How about an Asgardian Language? This is an interesting question. I propose Asgardia accounts for its own language. Why? Allow me a detailed explanation.

I speak three languages: Spanish, English and German. In the course of learning them I came to the realization that they all have serious disadvantages. They are difficult to learn, they have too many rules and then too many exceptions, they also have different words to mean the same thing, they lack a system for new words creation, they are not suited to be learned by machines, and they are not suited to be written using a keyboard, among several others.

Why so many rules? Why so many exceptions? Why so many complications? A quick look into the history of each language, I rapidly learned that none of them was designed by purpose. All of them were born from a blend of slangs and mixes of different previous languages. In short: all formal national existing languages were originally born out of accidental circumstances.

So, at one point in time, it came to my mind the question of “isn't there a language that does not have all these disadvantages?”. I searched around trying to find a language that would give me all of that. I did not find it. Esperanto was the closest and most popular effort I learned of, which was created with similar objectives in mind. But, for some reason, it did not fulfill the goal, by far.

So I kept looking around and, after sometime, I just gave up. Having worked all my life in engineering and research, I got used to exploring new ideas and turn theoretics into practical solutions. So, perhaps due much to long years of experience in creating new things, I finally decided to give it a try, this time by designing a completely new language that would not have the disadvantages of the Earthling languages. Would I succeed? Who knows! So is research...an adventure where no promises are given.

But, what is it exactly that I wanted to obtain? Here is only some of the goals:

1. A language that would be very easy to learn, not just by humans, but also by machines and also by animals.
2. A language where written symbols (letters) would correspond to a single and distinctive sound.
3. A language where grammar rules were simple and with no exceptions.
4. A language that had no more than 10 symbols/sounds.
5. A language where words would not change because of the intention (present, past, future, progressive, perfects, formal, and a long series of etceteras).
6. A language where no more than one word would mean the same thing (no synonyms).
7. A language that would be constructed by selecting the most simple words out of a number of existing languages.
8. A language where the order or sequence of the words would not affect the meaning of the sentence.
9. A language where no additional auxiliary symbols existed, such as tildes and the like.

With all this in mind, I went about in playing with different approaches. Then I came across a very simple figure that allowed me to pull all the symbols I required: a square. I needed only 10 symbols, but the square figure gave me more than twenty. I then created a font to be able to at least display the symbols in a computer and I was pleased to see that it was not difficult at all. A document written in "Asgardian" looks weird, though. Resembles Hebrew, antique cuneiform, or Cyrillic of some sort.

Then I set myself out in search of a grammar. I studied how the three languages I know are constructed and how their grammar is built. It did not take me long to come up with a large number of simplifications that were possible without affecting the meaning of what one is trying to say. Off went the endings meaning past tense, or progressive actions. Off went capitalized words to mean a noun. Off went tildes and umlauts. Off went sounds with more than one symbol: like w and u in English. Off went symbols without a sound: like h, or a u in between a g and an i, in Spanish. Off went symbols with similar sounds: like v and f in German.

The result? Well, if the writing seems strange, the sound is something very unique. Because it is a language where one symbol corresponds to only one sound, the regular western alphabet can be used to type it, but the same thing can be done using any other keyboard and similar sound letter from other languages, like Chinese or Russian, or Arabic.

I am far from done, but after some time, I ended up where I am, with a set of simple rules and symbols that can be used to successfully construct a language from scratch. Very easy to learn by humans, machines and animals alike. Very easy to write using a pencil, or a keyboard. Because it only has 10 symbols, a person does not have to lift the fingers off the keyboard at any time. Forget about 101 keys. Just 10. No need for more. I know Chinese see an advantage in using 101 versus over 250 symbols in a keyboard. Why not pushing that number even further and get the benefits of using only a more natural quantity of 10? We humans were designed with 10 fingers, don't we?

I think having an Asgardian language that is extremely easy to learn, would give Asgardians the identity we are looking for deep in our hearts. By being able to speak a common Asgardian language and also being able to type it using whatever keyboards we have at hand set up for our own Earthling language, whatever that is, would only produce a gigantic and beneficial momentum to unite all Asgardians. Every Asgardian would be able to freely speak with all other Asgardians, regardless of their mother Earthling tongue.

Hope more people like the idea of exploring the benefits of developing a completely new language for our new nation: Asgardia.

I am more than on board with this. I am very intrigued to learn what you have come up with so far. Do you have a text document or a link to a database of the language you have constructed so far? if so, could you please post it in this thread? I honestly think that this idea is the first step towards unity.

I guess we would still have numerical values haha. Verry interesting, I'm running the asguardian discord gaming server so using emojis I might be able to get this language to work on the server... if you could provide documents or images of our potential language then i'll see what I can do... of course this won't mean that we can learn it instantly but its a start none the less.

My idea may seem strange to you, but if you use the "sign language"? From a linguistic point of view, the sign language as rich as any sound language, despite the general attitude towards them as "fake" language, because they - visual interpretation of ordinary language; they have their own grammar, can be used to discuss a wide variety of topics: from the simple and concrete to the abstract and higher. Thank you for attention.

I think that there is verry few languages that are similar to sign so it seems move viable and welcoming to all. However, if I wanted to talk to someone whilst on a computer then i'd have to give up using the computer to do so, I feel that it weould be neccesary to have a verbal language.

Word of warning I linked this thread to a large topic about language so this thread may suddenly burst in momentum.

other thread link: https://asgardia.space/en/forum/forum/general-discussion-14/topic/official-thread-languages-of-asgardia-thoughts-and-proposals-732/

Glad to hear there is some interest in joining forces to pull this idea. Not sure how could I post at least images of the symbols in this forum. Looks like that is not yet possible. So, for now, and for those who are interested, I uploaded some stuff to my GDrive in this link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwLVKcC73dcyV1RhR2x1bXJGN1U?usp=sharing

You can modify things, so feel free to add or move things around. Check the test.pdf. Looks weird, right? I also uploaded a list of verbs we can contribute to. We surely want to have another one with nouns and another with adverbs. Also a file containing an Arial font I made with Fontforge in Debian. That requires more work. Not much familiar with Fontforge though.

My personal opinion is, the simpler the better. The simpler the language is, the faster people will adopt it, and the greater the number of people.

Cheers

@Hannibal Barca:

I thought on that too, besides using images, sort of like, indians or primitive peoples. But then I put that aside. The main reason is I also wanted this new language to have only 10 written letters, corresponding to 10 sounds. The limit to only 10 is because we could use 10 fingers only and be able to write very fast on a 10-keys keyboard. Even writing on a smart-phone would be much easer than using 101 keys.

@Elxroid: That is a good point. Numerical values, that is. That is an area I did not get much into. I went a bit deep in the matter of numerals, that is, the names of numbers. You see, in German, numerals are in different order than in Spanish or English. Do not know how it is with other languages, but that told me it can be improved to come up with a numeral construction that is very easy to grasp from the beginning.

I just uploaded two more files to the same link above. Same content. One PDF, another ODT. Files have a table with numerals: cardinals and ordinals..

I think it pretty much covers all the numbers. At least all I could think of.

Interesting concept, but what about using Esperanto? It is the first language built upon all the others in the world.

For a global nation, a global language would be the perfect fit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto