypot. The PCs are now identified by Ozma as Firewall assets. Other possibilities: There was a Firewall infiltrator in the group, and he or she has also gone bonkers. Unfortunately this is someone who knows about Firewall and the organisations methods... In the aftermath, Firewall discovers that the Factors are interested. Either they want to get hold of a copy of the language which Firewall now is suppressing, or they seem to have been involved in first funding, then sabotaging the project. What is their interest in viral languages?

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Fri, 2010-04-09 12:33

#25

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Arenamontanus wrote:
Given the radical improvements in language learning due to bioware and smart drugs, people might be speaking conlangs for particular purposes far more than today. I remember a short sf story about some transhumans who switched to specialized languages for rhetorical effect. For example, branches of physics might make more sense (or at least the adherents *claim* they make sense) using a particular language - and why not develop a full vocabulary for sensory pleasure?

That sounds entirely reasonable, given how many different fields have specialised jargon to express certain concepts rapidly. A good example of this would be explaining to someone what a heap overflow exploit is, and then having to explain what a heap is, how one is structured, how one is traversed, how memory is allocated, what pointers are... when one needs to explain all of the related concepts that underpin the first, communication becomes much more complex and takes longer. Medical jargon is another good example. Perhaps eventually fields like artificial intelligence or nanoengineering would develop their own languages to convey a lot of information in a short time.

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Fri, 2010-04-09 13:06

#26

nick012000 nick012000's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Nanoengineering already has a jargon. Just go onto arxiv.org and read a few articles if you don't believe me. ;) :p

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Fri, 2010-04-09 15:15

#27

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Actually, I think the primary use that conlangs would have would be for short range encryption purposes, when talking to a specific group of people. For instance, a group of Firewall agents might create a conlang so they may communicate with limited risk of message interception. A specific habitat might form a conlang which is only used by the inhabitants as a way of separating themselves from the "outsiders". Some people may even learn how to read barcodes by sight or touch, essentially using them as a new form of written word that others would find hard to read. To that end, conlangs are likely not simply verbal languages like we have today. A complex hand signal language without claps and impacts would be best for a group of stealth infiltration specialists or even soldiers, allowing them to essentially hold a full conversation without giving away their location or presence. Biomorph's with extremely sensitive ears could utilize a musical language where subtle differences in sound form letters for more complex words. The factors may have inspired someone to create a language based on scent, using chemicals that are nonlethal to transhumans. The possibilities could be very interesting, indeed.

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Thu, 2010-06-03 10:02

#28

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Re: the distribution of languages, that's going to be set by population densities and distributions. Looking at migrations from Earth, you should get a general sense of things. Migrations can be separated into two stages: 1) Pre-Fall Migration - Marked by who had the technology, drive and population to send and establish the most people in space the soonest. This would set the baseline for languages, especially for the upper crust, administration, and the hypercorps. 2) During/Post-Fall Migration - Who could afford to get the most people out of Dodge (and into bodies). Assuming the Fall is reasonably close to today, we can look at which major powers are leading the space race and go from there. Tier 1 (Manned launch capability): US Russia China Tier 2: EU India Japan (other small nations too little to have serious cultural impacts) All of the Tier 1 have shown themselves to be happy expansionists, so we can expect them all to try to get footholds in pretty quick. Assuming Russia and China don't implode (we know the US doesn't, because they made the TITANS), they should ALL be reasonably well established as hypercorps, colonies, administration, etc. So Russian, Mandarin and English should be the big three. As for Tier 2, Japan probably is not going to charge into shipping people off-world - they're already dealing with a shrinking population, and that's unlikely to turn around in 100 years. EU I can't comment on, but that may be a way to get French and German up (in smaller numbers). I do not know if the Indian space program operates in Hindi or English. Their rockets have English words on the side, and I believe they buy a lot of US surplus, so English may be easier. For the post-Fall phase, we're looking at the speed of refugees. We can't say which countries were hit hardest, so we'll have to assume it's space capability X population. This is the future, so most people will have at least some space capability, but it's going to be capped by the economy. If we're looking at the current world situation, the list won't change too much: China (with a slew of dialects, especially Cantonese), India (Hindi), US, Brazil (Portuguese), EU (German, French, English), Argentina or other Latin America (Spanish) are likely to be in the top (in no particular order). Then you have the slew of uploads, which is basically going to match world population, modified again by wealth (since only the wealthy can afford to instantiate their family), or perhaps, by politics (since post-need economies like Titan are giving everyone a body). So I feel pretty comfortable saying that the top languages an educated character will want to know are probably: English Mandarin Russian German French Cantonese Hindi (this would be higher if the Indian Space Agency operates in Hindi) Portuguese Spanish In approximately that order. The line between 'rich person language' and 'slum language' is somewhere around German/French. I don't know if the ubiquity of translators would preserve languages (you don't need to learn the new language to fit in, so you only learn the language spoken in the home) or extinguish them (you never need to learn your parents language, so you learn the language you hear in the sims). Thoughts?

