Martian Kreol Becomes One of Top Ten Languages

Schiaparelli, Valles Marineris, Mars -- 10 May 2057:   According to a report published by the Interplanetary Linguistic Association, a language not indigenous to Earth has entered the top ten most widely spoken languages.  Martian Kreol, a dynamic blend of the languages spoken by the early settlers of the red planet, is the first language of nearly all native Martians and is spoken as a learned language by most immigrants and many who have extensive dealing in mars -- a substantial proportion of the planet.

"Languages evolve quickly in times of social disruption and high mobility," explains Dr. Limley Pew, a professor of Linguistics at Rubix University.  "The years during and after the Softwars saw a massive and haphazard influx of refugees to Mars, people from many nations seeking a new life.  Unlike the asteroids and outer planets, where people largely maintained homogenized ethnic enclaves, the settlements of Mars were inherently cosmopolitan and required dozens of language communities to cooperate in every aspect of life.  Machine translation without the assistance of synthetic intelligence was able to assist, but not entirely replace, the process of creolization.  In fact, it lends a certain unique flavour to today's Martian Kreol; constructions which would not be grammatical in any of the contributing languages but have been widely adopted are largely a product of substandard machine translation."

According to Dr. Pew, there is not likely to be another new off-Earth indigenous language.  "Martian Kreol developed in a unique historical circumstance.  Widespread synthetic-assisted translation services greatly reduce the need for disparate language communities to find a common ground.  There are several growing new languages -- the mathematical language of synthetic consciousnesses, and various varieties of indigenous uplift language such as Delphinic, Barko, and the various dialects of Primate Sign Language, provide exciting new territory for linguistics.  But human languages now grow or shrink largely in concert with the sizes of their native populations."

The Top 10 Languages Spoken Systemwide

  1. Mandarin Chinese
  2. Hindi-Urdu
  3. Arabic
  4. Korean
  5. Japanese
  6. Spanish
  7. English
  8. German
  9. Russian
  10. Martian Kreol

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