World Language Ideas

[vegaseat]

The World is due another attempt at a universal language. So what are your ideas?

My proposal:

Easy to learn (simple grammar).

Use a simple alphabet (no umlauts please).

Make the most common words the shortest words.

The words should be unique in sound and somewhat melodic.

Pronunciation should make sense (tough one).

[MosaicFuneral]

I have just the language, Trollspråk (Deutsch und Norsk, eller quicquid).

[vegaseat]

Well, it is somewhat melodic?

[MosaicFuneral]

If you want it a little more melodic, just sprinkle in a little Finnish.

Seeing how it's the official language of drunken trolls, it must be easy! But as for umlauts, there's diacritic marks every few words.

[lrh9]

I remember watching a Stargate SG-1 episode called "Torment of Tantalus", and SG-1 find an ancient repository of information created by a council of allied alien races. The first page was a glossary containing basic definitions for the language in the repository, and it was a 3d hologram of the elements.

The premise was that a race who wanted to ensure universal communication would create a language based on something you could be certain was common to everyone and everything, which is the basic building blocks of matter.

According to the anthropomorphic principle, any race sufficiently advanced enough to travel the stars would be able to detect electromagnetic radiation. That is because only electromagnetic energy can travel through the vacuum of space. That means that all species sufficiently advanced enough to travel the stars would have some form of vision.

I'm not sure it would qualify as simple, but it could qualify as truly universal.

[ddanbe]

This language sure has no diacritical marks and should be ok for everybody, because nobody can really claim it as his. Except for some people, who live far away from Earth...

[vegaseat]

This language sure has no diacritical marks and should be ok for everybody, because nobody can really claim it as his. Except for some people, who live far away from Earth...

I am surprised the Klingons had no F. Imagine a language without F words!

[ddanbe]

I am surprised the Klingons had no F

Strong point! Did not notice this myself:-O Perhaps they use another starting letter for the word?

As another language idea: what about this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto

[Brian Barker]

I think that the whole world needs a modern international language, as well :)

My vote goes to the planned language, Esperanto. Your readers may be interested in the following video which can be seen at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU

Professor Piron was a translator for the United Nations in Geneva

A glimpse of the Esperanto language can be seen at http://www.lernu.net