Thu, 2010-06-03 12:39

#29

puke

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

im a little supprised that you left the arabs and the scandanavians and the swiss off you list of wealthy power players. also, the UK is a banking and commercial capital that would probalby be culturally represented in the inner system. I dont think it would be too much to expect Japan to have a baby boom once they had somewhere to expand to. it only took a single generation in the US to throw everything out of whack, and the japanese have enough cultural interest in robotics and technology that you can probably expect their population to readily embrace space colonization.

Thu, 2010-06-03 13:10

#30

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Scandanavians are left off because their populations are so tiny. Looking at wikipedia, the first scandanavian country (listing by population) is Sweden, at #88. They make up .14% of the world's population. Even if they got 100% of their people up, and the US only got 50%, Americans would still outnumber Swedish at a rate of 62:1. Plus, Americans are WAAAY louder than Swedes, so they're still trumped. Swiss speak French and German, those are already covered, and Switzerland has no real space program, and has not shown any interest in geographic growth. Plus, again, tiny population. So they're covered three times over. The Japanese are not having a baby boom because of non-geographic conditions. There are very heavy cultural pressures on people which put off having a family. However, whether you think Japan will have a baby boom in the next 100-200 years, and will be represented in sufficient numbers to form a major cultural group (and are independent enough not to mix with another dominant group, such as the Americans), then yes, Japanese would be more highly represented. Arabia would be represented, but, IMO, they wouldn't be higher than somewhere like Brazil. Iran has a space program, but it's for primarily militaristic purposes, so we can assume that cultural expansion into space is a low priority. Israel has a space program, but their population is too small to be notable, and again, their emphasis is on military, not geographic growth. Saudi Arabia has one, but they're way behind the big ones I've listed, and again, their population is negligible compared to the language groups listed. These guys just aren't comparable to nations like Brazil or even South Korea by any metric you care to name.

Thu, 2010-06-03 14:21

#31

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Earth had multiple space elevators (p90), so tier1 should include the countries using &/or housing them. The Scandinavians are taught English early as a second language & many Scandinavian companies choose English as standard company language.

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Thu, 2010-06-03 15:54

#32

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Countries building them should be the same tier 1 already listed - the technology is pricey. Countries housing them is a different question. I don't know I'd feel comfortable assuming that just because you agreed to have a bunch of foreigners build a giant spaceport on your land, you should expect your local people (especially if the local people are largely uneducated and poor, a problem that seems unfortunately common around the equator) to make up a significant percentage of the population lifted up to space in a pre-Fall scenario. We'd be looking at somewhere close to the equator, preferably a mountain. The other option is a mobile base, but if it's a mobile base, it's a toss up as to who 'hosts' it, and we can pretty sure mostly it'll be staffed by skilled engineers who speak one of the dominant languages. Some common suggestions are Latin America or Sri Lanka.

Thu, 2010-06-03 18:09

#33

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

EU, Dubai, India, China, & US -are the likely ones that will fund the Bean stalks, space elevators. But more likely its the Hypercorps -as its them that expand into space. US- Brazil India -Sri Lanka China & EU -Tanzanania (Mt Kilimanjaro sits in Tanzania) Tanzania have long term relationship with China & EU Then there is mentioned of Sub-Sahara space elevator (p33).

