Galactic Languages

Various languages common both in the Oortian Community and broader galaxy. Pretty much all my RP writing just uses English, with a few Galactic Standard elements (like their system of gender neutral singular pronouns) regardless of the actual language used - generally most talking would be done in Galactic Standard, and high speed AI communication would use Total Affective Protocol.

## Galactic Standard

*Note: Credit to Sternenstaat for some of this - I'm copying this a tad as Qhevak shares similar assumptions concerning the state of the overall galaxy as the Anchorage canon.*

**Galactic Standard** is a term that modernly refers to the standardized form of old Terran English that exists as a language continuum between otherwise linguistically disparate civilizations or populations of humans and xenoi in the Milky Way galaxy. It is used to facilitate easy trade and communications between space empires without the immediate need for translator technology, and serves as the galaxy's *lingua franca* for many corporations and independent merchants.

Galactic Standard initially evolved on many now-starfaring Fractal Earth variants as the global internet homogenized English as a standard language of the youth across nations, though it would incorporate aspects of other languages such as German, Japanese and Mandarin as it did - as well as certain other elements born from internet globalization (do NOT ask a linguistic anthropologist where "sussybakka" came from. Worst mistake of my life). In general, it is still close enough that a GalStandard speaker could mostly talk with little difficulty to an average early-21st century English speaker, though they would still sound somewhat odd and confusion could occur. As divergent human civilizations spread across the galaxy and various Fractal Earth variants came into contact, a single unified GalStandard dictionary was constructed approimately eight centuries ago, intended to stay static regardless of changes in local language in order to facilitate interstellar trade.

Due to the current era of galactic civilization being primarily domniated by humans, human descendants and human creations and uplifts, GalStandard has become the primary trade langugage for most of the galaxy, even among primarily or wholely alien civilizations. Many human cultures still use it as lingua franca, though usually with some local drift over time.

A breakdown of traditional conceptions of gender in the English speaking cultures of most fractal Earth variants during their information age lead to a greater need for gender neutral singular pronouns, a need reinforced by artifical intelligences, hiveminds and aliens for whom human conceptions of gender were wholely irrelevant. While a great number were played around with in the early day of space colonization, the establishment of GalStandard solidified a defined system of gender neutral singular pronouns into the language, which is still standard today.

GalStandard Pronouns
 She
 Ey

## TAP

Total Affective Protocol, or TAP, is a language that emerged out of advanced neural implants capable of directly reading brain states, and the primary language of AIs, group minds and modern high-speed networked warfare. TAP is less a single, syntactical language and more a communication protocol capable of encoding and transmitting words capable of representing any possible mental state held by the user, which can be scanned (understood analytically at distance) or played (experienced subjectively). TAP is a step down from full on mind networking, and mostly used for very high speed communication in situations where that is either not desired or not feasible with available bandwidth levels.

## ConLang

Standard Contact Language, or ConLang, is a language developed around the same time as GalStandard for the purposes of first contact. Evolved from the 20th century's LinCos, ConLang is a simplified communication language designed to be taught in stages, starting from natural numbers transmitted through a series of pulses and building up to mathematical operators, propositional logic, set theory and first-order logic, followed by time. It then attempts to present words and conceptual knowledge via various simplified "morality plays", using various actors speaking to each other, repeating in a large number of scenarios to attempt to convey to the listener that the new symbols are entities asking and answering the questions, rather than some other context. This is followed by more developed descriptions of various cosmic objects, physics, chemistry and biology, followed by a number of simplified guides introducing the new species to the current state of the galaxy.

ConLang dictionaries are carried as standard on the majority of spacecraft, especially those travelling into uncharted regions. Tests have shown even non-sapient modern translator AIs voided of surrounding context can learn ConLang from broadcasts in a matter of minutes, and it has been used successfully in dozens of assorted first contact scenarios. Nevertheless, it is not a perfect system - certain species have psychologies sufficiently inhuman for ConLang to be insufficient, and more elaborate analysis is needed.

## Local Languages

The galaxy has millions of local languages and dialects, spoken by groups as small as clubs of a few people and as large as interstellar empires trillions strong.