Need Help With Military Ranking System

[ImperiumSega138]

Hey guys,
So I'm back again. This time I need your ideas (or at least your help with cultivating ideas) on what I could do for a military ranking system of a space age ancient humanity. I was thinking that they obviously wouldn't use the same ranking system as modern day or even futuristic (considering that the futuristic ranking systems would be base off of modern day ranking names and systems) so what would an ancient human ranking system be like? Any ideas?

 

[The Big Peat]

Depends on culture. A lot of ancient cultures had no formal military structure. Conversely, the Romans and Greeks have relatively detailed hierarchies and would be worth looking at (most of it is on wiki).

 

[tinkerdan]

Start here::
Roman legion - Wikipedia
12 Ranks of Roman Military Officers and What They Did
And make up your own:

 

[ImperiumSega138]

True, also I was thinking that English (and all other earth languages) would not be around then either so does that mean I have to given them their own language, names of things etc, or do I just simplify it to English for the audience to understand rather than doing a Tolkien?

 

[ImperiumSega138]

My characters, ships, planets and places have their own names in a made up language but do I bother putting everything else into this alternate human language too?
For example:
Travellion is a ship.
Sede Martus is a planet,
And Eredai Sol is a character.

Also the other question is, how would I go about creating a language that doesn't sound like gibberish but an actual real life language?

 

[Onyx]

At some point you have to be able to describe what these words mean in English.

"Clement Smith's number two, Ar-clement Johnson, stepped into the tent."

Using non-English can work fine if the code is easily broken by the reader and there isn't so much of it that it is hard to remember - or actually important.

 

[ImperiumSega138]

Fair point, while they are all names, only one has a translation into English, that being Sede Martus which means "Second Home", Travellion and Eredai Sol are not translatable for the simply fact that they are the same in every language, like John or Ashley would be in English, French, German, etc. The only reason why Sede Martus is translatable is because the words that make the name are two words from this ancient human language...I hope that makes sense because trying to explain it is going to make me confused soon lol

 

[ImperiumSega138]

I was also thinking that obviously there are going to be quite a few name (especially for planets) that would require some sort of Rosetta stone, I was thinking of making some sort of glossary with the translation for the names there if the audience cares to know what they are in English, does that sound like a good idea?

 

[Onyx]

Fair point, while they are all names, only one has a translation into English, that being Sede Martus which means "Second Home", Travellion and Eredai Sol are not translatable for the simply fact that they are the same in every language, like John or Ashley would be in English, French, German, etc. The only reason why Sede Martus is translatable is because the words that make the name are two words from this ancient human language...I hope that makes sense because trying to explain it is going to make me confused soon lol

I guarantee you that you don't have any terms that aren't translatable into English. Proper names are not words with definitions and they don't translate at all. If your name is John, it remains John even if you are speaking German, even though the German name with the same etymology would be Johan.

"Translate" is the same as "define". If you can't define a word in English, how did it get into your writing?

 

[ImperiumSega138]

Erm...I made it up

 

[Onyx]

Erm...I made it up

You made up a word with no meaning?

 

[ImperiumSega138]

I meant, I made a name

 

[ImperiumSega138]

Eredai is the first name, Sol is the surname and Travellion is the name of the ship, like HMS Victory

 

[Onyx]

Eredai is the first name, Sol is the surname and Travellion is the name of the ship, like HMS Victory

As I said, proper names don't have translations, because they don't have meanings. People make them up all the time, and your readers don't need names explained. What they need explained are what names for specific things are for so they know what thing you're talking about.

 

[Cathbad]

proper names don't have translations, because they don't have meanings

What does my name mean? The Meaning of Names

I'm such a trouble-maker!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

they are the same in every language, like John or Ashley would be in English, French, German, etc.

But names aren't necessarily the same in every language. John can be Jean, Johann/Johan/Johannes/Hans, Juan, Giovanni, and a hundred other things. Of course there are some names that don't readily translate, and place names are often more of a translation of meaning rather than the actual words -- you have only to watch the Parade of Athletes at the Olympics to see what one country's language can do to the names of all the others.