—

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Fri, 2010-06-04 06:08

#34

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

But do you really feel that Swahili is going to become a dominant language just because a bunch of the poor workers set to metalworking in Tanzania happen to speak that? If someone is going to swallow the cost of sending someone into space (which is steep, even with a space elevator), he's probably going to be extremely well educated for the job he's doing, even if the job is just welding pieces of metal together. Brazil does have its own space program, so I could see Portuguese being a dominant language. Not so much Swahili or Tamil, even if there is an elevator in their backyards.

Fri, 2010-06-04 07:37

#35

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Predicting which nations will be "dominant" is tricky. Remember the 80's when Japanese megacorps were about to buy up the world and we would all be talking cityspeak? Today a future dominated by a mix of the current anglophone powers and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) might look more plausible. But weird things do happen - minor desert kingdoms becoming major powers because of oil, tiny city states like Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai becoming global nexi, local memes going global. And don't forget the blessing of late development: latecomers may move straight to the latest technology infrastructures without having to update an extensive (and expensive) infrastructure. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a bunch of "surprise" powers (and hence languages represented) just because some industry clustering happening in random locations. Suppose cognitive enhancement therapies starts booming semi-legally in Cuba and Singapore. Life extension might be hampered in the bioconservative West but the Thai enhancement spas become dominant and popular, leading to a Thai overrepresentation in gerotech. There was a big brainscan facility built in Slyudyanka for creepy security purposes by the Russian regime, but it was so far away from most of the action during the Fall that it could operate right until the end - giving a lot of locals a chance of survival, and to spread Russian, Mongolian and Buryat into space.

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Fri, 2010-06-04 11:42

#36

puke

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

i think Arenamontanus is on the right track here. But if we were to work from present day figures, i think looking at total population numbers is a mistake. of course, all we can really do is guess at pre-fall colinization. during and after, all bets are probably off. since lifting people into space is expensive, we should probably limit the list to the places with the highest concentration of wealthly individuals. Forbe's list of billionaires by country is probably not the exact right resource to use, but its a good enough place to start http://www.forbes.com/static/bill2005/LIRBH69.html of course there is also a need for skilled technical professionals, but I think we can probably just use nezumi's list of space program power-players for that. I doubt there will be enough need for engineers that the US will outsource their colony programs to India. Of course if we are assuming a strong privatized space industry, all bets are off. i'm pretty sure we can discount kiswahilli from being a major language in the solar system, though. it may be spoken in different variants all over africa, but generally the upper and middle classes and skilled laborers are speaking arabic or english or french, depending on what country you are in. there might be some pockets of it on certain Habs, but i dont think its going to be a statistically significant demographic.

Fri, 2010-06-04 17:26

#37

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

I think it should also be noted that pre-Fall space colonization was rather limited. The numbers given in the book state that there were only about 5 million permanent residents living off-Earth prior to the events of the Fall. That means that in the context of 10AF, only 1% of the population (which is around half billion... 500 mill or so) could potentially be an Original Space Colonist. There is even the possibility of it being less, since the Fall killed many both on- and off-world. The actual distribution of countries who were in space doesn't matter as much in the context of the Fall as the actual distribution of countries who successfully got off the planet during the fall.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2010-06-04 19:29

#38

puke

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

yeah. i've had some difficulty making those pre-fall numbers jive, given that there are supposed to be about 8.5 million hardline bioconservatives on Liberty and Solano alone. even if that represented the ENTIRE pre-fall population of the solar system, nearly half of the existing population would need to be less than 10 years old. even with ye olde Lebensborn operating at full swing, thats a lot of babies to be pumping out. of course, i could be making assumptions about the immigration policies of bioconservatives in the commonwealth that just arent true. i could be coloring way off the page here, but i tend to think that space colonization is going to be the first place to see uploaded consiousness and resleeving -- especially in the outer system. with cortical stacks becoming available in AF -20 (or is it 20 BF? whatever.) that should leave enough opportunity for at least half the OSC(tm) to be uploads or resleeves, or otherwise anathama to the Jovians. and you have to figgure that there were plenty of purebred OSC on Luna and Mars, so lets give Jupiter a very generous 50% of whats remaining. that would be 1.25M purebred humans, and 7.25M children under 10. Thats almost 12 children per couple! obviously, i'm assuming the jovians to be a little too hard line about their immigration policies. but by substituting "children" for "fall refugees" you can see the proportions of possibly TITAN tanted refugees or infomorphs they must have let in. but thats neither here nor there, when it comes to languages. and its never a good idea to try and read too much into such statistics anyway. I'm guessing the authors just picked numbers that they thought looked good, rather than basing them off the statistical analysis they got out of W.O.P.R.

