Re: I need advice

Good suggestions. And while the original auxlangers in charge are all dead (this
story is about an attempt at reforming -- basically expanding the
reach/breadth/use/acceptance/utility of the original "we had to compromise way
more than we wanted to, because we had to get 8 planetary government type
institutions to agree to this" -- auxlang), one of the protagonists is a woman
whose life goal is to make this a truly perfect auxlang (that is, a truly
interstellar standard language, which retains all the distinctiveness and cool
features of all 17 parent languages but can also tell ships in the area to get
away quickly because you're about to blow up, in under five syllables). The
other main character is a woman who thinks the first woman is nuts, but is
taking her on a plot-contrivance type really long journey through space (I've
decided that they have to accelerate slowly, deccelerate slowly, and take a
really long time to get anywhere). So, at least in my universe, yes, t!
 here is one female auxlanger.  ^_^

FYI, I'm keeping a nifty chart of all the terms people are giving me... and just as
soon as I have time I'm going to look for a list of words that international
pilots are supposed to know (I'd forgotten that I knew that English is already
the language of international air travel).

Sarah Marie Parker-Allen
lloannna@surfside.net
http://lloannna.blogspot.com
http://www.geocities.com/lloannna.geo

"The very young do not always do as they're told." --
'Anteaus', Stargate SG-1

> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of Peter Clark
>         "Insane auxlangers" is redundant. :)
>         Well, since it's about insane auxlangers, you can always
> have a bit of a
> back-history that explains that the auxlanger who is responsible for your
> system was a bit myopic in imagination, but with the strong political
> connections necessary to push his[1] proposal through without much peer
> review. So any gaps in the "essential" vocabulary are his fault.
> For example,
> let's imagine that he created a perfect philosophical auxlang
> like Ro, where
> every letter represents a concept or idea. Unfortunately, he (being
> philosophically minded, of course) neglected to include much more
> than a base
> root that covers all the range of human and alien emotions (modified with
> "good" or "bad" and so on), which makes it rather easy to say
> "The warp core,
> she's gonna breach!" in a single syllable, but difficult to confess your
> undying love to a pretty young Klingon while explaining that you
> don't like
> the way that Klingons "do it." So your characters could constantly be
> muttering under their breath all sorts of curses and imprications
> against the
> auxlanger, while keeping an eye out for the political officer, who would
> throw them in the brig if they say one word that isn't Received Auxlang.
>         Hmm...if you don't write this, I think I will. Could be
> interesting (without
> the Klingon, naturally, since they're © Paramount, with big,
> hulking lawyers
> who would like nothing better than to grind my bones into bread).
>
> [1] Does anyone know of a _female_ auxlanger? Perhaps this
> particular malady
> is restricted to men only...
> --
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