Jan 11, 17 / Aqu 11, 01 16:04 UTC

Re: Asgardian Language | La Langue Asgardian | Idioma Asgardian | 阿尔及利亚语 | Асгарда язык | Asgardian språk  

As amazingly interesting as a new and exclusive language would be, I think it's critical that we be sure not lose our born tongue ; the diversity of Asgardia is what makes it such a beautiful concept in the first place. So in order to keep our diversity yet inhibit misunderstanding, wouldn't it be logical to instead provide an integration center on Asgardia for Asgardians to learn new languages from other volunteering bilingual Asgardians? Part of what makes Asgardia attractive to me is the fact that not a single one of you are native Asgardians. All of us have made a conscious decision to come together regardless of our many differences in one common goal. But when/if we disregard our old languages for a new one, that's one step closer we are to mirroring each other.

Exclusivity does not permit humanity, uniqueness does.

Jan 11, 17 / Aqu 11, 01 19:47 UTC

I am sure English is the best language for Asgardia for the time being. It is already used in most scientific fields, and most of us already speak it.

Jan 19, 17 / Aqu 19, 01 02:58 UTC

One important thought - there is no air in space. We should develop a type of sign language that is compatible with wearing a space suit with bumbling fingers. Perhaps arm and leg articulations only. It could be simple for counting using Roman numerals I,V,X, etc. There a myriad of ways to implement the signs. They can be for everyday conversations, not just between space-walkers.

Jan 30, 17 / Pis 02, 01 20:57 UTC

@kak dobbiamo sviluppare un (futuro) linguaggio comune perchè se ti scrivo nella mia lingua tu non mi capisci. (transl.: "we must develop a (future) common language 'cause of, if I write you in my language you can't understand me... and I've to translate :P ;))

Maybe english is the most used language around, but it's not the most spoken: Chinese is. Second one is spanish/portuguese-like. English is only the we-the-western-ones-believes-to-be-the-most-spoken which is not true.

But ok, we agreed, for now, to speak english here (disregarding non-latin writers' problems like russians, arabians, all-asians, greeks, etc.).

The problem is not which language are we speaking here but which language will asgardians speak when Asgardia will be a (space) nation.

To be honest, if I say "italian", I think the most of you will scream "italian!?! and WHY???"... exactly the same as I'm screaming "l'inglese?!? e PERCHE'?!??".

So, to choose something which won't have others' opposition (and I'll do my opposition to english as official Asgardia's language), I'm voting for a "third party" one, a forged language but well known in the world: Esperanto.

That's 'cause of I think it's unfair you all have to learn italian, and we all have to learn english as a motherlanguage.

Feb 5, 17 / Pis 08, 01 14:54 UTC

We could pick any language to be taught to children aboard Asgardia. We could decide to make it Old Norse, following suit with the Norse naming convention. I would not expect any of the people who are creating Asgard today to learn a new language. It's an extremely time consuming operation unless you can be fully immersed. That's not possible when you're trying to build a space fairing nation from scratch. However, when Asgardia is home to a notable population, a language can be discussed. It would be much easier to teach and learn in that environment. Trying to discuss this here is a distraction at best.

Feb 27, 17 / Ari 02, 01 14:12 UTC

Nonetheless I'll try to learn Esperanto, in a near future, as I think it should be the European Union's official language (even more after Brexit). Thus I hope it will be chosen by asgardian's people too, but that's quite unrelated to the reason I'll do, even if this reasons are valid for Asgardia too.

Feb 27, 17 / Ari 02, 01 15:09 UTC

We do not NEED a new language.

I expect, however, as our experiences diverge from terrestrials, that differences and adaptations to new languages will cause a new language to develop naturally, regardless.

Feb 28, 17 / Ari 03, 01 14:35 UTC

@Phicksur

I expect, however, as our experiences diverge from terrestrials, that differences and adaptations to new languages will cause a new language to develop naturally, regardless.

That's exactly why we should explicitly plan to have another language: better to drive the change than to follow.
All apart: the new language won't probably be spoken in a few, maybe not by us: it's meant to help future space residents, as far as I know.

Mar 20, 17 / Ari 23, 01 18:13 UTC

A living language will eventually be created with the Asgardian Culture, most likely through assimilation, e.g. Spanglish. I agree with the fact that choosing one language over another, that was culturally created, may not be in the best interest for Asgardia at present. Elwe Thor is correct that we must drive the change, just as Dashrem is correct about Asgardia being able to teach one/multiple languages.

It has been suggested to use Esperanto: artificially created, has been used for over a century, and has a clear structure. Esperanto even has non-profit organizations helping to govern its living progression. When an Asgardian Language is established, many questions come into play: what will govern (or guide) this language, will it be government or civil based, will words have to be created (just like Chinese Logograms) for each new word, etc. Once you have these answers they will need to be applied to publications, television, texting, so-on and so-forth.

I believe an artificial language, like Esperanto, would be useful until the Asgardian Culture, being well established, dictates otherwise.