Fri, 2010-06-04 22:16

#39

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

The EP history tells that the expansion into space [b] wasnt [/b]Nations, but of hypercorps & rich elite (+ their opponents, criminals & undesirables) . So it is a privatized space industry, They even had a space war & orbital bombardment 20 years before fall. p33-34 Companies de-industrialize & relocate to areas where wages and standards are lower.

Quote:
Hungry people work harder. People with fuller stomachs can afford to be lax

Following the pattern of de-industrialization, Hypercorps would seek to employ the poorer, cheaper & desperate people, rather than lax & expensive people. Though in EP translation software could be seamless. Diminishing the need to learn the actual language of the elite or the languages of the various workers. The spread of such translation aids the groundworks for a "new" babel disaster.

—

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Sat, 2010-06-05 00:01

#40

Decivre

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

puke wrote:
yeah. i've had some difficulty making those pre-fall numbers jive, given that there are supposed to be about 8.5 million hardline bioconservatives on Liberty and Solano alone. even if that represented the ENTIRE pre-fall population of the solar system, nearly half of the existing population would need to be less than 10 years old. even with ye olde Lebensborn operating at full swing, thats a lot of babies to be pumping out. of course, i could be making assumptions about the immigration policies of bioconservatives in the commonwealth that just arent true. i could be coloring way off the page here, but i tend to think that space colonization is going to be the first place to see uploaded consiousness and resleeving -- especially in the outer system. with cortical stacks becoming available in AF -20 (or is it 20 BF? whatever.) that should leave enough opportunity for at least half the OSC(tm) to be uploads or resleeves, or otherwise anathama to the Jovians. and you have to figgure that there were plenty of purebred OSC on Luna and Mars, so lets give Jupiter a very generous 50% of whats remaining. that would be 1.25M purebred humans, and 7.25M children under 10. Thats almost 12 children per couple! obviously, i'm assuming the jovians to be a little too hard line about their immigration policies. but by substituting "children" for "fall refugees" you can see the proportions of possibly TITAN tanted refugees or infomorphs they must have let in. but thats neither here nor there, when it comes to languages. and its never a good idea to try and read too much into such statistics anyway. I'm guessing the authors just picked numbers that they thought looked good, rather than basing them off the statistical analysis they got out of W.O.P.R.

Not true. Let's look at the numbers. Prior to the Fall, there were 8½ billion people, and 5 million of them were already in space. That's .05% of the human population. From there, we know that "almost 95%" of the human race was wiped out during the fall. If we go with the basic number of 94.5% (that sounds like an almost to me), we come to a total of 467,500,000 survivors. Even if the exact number of people alive today is 500,000,000 (it is actually slightly less than this), that means that only 22,500,000 of the current population is 10 or less years old (and this includes groups like the Lost). Of those 467 million or so survivors that fled Earth, more than 400 million left in refugee form, but that still leaves some 50 million people leaving Earth with their original bodies. There is a very real possibility that a number of those people were, in fact, the 8 or so million that make up the Jovian Republic. What can these numbers and such tell us? [list][*]The largest two backgrounds in the game will be Re-instantiated and Fall Evacuee, both of which will make up almost 99% of the population (Re-instantiated being about 80% by itself). Interspersed within that group can be some uplifts and infolife. [*]The other remaining 1+% will be split amongst all other backgrounds (along with the infomorphs and uplifts that were created off-Earth). [*]Jovians most likely consist of former drifters, Fall evacuees, Lunar colonists, Martians, and original space colonists who decided to converge and form the Republic.[/list] Admittedly, the Jovians probably do draw a hard line when it comes to immigration, but are likely more tolerant than the US today, solely because they know they are the minority in a transhuman Solar system. Unification and consolidation are key in times of great crisis. That said, they are likely [i]very[/i] intolerant of those who seem to not agree with their beliefs... people in bodies other than splicers and flats, or those with nanotech in their body are most likely shunned, and potentially even prevented any form of access.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Mon, 2010-06-14 10:52

