Will non-English languages make it into space?

[Ziz]

In the context of a conworld set on another planet some hundreds of years after colonization, I'm currently working out a form of koinéized international English as a proto-language. But could I have anything to work with besides some future form of English?

More relevantly to this forum, if space colonization ever becomes a reality, do you think any languages apart from English will be able to establish themselves in an off-world environment? Considering that space colonization would probably only be feasible as an internationally collaborative effort, I find it hard to believe that even Chinese- or Russian-speaking colonies have any realistic chance of being established. Am I wrong?

[Salmoneus]

It depends. After all, if something catastrophic happened to the US, a lot of the prestige of English would deteriorate rapidly. If colonisation doesn't start for another 1,000 years, who know what the dominant lingua franca will be?

Depends also on what colonies are like.

If you look at the colonisation of the new world, only a couple of dominant languages made it en masse; however, isolated enclaves did survive here and there (Welsh in Argentina, German in Venezuela, etc). Theoretically, it only takes one rich and powerful Kannada-speaking family of colonists to, over time, come to dominate a small community in a colony - and it only takes a few hundred speakers, or at most a few thousand, to keep a language alive, so certainly other languages would probably survive to some extent. Reaching space in the sense of being the main language of a major colony world? Not so much.

[zompist]

I don't think Chinese, Hindi, and Russian will disappear anytime soon. Or Portuguese, German, Arabic, Japanese, and French.

English has taken over science to an extent that would have been surprising 75 years ago. On the other hand, AI translation is already here and will only continue to improve— meaning that it ultimately becomes of little importance what language a scientific paper is read in, or written in. (Google Translate is no longer laughably bad, though non-European languages still need work. It's almost Just Good Enough today. Imagine it in 50 years time.)

Finally, Sal is right that it depends on how the colonization works. Is it so expensive that only a superpower can do it? Or is it something that, say, Italy could do by itself? Or Milan? Or a dozen pioneers?

What's the economics of the system and/or galaxy? Are colonies self-reliant and largely isolated, or just parts of a universalized whole? How big is interstellar commerce / science / culture? Does everybody in the galaxy listen to the same ten pop stars? Can a corporation effectively maintain control of a planet 20 light years away?

All these things determine whether the elite needs to learn Galacticese or not.

And then the structure of the colony itself determines whether the common people need to speak like the elite or not.

[Zaarin]

Geopolitics can be hard to predict, but I'd point out that at the moment our space program is grounded (albeit NASA just got a big budget increase, so here's hoping...) and that Russia, China, India, and Japan all have significant space programs of their own. Granted, extraterrestrial colonies are likely to be dominated by English- or at least English-as-second-language speakers simply due to the prestige of America, especially in the sciences, but there's plenty of room for non-English languages to at least influence your futuristic language.

Though it doesn't feature much, a cant I created for a sci-fi novel I'm writing is essentially future English with Mandarin-influenced grammar, plus a small subset of the lexicon from Mandarin, Russian, and (rarely) other languages.

[mèþru]

At the rate we are going now, space colonisation will be done by companies rather than governments, so whichever country has the highest amount of middle and upper class citizens willing to sell their homes and go to space will dominate.

[Frislander]

I wouldn't say private companies will completely dominate: unless we see the collapse of Communism the Chinese government will definitely try and get a foothold out there: they won't have any chance of maintaining complete control over it but they'll try.

And of course if companies are going to get serious about colonisation then there will probably need to be a culture shift away from short-termism, not to mention the issue of how many people would actually be willing and have the money to go through with this. Travel outside the solar system in particular will require a lot of patience.

[mèþru]

I don't think that any Earth government can realistically control colonies in space unless if they desire to be controlled. Even Mars is too far away to enforce anything. I was thinking solely of colonisation of Mars and Venus. Further colonisation can only take place in another century, which will have technology I can't even imagine.

[Astraios]

I think the situation in The Expanse is pretty realistic, at least for the proto-stage of your scenario, where non-English languages are still used (e.g. in announcements on public transport, or signage), but English is the lingua franca, and in the asteroid belt a distinct dialect of English has evolved incorporating some Spanish vocabulary and a few Sinicisms or pidginisms, due to the Belter population being from different linguistic backgrounds.

[vtardif]

For what it's worth, I'm told astronauts on the ISS speak English and Russian simultaneously, speaking Russian if they're more fluent in English and vice versa, plus a few phrases from either language that everyone uses regardless. I wouldn't be surprised to see this develop into a proper pidgin eventually, but also my sample size is 6.

[Ziz]

Thanks everybody for your input. I actually didn't think about non-governments spearheading colonization even though it's been nearly half a century since a government has landed people anywhere. Same for AI translation (which is funny, given that I was just tinkering with it the other day).

