Re: Conlang for the Foundations Saga

On Oct 16, 2006, at 12:08 PM, Santiago Matías Feldman wrote:

> Hi!
> I've just finished reading "Foundation's Edge", the
> sixth (I think) volume of the Foundations Saga by
> Isaac Asimov, and in one part the characters were
I love that series! I think it's too simplistic linguistically,
though. It's hard for me to believe that all those people would still
speak only one language (even if it has dialects). Still, it's a fun
idea for a conlang.

> talking about the Galactic language and the different
> dialects it has, and that there may have been a time
> were languages were more than one and mutually
> incomprehensible.
> Then I just thought: Why not create that Galactic
> language, based on the current natlangs in the Earth
> and trying to predict the ways in which only one
> language may become the only language of the future
> human Galactic society 20,000 years in the future?
According to mainstream historical linguistics, AFAIK, a language can
become pretty much completely unrecognizable in less time than that.
So, if you don't actually care to plot out the details of its
diachronic development*, you could just make up any a priori conlang
and claim that it evolved from English or Mandarin or Arabic :)

On the other hand, I've wondered a lot what implications the
"Information Age" has for language change. Perhaps with widespread,
instantaneous communications, languages will evolve much more slowly
than they have in the past. So maybe there could be some recognizable
elements of current Earth languages in it. (And maybe psychohistory
could find traces where the comparative method fails -- who knows?)

*Off topic... If you're like me, you do care about plotting out
diachronic development. I've been wondering for a while what the
"deepest" conlang is, diachronically -- how much time in conreality
it takes to evolve. The deepest I've seen so far is the Drem family
at http://www.geocities.com/dremlangs/ , which spans about 13,000
years. I'd love to plot the evolution of a language at least that far.

> I don't mean of course that only one language may
> become the language of humans, but perhaps a mixture
> of many present-day natlangs.
> Would it be English the one predominant 20,000 years
> from now?
>
> Do you know of anyone who has already created a
> conlang for the Foundations Saga?
> Or do any of you have devised a futurist conlang?
>
> Thanks!
> Santiago

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