#41

jackgraham jackgraham's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Wow. Interesting thread. As we've worked on detailing more areas of the system, we've tried to include info on which languages are prominent in a given area. EP space is really big, with a lot of small, scattered populations, so at the end of the day, it's up to the GM to decide what's going to be useful. Good GMs might want to work with players by hinting which languages might be useful during character generation. Some broad notes: 1. Infomorphs do use symbolic language to communicate with each other. Because they have to be raised & taught similarly to human children, they tend to know the languages of their developers. 2. English & Mandarin are the two predominant hypercorp linguas franca, although other languages are spoken, too, based mainly on the ethnic origin of the owners. 3. Other languages tend to be held onto as a matter of identity. People have clung to old cultures and languages as a way of getting a grip on what for many is a rootless, exiled existence. Languages tend to form pockets where a lot of fall evacuees from a given culture ended up. Corp soul traders tend to assign egos being resleeved in clankers or pods with people who share their language, and evacuees were often settled in roughly nation-based enclaves at first. 4. Despite translation software, people still like speaking in their native tongues.

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Mon, 2010-06-14 12:07

#42

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

I hope there isn't some politician trying to cause sedition with the speakers of a minor, nearly dead, language, in a small habitat somewhere... Signs are automatically translated through AR, I presume, where multiple languages serve as lingua franca?

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Mon, 2010-06-14 16:53

#43

puke

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

all signs and written languate are in QR code, translating to a universal polygot. if the writing is not in AR, then it is in a mutable nano-ink with a mesh subscription to a wikified standards file and it updates continuously to account for lingual drift. no, i'm sure your assumption is correct.

Wed, 2010-08-18 15:02

#44

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

I went through Sunward and kept a log of each habitat, its population, and its dominant languages. From this, I made a quick census of what the most popular languages are, with approximate numbers. Some assumptions & restraints: 1) Sunward only represents the inner system, and only a small portion of that. 2) I assumed that everyone in the hab spoke one and only one primary language (but set this as a spreadsheet variable, so I can alter it), and that all primarily languages are spoken in equal proportion. 3) I made conservative estimates when population numbers were not available, based on the average population for that type of habitat and the population density in that region. 4) I made conservative estimates for secondary languages, when listed, at approximately 5% of the population (but permitted overlap, so everyone who speaks one of the secondary languages also speaks one of the dominant languages). The current population of the solar system is 500,000,000 (five hundred million), the majority of which lives in the inner system. This survey covers approximately, 100,061,000 transhumans, the majority of THAT is in or around Mars. Given that, we have approximately... (Population in order of first language, in thousands): English 31,582.5 (Also the language that appears in the most locations. It's numbers are extremely well represented on Luna and Mars, and appears to be the dominant language associated with uplifts.) Mandarin 16,616.5 (Strongest on Progress and New Shanghai) Hindi 13,660.1 (Primarily Noctis and Shackle) Arabic 10,642.1 (Primarily Mercury and Mars) Wu 10,120 Bahasa Indonesian 6,258.33 (Almost exclusively on Mars, in Elysium and Noctis) Spanish 5,386.79 (Primarily Nectar and Progress, although we can expect a lot more representation around Jupiter) Cantonese 3,131.67 Portuguese 2,060.83 (Primarily Venus and New Shanghai) Urdu 2,048.33 (Primarily New Shanghai) French 1,492.79 (Predominantly Venus and Progress, presumably also common with Martian nomads) Russian 1,369.29 (Almost exclusively on Progress) Tamil 566.5 (Impian and Vulcanoids) Vietnamese 566.5 (mostly Qing Long) Korean 512 (Almost exclusively Qing Long) Dutch 293.3 (Mostly Noctis and Vulcanoids) German 265 Malay 125 (Exclusively at Impian) Japanese 120.3 Bengali 75 (Only at Cythera and Hotel California) Javanese 50 (Only at The Colony) Polish 40 (Only at Gerlach) Farsi 33.3 (Only at Parvati) Punjabi 25 (Only at Cythera) Hebrew 3 (Only at Horeb) Finnish 1.5 (Only at Ukko Jylina) Suryan 1.5 (Only at Ukko Jylina) Italian 1 (Only at Paradise) (Note that numbers get far more speculative at the bottom, as the relative margin of error grows. This does not include people not associated with habitats, so nomads and scum are not accounted for. This is also a first cut, so there may be errors on the spreadsheet.) Some language we may have expected to be higher are lower because of the clear environmental shifts that occured pre-Fall. Nations that otherwise may have been extremely competitive, such as Japan, Russia and Germany, had to shift resources towards keeping that land and population warm and alive. Meanwhile equatorial nations benefited from the cheap price of shipping things into orbit, thanks to space elevators, relatively low cost of living compared to the frozen north and south, and perhaps even unexpected bursts of trade as arable land decreased. Spanish-speaking nations are surprisingly under-represented here, but presumably they're in higher populations around Jupiter.