Probably hundreds of languages would carry on existing on Earth, even if there is very limited linguistic diversity elsewhere.

[Ars Lande]

In the context of a conworld set on another planet some hundreds of years after colonization, I'm currently working out a form of koinéized international English as a proto-language. But could I have anything to work with besides some future form of English?

More relevantly to this forum, if space colonization ever becomes a reality, do you think any languages apart from English will be able to establish themselves in an off-world environment? Considering that space colonization would probably only be feasible as an internationally collaborative effort, I find it hard to believe that even Chinese- or Russian-speaking colonies have any realistic chance of being established. Am I wrong?

From 1960 to 1989, it seems like every far future setting had hints of a heavy Russian influence. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption at the time.
Throughout the 90's and the last decade, these settings really started to feel dated and it seemed unlikely Russian would have any lasting influence.
Except now it seems, again, reasonable to assume that Russia will be a major power in the decades to come.

I don't see space colonization happening in this century, or the century after. So we're looking at a setting set, at the very least, three centuries from now. As a reference point, in 1717, the closest thing to an international lingua franca was French.

My point is, I don't think we have enough data to speculate on what languages would be used in an international setting, a few centuries from now.
Of course English descendants would be important; but you could make a case for any major language being used.

Personally, I think Dune nailed it. The smattering of Hebrew and Arabic were great at giving flavor and the idea of using obscure languages as code was great.
(The movie did even better in places. Of course the Navigators wouldn't learn planet-dwellers' language - they wouldn't even see the point.)

[mèþru]

I think that there is a potential for the first colony to be settled within the range of 10-250 years. It would not be self-sufficient though.

[Salmoneus]

I think that there is a potential for the first colony to be settled within the range of 10-250 years. It would not be self-sufficient though.

I presume you meant to say '100' rather than '10'...


The problem with predicting space colonisation is that space colonisation is fundamentally pointless. For it to happen at all means finding some motivation that doesn't currently exist, which in turn makes it hard to extrapolate from current circumstance.

A base on the moon seems the most likely first step. It's the easiest to accomplish, and the easiest to maintain indefinitely with supplies from Earth. The motivation for it would probably be national pride: I can see a 'moon race' between China and India, say, with perhaps retaliation from Russia and the US, leading to some sort of sustainable moonbase within the century. The space race is still a powerful motivation for developing countries, and there aren't many 'easy' things left unclaimed.

A base on Mars is much, much harder. It still seems like something that could happen within the century, though, if there were enough motivation. One option would be, again, a space race. The alternative might be TV ratings. There's talk of a "Big Brother on Mars" TV programme happening eventually, with the ad revenue funding the expedition (it would be one-way). That might seem ridiculous, but bear in mind that the entertainment industry is far more powerful than most nations, and much more important than things like science or security. The cost of a SpaceX launch, for example, is something like $50m (a tenth of its competitors), expected to be slashed in half in the next year or two, with a medium-term target of getting it down to around $5m. That's a lot of money, until you notice that we spent $400m on marketing Angry Birds alone. Minions may have cost $1bn - and it made back more than that. How much money could you make from a monopoly on Martian TV - a reality competition to select the settlers, a reality show about life on Mars, educational side programmes on all the different things you can demonstrate in space and on Mars, countless ads and tie-ins? I have no idea, and I doubt anyone else does either. One data point: 10 years ago, the UK version of Big Brother brought in £150m in ad sales, and at that point it was 7 years old and way past its cultural peak. Imagine a Big Brother that was marketed to every country in the world, with a unique selling point. It's not inconceivable that such a project might actually make settlement of Mars (temporarily) financially viable.

[Incidentally, SpaceX exists only as a distraction. Musk's original goal was to put Earth life onto Mars - SpaceX exists because he got distracted by the problem of how to get it there.]


Of course, the real goal has to be colonisation of Venus, which is probably the only colony that could be viably self-sustaining. I think we'll probably be looking in the 100-200 year range for that happening, unfortunately, and whether it would ever become a serious thing (rather than a scientific base or an extreme holiday for the megarich) is another matter altogether.

[Zaarin]

we spent $400m on marketing Angry Birds alone. Minions may have cost $1bn - and it made back more than that.

Thank you for making me lose what little confidence I had left in the state of our culture. I'm not sure if I should be grateful or horrified that reality television may provide more impetus to explore other worlds than human curiosity. :/

[hwhatting]

I'm not sure if I should be grateful or horrified that reality television may provide more impetus to explore other worlds than human curiosity. :/

Well, reality TV is an outgrowth of human curiosity, so...

