Need Help With Military Ranking System

ImperiumSega138 said:
Is it possible that if a ancient humanity existed and something causes them to regress back to the stone age humanity, then over thousands of years they re-evolve into us, modern Humanity...well, what I'm speculating is would it not be possible that the same species would over time return to what they were before. Most importantly, their language to. What I'm trying to say is, is it not possible that ancient humanity developed English then we as modern humans simply rediscovered the language without knowing it. Could that not be possible? I hope I've explained it right. I hope its not too confusing?
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I think I understand what you are getting at, and it seems possible, but, to be honest, it is pretty ad hoc. Why would the language of an extremely advanced group of humans be one random Germanic language which is heavily influenced by quite a few other languages. Yes, it would make things pretty convenient for you, but it seems a bit of a stretch. And that assumes you can present it in a way that doesn't seem Anglocentric.

I think a more plausible way to go, at least in my mind, is that they are responsible for the massive, ancient increase of linguistic complexity, which to my knowledge has never been satisfactorily explained, by their language being the source language of the various language families. This approach doesn't give preference to one language, and connects their history to ours to solve a real world mystery.

Of course, this is your story; make it any way that sounds plausible to you. I just wanted to make a suggestion that sounds plausible to me.
 
ImperiumSega138 said:
I see your point but what if I did it so that it wasn't just English but other languages of Earth as well, that would make it seem less anglocentric.
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@Joshua Jones I felt already gave you a good suggesting regarding that wherein he suggested that 'languages tended to become simpler.' As an example if you tried to combine all of the languages of current Earth, take a look at the various way's to say 'yes, no, and, what?' Find common aspects from each and find what is closest to most.

Ex.: Yes, hai, shi, ja, si, haan, oui, nai... etc. From that without any other effort I'd shoot for "hi (hee) or ji (jee)." Naturally realizing that it has to work with the rest of the language and their culture. So you might have 'ji (jee)' as a casual yes, yet a firm or militaristic yes might be 'gi! (gee!).

In that barbarian language, instead of a question being denoted at the end, I would instead begin the sentence with "pas, ...etc. etc." Pas at the beginning meant that you were asking a question. Ending a sentence with "pas ghey" however, worked like saying "yes?" or "do you understand?"

That all said, pidgin which is very often a mix of languages (so that everyone has a common language... most incorrectly believing it is a way to speak English), will very often be a mix of slang, curse words, and very common terms, yet then dumbing it down further disregarding sentence structure and so on.

What I'm working on now has the people of the U.S., now 94% impoverished and separated from the wealthy, plus tossing in a few other nations people from the Caribbean, Canada, etc., has me building for them a very coarse pidgin/slang. Naturally what ends up happening is it comes off almost child-like. Extra rude with a lot of expletives (in pidgin), and one word may cover many things dependent upon what the rest of the phrase is. A lot of words will also be cut short or missing consonants, how many are actually developed r/l in the first place.

Be aware, in my novel I have not only an appendix for the vocabulary, but line by line translations... So as an example:
"Yaha! Namoo wacha, donya namoo flat bobyacha! Who is ya?"
Hey! Freeze woman (adult female), don’t you move-(emphasized) understand-absolutely (rhetorical, command)! Who are you?

K2
 
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ImperiumSega138 said:
Is it possible that if a ancient humanity existed and something causes them to regress back to the stone age humanity, then over thousands of years they re-evolve into us, modern Humanity...well, what I'm speculating is would it not be possible that the same species would over time return to what they were before. Most importantly, their language to. What I'm trying to say is, is it not possible that ancient humanity developed English then we as modern humans simply rediscovered the language without knowing it. Could that not be possible? I hope I've explained it right. I hope its not too confusing?
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I agree that it doesn't make sense that someone would use Spanish 100,000 years ago, lose the language and have it re-evolve 98,000 years later in the same form.
 
I'm probably just going to write it in English like they would in a film or TV show, I don't have the knowledge or capacity to construct some proto-world language. Its not about being anglocentric (it would be written in any language of the countries it gets printed in). However, I will imply that they speak some language, that is different from modern day languages. I hope you don't think I'm trying to use the easy way out but I'm also doing it for the readers, so its easier for them to understand.
 