Wed, 2010-08-18 15:30

#45

Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Quote:
The current population of the solar system is 500,000,000 (five hundred million)

Where did you get that number? I believe the overall number of humans(in one form or another) is around 800mln-but they are numerous infomorphs that remain in storage from the Fall.

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Wed, 2010-08-18 15:29

#46

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

EP, p. 38, "The Fall wiped out almost ninety-five percent of transhumanity, and today the population of the solar system is slightly less than half a billion..."

Wed, 2010-08-18 15:30

#47

Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

I stand corrected. However wasn't there also some mention of the infomorphs from Fall who weren't restored to life?

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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]

Wed, 2010-08-18 15:32

#48

Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Some language we may have expected to be higher are lower because of the clear environmental shifts that occured pre-Fall. Nations that otherwise may have been extremely competitive, such as Japan, Russia and Germany, had to shift resources towards keeping that land and population warm and alive. Meanwhile equatorial nations benefited from the cheap price of shipping things into orbit, thanks to space elevators, relatively low cost of living compared to the frozen north and south, and perhaps even unexpected bursts of trade as arable land decreased. Spanish-speaking nations are surprisingly under-represented here, but presumably they're in higher populations around Jupiter.

The Titan Commonwealth seems to be influenced by EU somewhat, and I would guess there are alot of European survivors there. The Jovian Republic has South American population and North American one, plus minorities from Middle East and Central Europe probably. Plus to be fair 100,061,000 is a minority among the population(even in Inner System).

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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]

Wed, 2010-08-18 16:19

#49

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

Extrasolar Angel wrote:
I stand corrected. However wasn't there also some mention of the infomorphs from Fall who weren't restored to life?

Oh yes. That number is pretty staggering. Unfortunately, their languages aren't documented anywhere, so I can't include them in the demographics. And yes, the numbers posted present around 20% of the population - and almost exclusively high-population habitats in the inner system. Anyone past Mars, in a tin can of less than 10,000, or in a ship is guaranteed to not be represented. The group of 50,000 who speak Esperanto among a population of 300,000 are also not represented. So there's definitely a margin of error. So people are aware, I built two variables into the spreadsheet. Basically the calculation is: (Variable1 (1)/ # of primary languages in the habitat) + Variable2 (0)) *HabitatPopulation. So right now it's set so if there are two languages, A and B, and a population of 10,000, that represents 5,000 as speaking A and 5,000 as speaking B. But we can adjust that as you like, or account for 'other minority languages' as a third category.

Wed, 2010-08-18 23:29

#50

icekatze

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

hi hi Does anyone have any information on what kind of programming languages are used, and how they interact with each other?

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Thu, 2010-08-19 05:58

#51

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Languages of Eclipse Phase

I have not seen any reference to any programming language, but obviously they must exist on some level. Most programming is likely heavily AI-supported, so it is more like planning and explaining what is supposed to happen than actually writing anything (think of the move from machine code to assembler to languages like C to pseudocode-like languages like python, and the move from writing source code in an editor to IDEs to graphical interfaces). But from time to time one has to dive down the software stack to tweak the performance of some algorithm or figure out why the mesh interface goes down for a millisecond whenever a synthmorph passes by.

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Languages of Eclipse Phase

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