[mèþru]

Venus, which is probably the only colony that could be viably self-sustaining

What could Venus produce? Mars can be mined and in either case people need to live in airtight environments with its own atmospheric control.

[Salmoneus]

Venus, which is probably the only colony that could be viably self-sustaining

What could Venus produce? Mars can be mined and in either case people need to live in airtight environments with its own atmospheric control.

Mars can't be mined for anything that couldn't be produced at a fraction of the cost back on Earth.

There are four big differences between Martian and Venerean habitability.

The first is that Mars has very low gravity. This probably makes it impossible for people to live there for any prolonged period of time, and almost certainly makes it impossible to have healthy children there. This isn't ironclad - because our experience is basically either at 1g (a lot!) or 0g (very little), we don't know exactly where the boundaries are, but it's generally thought that gravity on Mars (about 1/3g) will be much too low for settlement. It's also possible we'll cure this somehow, but it's not clear how we could do that. Actual colonisation (as in, long-term, multi-generational, civilian) of Mars would probably require the construction of immense centrifuges to live in, which would be an incredible investment).

Venus, on the other hand, has nearly earthlike gravity.

The second is that Mars is bathed in killer radiation. A habitat on Mars would have to be completely covered in heavy shielding, or dug deep into the rock. That costs money. It also causes more insidious problems. How do you farm on Mars, for instance? If you put your crops underground they don't get light. If you put them above ground under glass, you're irradiating your farm workers whenever they come to check on the plants.

Venus, on the other hand, has a strong magnetosphere and a thick atmosphere, so there's no radiation hazard (other than getting there, of course). Only a very thin envelope would have to be built, not heavy shielding. Helpfully, there are also shorter transit times to Venus than to Mars, and less radiation encountered in transit.

The third is that Mars is really, really cold (by Earth standards). Mean surface temperature of 63 celsius below, and a minimum of -143. So you don't just need shielding against radiation coming in; you also need to prevent heat radiation from leaving. Which is impossible, so you need to be constantly heating all the inhabited parts of the base. But you also have to not insulate TOO much, because you don't want your colonists boiling if the thermostat goes wrong for a bit - the thin atmosphere makes it hard to radiate heat away quckly.

Venus, on the other hand, at habitable altitudes has a pleasant, warm, Earthlike temperature. Neither heating nor cooling pose any particular challenges. Again, only a thin envelope is needed.

And fourth, the Martian atmosphere is low pressure. The colony would have to be high pressure. Thus, everything has to be built to withstand pressure differences without any leak. Even a small leak could cause disasterous depressurisation. What's more, every trip outside the shielded base, even leaving aside the radiation problem, has to be in pressurised suits.

Venus, on the other hand, at habitable altitudes has Earthlike atmospheric pressure, so there is no particular challenge in this regard. Again, only a thin envelope is needed, and leaks would not cause explosive decompression, but instead could be repaired at leisure.

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Problems? Well, Venus' air has a lot of sulfuric acid in it. So the envelope (and the suits for any external mission) would have to be corrosion-resistant. But that shouldn't be too hard.

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Comparative resources?

Mars has easily available rocks. Great, for stacking rocks and suchlike. Venus' rocks will probably be hard to reach, due to the whole 'hot enough to melt lead' business, and the need for an aeroplane.

On the other hand, Venus' atmosphere provides limitless CO2, which is great for growing plants. Water and oxygen can also be produced from the atmosphere if necessary (although closed systems would obviously still be cheaper). Venus also has lots of sunlight, also great for growing plants, as well as for powering solar panels - Venus' trick in this regard is that the cloud layer is so brilliantly white that a floating colony would effectively have full daylight coming from all directions, including from below.

What's more, Venus is basically a a free blast furnace. Dangle something underneath the colony, for instance, and you've got your own 'geothermal' energy. If you can build a plane that can survive the heat, you can drop it down into the atmosphere and fly it up again, and the entire contents of the plane could have effectively been put into a blast furnace. Alternatively, there's the winds, which at some levels and in some places are hundreds or thousands of mph. This sort of energy recovery would obviously be a later and more speculative development, but it's at least a possibility.

Whereas Mars is basically just a dead rock.

[Travis B.]

You might as well just build lots of spinning space stations, built from resources obtained by mining the asteroid belt with robots, rather than bothering with Mars.

[Zaarin]

I'm not sure if I should be grateful or horrified that reality television may provide more impetus to explore other worlds than human curiosity. :/

Well, reality TV is an outgrowth of human curiosity, so...

I'm not convinced curiosity and voyeurism are the same thing. :p

[mèþru]

Venus' "habitable" zone has something like 70 degrees Celsius temperatures.

