Solarpunk

• roughly, three broad sources for “the next international language”
  • lingua franca – a third language that acts as a bridge between two other languages – English has pretty well wedged itself into this position currently
  • interlang – constructed languages designed for interlinguistic and international communication – Esperanto is in this category (with Esperanto’s main shortcoming being its Euro-centrism)
  • creoles – languages that arise from the mixing of other languages – creoles exist all over the world, but just don’t have the visibility – Naijá is probably the strongest with over 121 million speakers
• I got distracted by this a while back, and I figured a solarpunk interlang would probably arise out of the creoles or conlangs (and people just getting tired of English’s dominance and a willingness to start giving indigenous voices a chance)
  • my personal choice would be toki pona – most likely not the best choice, but I like it for its simplicity (and it still has far less baggage other options)

Instead of fighting to invent new languages we should fight to preserve indigenous languages.

When an indigenous language disappears so does often the knowledge that it was used to describe:

Medicinal knowledge vanishes as Indigenous languages die - Science.org

With over 40 languages disappearing every day, learning local dialects can help create loan words that broadens our understanding of the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/16/linguists-language-culture-loss-end-of-century-sea-levels-rise

If the Amazonian pajés didn't make up a new language, why would we? Each language genuinely brings a different way of seeing the world and bridges are built through multilinguism. Embrace the diversity, it's the homo sapiens thing to do.

I don't think artificial languages will work, but there are so many examples of societies that are by default multilingual that I really don't see any issue with that. It is rather the exception of a few large nation states that the majority of the population there only speaks a single language well.

this is just my 2 cents as a silly cat on the interwebs:

artificial languages designed to be international ones always feel a little authoritarian to me, as people usually arent going to want to learn something that isnt useful or fun to them, so youre at a disadvantage going that route, as you fail to pick up the population required for a common language. to make if work, you need to lower barriers to learning languages, while also providing a motivation to learn it, and for a new conlang, that initial growth is the hardest part, from what ive seen.

as for using an LLM to create a mix of eng+esp, that really doesnt scale much past the americas imo in terms of speaking population, what about Hindi or Mandarin as an example? not to mention the issues with LLMs in general on the environment. as far as i know there really isnt a way to make a conlang that fits in all compatible aspects for all the world's languages, and honestly, i dont think that's a bad thing. languages are fun and beautiful when they are unique, though it does stifle communication between people.

i think youre headed down the wrong path here, there is no (single) language of solarpunk, and i think there shouldn't be. to me, solarpunk has always been about the people, and people speak different languages, have different dialects or accents, or maybe cant speak at all. to me, what you described was the language of solarpunk, overcoming challenges in communication for the benefit of all. in my solarpunk vision, there are many languages in a community, and most people can speak a few, and sign at least partially if they can,while translators and language education is publicly funded (whether though coops or a government). solarpunk needs translators, not dictators telling them how to speak (side eyeing the french govt here). imho international languages font work within the moral framework of solarpunk, you need either colonialism or globalism to spread a language far enough to become a common language, im not sure how youd acheive it otherwise.

anywho, i only dabble in a little bit of conlangs myself, so i may have missed something xx meow

Why create this new language and start from zero when Esperanto already has speakers and resources?

What I find interesting in the evolution of LLMs nowadays is that they end up being multilingual by default. Still biased towards some languages but this is fixed by adding a more diverse dataset. They do not "think" in a language and are becoming very skilled translators.

Saluton! Protect local langs and use Esperanto or Ido as a main second language. no need to reinvent one more European language. Reuse what we have.

I always thought that artificial languages always needed more stickiness. I learned some Esperanto, but it is easily forgotten if there is no need to use it.

Solarpunk, like many Libertarian Socialist paradigms, really shines with diversity, so languages focused on Solarpunk sound quite weird, like having homogeneous aesthetics. Usually, language changes, like the way Zapatistas talk in Spanish, pursue specific goals that can be done within a language rule set or some mixture between different languages like Spanglish (Spanish + English) or Portuñol (Portuguese + Spanish). The whole point is to be able to communicate a concept.

Now, like the examples you have shown, it seems easier to frame the "Solarpunk language" not as a language per se but as a dialect. Since some geographies share more common communication than between language speakers, it happens in English, Arab, Spanish, French, and Chinese... When you learn to speak those, there is always the question of whether you sound like a foreign person or a native from someplace.

There are still enthusiasts of alt/inter-langs, more modern than Esperanto, which only has european roots - I prefer those that also blend in words from Chinese, Hindi, Arabic etc.

See also this community .

However modern technology - such as instant translation built into phones (very useful for Ukrainian-French here last year) - changes the situation, maybe diminishes the motivation to learn such languages, although potentially facilitating their use.

It's kinda sad to me that the common languages of the Americas are all European.