Mar 21, 17 / Ari 24, 01 16:51 UTC

@CianConan
As you can see even now, speaking a lot of languages (also called "multilinguism") creates HUGE problems: I can see that into EU at now, where being 28 (27) nations who speaks 22 different languages is creating infinite problems, not last the feeling we're strangers to each other, even if we're brothers.

For pratical uses, even if asgardians motherlanguage english speakers are 27% in the first 20 countries by members, we choose to speak english as even others told they can speak it too, that's to avoid creating a babel, so more problems than we can solve at first.

But, for the future, I think no one should be advantaged (or, better, disadvantaged) 'cause of his/her language (the same as skin color, religion, political faith, etc.), thus the need of a third party (better if projected) language to learn from scratch.
This I'm saying into EU, and this I'm saying even here into Asgardia, even if all have the freedom to study whatever language they wish. But a language is made to make people to understand each other and, as I'm seeing we into EU are not understanding ourselves, it should be better that "2nd generation" asgardians will understand themselves, not having to say "you're advantaged as xyz is your motherlanguage".
A language is also made to make persons feel like a people, and speaking different languages or, even worst, others' language, doesn't accomplish to it.

So, to use a known sentence: One people, one unity one language.

Mar 24, 17 / Ari 27, 01 17:49 UTC

Creating a new language or having an official language may be unnecessary.

We currently have the technology (nit fully deployed yet) through a small device or app to translate any standard language to your native tongue with very good reliability.

By the time the station and nation is set up, this tech will be much more advanced.

I presume there may be languages that are mire common than others but actual communications issues won't be a factor.

Also creating our own language, though a cool idea would alienate ourselves from the rest of the planet... Which I think is not something we want. Quite the opposite in fact.

Mar 24, 17 / Ari 27, 01 20:35 UTC

Well developing a language for any Asgardian to be used is in the first moment a good thing to support unity. At the other side, developing a new language should be only necessary when we have to implement new things that can not be expressed in other ways. And there is where the problem begins.

Languages used nowadays are limited, they are only able to express about 5-8% of feelings, moments, or thoughts. What you refer to would be a universal language, a language that should at least be able to express feelings, moments and thoughts properly. A language based on alphabets isn't able to do that without developing entire books for a single emotion transferred as a believable and properly understandable story from one person to another.

Another thing is which impacts languages do have. The efficiency and complexity of a language define also the way we think. If a language isn't totally based on relativization, your thoughts wouldn't be too. If a language isn't rooted to a limited set of expressions, you wouldn't able to express yourself more detailed, so misunderstandings wouldn't even possible. If someone is interested in such things: You should study the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.

If we would like to build our own language, we should create a pictorial language which would require a spoken language being 100-1000 times more complex to the available eastern or western languages today. I personally don't think that the most of us are intellectually ready to understand the needs for such a language. It may take another 1000 years for such a move.

Conclusion:

No, Asgardia shouldn't have its own language developed. It should be inclusive and allow more than one language being used and should define borders for citizen interactions that define the used governmental language.

Mar 25, 17 / Tau 00, 01 00:38 UTC

Esperanto would be a perfect choice it's really easy to learn and is designed to expandable

Mar 25, 17 / Tau 00, 01 00:39 UTC

Esperanto would be a perfect choice it's really easy to learn and is designed to expandable

Mar 25, 17 / Tau 00, 01 19:21 UTC

@nihylum de
That's exactly why I didn't suggest to create a new language by our own but to use a third party, yet created, one (like Esperanto, but it's not the only one).
I did a (very) little study about english language in the past and, just to say, it's based on 650-700.000 terms, while italian is based on 2.500.000 terms, to say you're right about the

Another thing is which impacts languages do have. The efficiency and complexity of a language define also the way we think. If a language isn't totally based on relativization, your thoughts wouldn't be too. If a language isn't rooted to a limited set of expressions, you wouldn't able to express yourself more detailed, so misunderstandings wouldn't even possible.

(my little study was a comparation about english and italian only: I didn't took in count other ones, like german etc.)

But is it enough to say "we should adopt italian as, having way more terms than english, is much more flexible and can far better express our feelings"? I think not, as I don't wish to find myself advantaged, in speaking, over other asgardians. It wouldn't be fair in any way at all.
But, at the same time, I even don't like to find myself disadvantaged too (I had to argue, in the past, some times and for some hours with a native english speaking one... and it totally destroyed me, to be honest, so I bet you can see that I know what I say ;-)).

Usually, speaking with a stranger into Europe (austrian, german, dutch), I felt myself confortable, as both us was using english and, as it wasn't our motherlanguage (so we can call it "third party language") we took great care into understanding each other. That is not true when I speak with english motherlanguage ones, as they only feel confortable and usually don't care I'm not (take in count, please, I'm a programmer also and I use only english in my programs, related comments, and documentation).
That even not taking in count the ones which, like french people, have something (historically) against english.

I bet we should really to start thinking we are asgardians, not english, or americans, or french, or italians, and choose our official language accordingly.

  Last edited by:  Luca Coianiz (Asgardian)  on Mar 27, 17 / Tau 02, 01 02:27 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time
Reason: grammar