[Salmoneus]

Venus' "habitable" zone has something like 70 degrees Celsius temperatures.

If you're talking strictly about the floating point of breathable air (49.5km), then yes, it's like being in one of the hottest places on earth (temperatures over 70 degrees have been recorded by satellites in deserts on earth, although the mid fifties are the hottest recorded in the shade at an actual weather station). But if you go just a couple of km higher (ie add flotation cells slightly lighter than air, or shape the envelope to provide some moderate additional lift (which given the high wind speed shouldn't be too hard)), the temperature drops rapidly - in that 50-55km band we've measured temperatures between 20 and 40 degrees. Besides, even if we did have to cool the colony from 70 degrees to, say, 30 degrees, that's still way, way easier than heating a colony from -140 degrees to 20 degrees.

[richard1631978]

I used to have a book of space which mentioned why visiting let alone colonising Venus would be hard if not impossible.

Unless more recent probes & such have outdated it, the book suggests the high gravity, hurricane force winds, high tempratures & acidic clouds made Venus near inhospitable.

[zompist]

the book suggests the high gravity, hurricane force winds, high tempratures & acidic clouds made Venus near inhospitable.

Mostly answered in Sal's discussion above. The gravity is less than Earth's. We're talking about floating platforms in the atmosphere, not the surface, so the temperatures are balmy.

Some quick reading suggests that the winds are a plus, not a minus. The colony would move along with them, giving the colonists a day of 4 Earth days rather than 200+.

The acid is a problem, of course. But probably way more tractable than the Moon's vacuum or Mars's near-vacuum (0.6% of Earth's at the surface).

As with Mars, returning to Earth is not easy. There are idiots who think they want to make a one-way trip to settle a space colony, but I don't think it's such a great idea to make your first settlers idiots.

The real problem is finding a good reason to do it, beyond having a lab or two. I'm an old sf reader, so it seems baffling to me that we don't even have a lunar colony in 2017. But colonization enthusiasts should always ask themselves Charlie Stross's question: why are you not colonizing Antarctica and the continental shelf? Those are far more habitable regions than any planet in the solar system.

[Zaarin]

But colonization enthusiasts should always ask themselves Charlie Stross's question: why are you not colonizing Antarctica and the continental shelf? Those are far more habitable regions than any planet in the solar system.

Has anyone else here seen Japan's ocean colonization proposal? Personally it looks like something out of Numenera, but I can think of worse places to look for inspiration.

[gach]

Sal, considering a colony on Venus to be more feasible than one on Mars doesn't seem terribly well motivated to me. Can you please provide us some as hard as possible financial calculations on the required mission costs to back up your argument? Maybe also consider what returns you can realistically expect. Otherwise I remain unconvinced.

You seem very concerned about the radiation levels on Mars. In practice, typical radiation levels on the Martian surface remain at less than 30 µSv/h¹. This is noticeably higher than at sea level on Earth but still only ~150 times higher than the background radiation I measure at my home. The level is manageable for repeated outdoor expeditions and nothing that can't be shielded to Earth-like levels by placing the living quarters below a few meters of soil. Achieving this level of shielding can be done cost efficiently by combining shallow excavation to building mounds of compacted and stabilised soil on top of the indoor spaces.

In contrast, an inhabited base on Venus will in practice have to be suspended floating in the atmosphere to escape the high temperature and pressure on the planet's surface. This sounds like a logistical nightmare to me and in any case needs more expensive solutions than the problems you need to solve when colonising Mars. You'll also probably want to develop capabilities to explore the surface of Venus, which will further raise the costs that you have to cover.

You also worry too much about the Martian atmospheric conditions. It's cold there, sure, but not really unearthly. On the equatorial lowlands on Mars you can get ground level temperatures above freezing while on Earth we know how to operate permanently inhabited bases in the Antarctic conditions. The pressure difference you'd need to maintain between the living spaces and the Martian atmosphere is also less than 1 atm. That's nothing. If we can build deep sea going submarines, that doesn't pose us with any technical problems. We'll anyway need pressurised spacecraft to get to either of the planets and those need to deal with the nearly same 1 atm pressure differential when flying through space.

Living for a long time in low gravity does have its issues, but can you provide a citation to any particular study that argues it to be fatal for permanent settlement?

Venus, on the other hand, has a strong magnetosphere

Lastly, I want to correct this statement. Venus, like Mars, doesn't in fact have a proper magnetosphere at all. What both of the planets have, is a weak secondary magnetosphere induced by the interaction of solar wind and the planetary ionospheres. Basically we are talking about locally enhanced magnetic field of the solar wind and radiation shielding provided by the atmospheres themselves.

[1] https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/su ... rsrisk.pdf