But everything is going to be translatable into English, because you're writing it in English, not in their language. A sprinkling of terms in their language is enough to get the idea across, unless you're planning on inventing an entire new language and then writing the book in that. And that would be a serious endeavor indeed. Language derives from culture -- you can't just throw letters together and make up words. Not plausibly, anyway. What does the culture value? How do they spend their time? Where do they live and what are the geographical features? There's a reason why mountain people have a hundred words for snow and tropical island people have a hundred words for rain. We get our language from what we see and experience.

As for military ranks, you can use whatever words you like, but if you want the reader to be able to keep track of them easily, you might as well just assume that they translate fairly closely to what everyone is used to. A general is a general, even if you call him a smeerp.

 

[Onyx]

But names aren't necessarily the same in every language. John can be Jean, Johann/Johan/Johannes/Hans, Juan, Giovanni, and a hundred other things.

When Stephen King checks into a hotel in Germany, the staff doesn't refer to him as Herr Stephan König. We don't translate people's proper names into our local equivalents.

Language derives from culture -- you can't just throw letters together and make up words. Not plausibly, anyway.

Authors do this quite a bit, as do regular people. "Palantír" or "Kleenex" or "groupie" or "blockchain" or "mentat" or "jazz" all didn't exist just a few decades ago. Some of them are synonyms for existing words, some label new or fictional concepts that need to be defined.

So I don't see a problem coming up with a new rank (like "Bashar" - a Dune rank similar to field marshal), and even defining that rank in a way that is novel or different from anything in reality.

What doesn't work well is to invent a word and not know what that label describes, unless you want the reader to share the confusion of the characters. And that can be okay for awhile.

 

[thaddeus6th]

As well as looking at precedent systems, it's worth considering what the space age military is there for. Rome had legions because they were armies in themselves (until they reduced the numbers to 1,000 men so the roll call was longer [I wish I was making that up]).

A space-faring military might have need of a significant degree of autonomy for high-ranking leaders, and corresponding military forces under their wing (depends to an extent on the speed of transport/communications).

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Authors do this quite a bit, as do regular people. "Palantír" or "Kleenex" or "groupie" or "blockchain" or "mentat" or "jazz" all didn't exist just a few decades ago. Some of them are synonyms for existing words, some label new or fictional concepts that need to be defined.

Sorry, I meant whole languages there, but sort of got sidetracked. Of course words can be made up by throwing letters together. I've done the same with names in many stories. But I meant if one is going to invent a language, as the OP suggested doing, there has to be more thought behind what makes words what they are in that language. I'm reminded of the calendar discussion we had here some time back -- same principle at work: calendars and languages are both deeply rooted in culture and the world around them. Inventing a language wholesale requires thinking about how and why the syntax developed, what other languages it may draw from, what cultural concepts they have or don't have, how the people view the world and themselves and others. Genders, domestic arrangements, hierarchies. What do they respect or not? Did the culture grow out of a military tradition or a pastoral or nomadic or religious one? Have they been isolated, or did they steal from every other language on the planet for thousands of years?

But yeah, if you just want some words for flavor, you can likely get away with throwing letters in a pot and stirring.

 

[Onyx]

Sorry, I meant whole languages there, but sort of got sidetracked.

Yes, of course. Sorry I misunderstood.

Inventing a language wholesale requires thinking about how and why the syntax developed, what other languages it may draw from, what cultural concepts they have or don't have, how the people view the world and themselves and others. Genders, domestic arrangements, hierarchies. What do they respect or not? Did the culture grow out of a military tradition or a pastoral or nomadic or religious one? Have they been isolated, or did they steal from every other language on the planet for thousands of years?

Editorial: You can go through that process, design a language and then match it to a culture that bears no resemblance to the conditions that formed the language. English is the national language of Singapore - it is hard to go through the whole history of Anglo-saxons and then say that somehow reflects on the way the Singaporese view themselves or the world.

Languages are constantly developing, but once writing starts there is a regressive tendency that holds certain structural parts of language static. So you can end up with something like a language with a strongly delineated gender bias in a society that no longer has strong gender roles because there was no mechanism to remove that element from the language. Especially when technology and education speeds cultural change up.