ImperiumSega138 said:
I'm probably just going to write it in English like they would in a film or TV show, I don't have the knowledge or capacity to construct some proto-world language. Its not about being anglocentric (it would be written in any language of the countries it gets printed in). However, I will imply that they speak some language, that is different from modern day languages. I hope you don't think I'm trying to use the easy way out but I'm also doing it for the readers, so its easier for them to understand.
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This is the way pretty much every book about a culture that doesn't speak the narrator's language is written. So you aren't exactly breaking some rule.
 
Thank you for clear that up for me. I didn't want to offend those on here who have been trying to give me ideas on constructing a new ("old") language. I appreciate all the help everyone has contributed.

Now all I need do is use cool but appropriate words in English for the ancient human space military ranking system. Anyone want to throw some cool but appropriate names (for space military/navy ranks) in the ring?
For some of the highest ranks I was thinking along the lines of:
Supreme General (rank above 4 star General)
Supreme General Imperium (the equivalent of Chief of the Armed Forces, or whatever)
Lord Imperator (Special Ceremonial or Honorary Title)
Lord Imperium (rank equivalent to the president of the USA being the "Commander-In-Chief")

Please don't criticise my ideas on if I have confused the modern day ranking, as I have little knowledge (at the moment) on this subject but am trying to learn/understand it now as is required.

Thanks to all contributions again, your help is most appreciated.
 
Personally, I think there you could be a little more creative and simply add your ranks into a glossary. Perhaps think a combination of navy and astronomical terms (at the very least I'd use such terms for the ships).

K2
 
They're fine... Remember, it's your story, no one else's. Make it work for you most of all. Past that everything else is just a bonus.

K2
 
M. Robert Gibson said:
How about using astronomical entities in the names?
For example a Moon Captain is outranked by a Planet Captain who is outranked by a Star Captain who is outranked by a Galactic Captain
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Or based on the Little Piggy paradigm; Market Captain is outranked by Home Captain, then Roast Beef Captain, Captain of None and Wee-Wee-Wee Captain.
 
Well, one thing to keep in mind is that whatever the actual name of the rank is in the culture's language, you are likely translating them into English equivlents, so there isn't a reason I can see offhand that you couldn't use conventional ranks.

If you are just looking for rank names, I personally have always been partial to Lord Admiral and Centurion. But, I would strongly encourage you, if you haven't already, to fully flesh out the military and draw on names that make sense in context. From what I hear there is a growing market of military personnel interested in SF, and having ranks that don't make sense will likely turn off that market. They don't have to be currently used ranks, but they should be logical from the military culture.
 
Joshua Jones said:
Well, one thing to keep in mind is that whatever the actual name of the rank is in the culture's language, you are likely translating them into English equivlents, so there isn't a reason I can see offhand that you couldn't use conventional ranks.

If you are just looking for rank names, I personally have always been partial to Lord Admiral and Centurion. But, I would strongly encourage you, if you haven't already, to fully flesh out the military and draw on names that make sense in context. From what I hear there is a growing market of military personnel interested in SF, and having ranks that don't make sense will likely turn off that market. They don't have to be currently used ranks, but they should be logical from the military culture.
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The main problem with using existing rank names is that they only translate if the rank structure is somewhat equivalent. We take for granted the idea of enlisted and officer being separate systems, but this is really just a convention of leftover ideas about nobility. So as soon as you use "sergeant" or "captain" you've locked in a certain system that places those ranks on opposite sides of a somewhat inflexible hierarchy.


I'd suggest drawing a strong line between a truly alien society and the present day by avoiding those loaded words and choosing either more generic base terms ("Lower Chief", "Over Soldier", "Watch Commander") or making up words that are just as arbitrary in nature is "lieutenant" - "Alclad", "Garn", "Istelenberi". Whatever you do, you'll still have to hint who is the boss of whom, so the words themselves don't matter that much.
 
Onyx said:
The main problem with using existing rank names is that they only translate if the rank structure is somewhat equivalent. We take for granted the idea of enlisted and officer being separate systems, but this is really just a convention of leftover ideas about nobility. So as soon as you use "sergeant" or "captain" you've locked in a certain system that places those ranks on opposite sides of a somewhat inflexible hierarchy.


I'd suggest drawing a strong line between a truly alien society and the present day by avoiding those loaded words and choosing either more generic base terms ("Lower Chief", "Over Soldier", "Watch Commander") or making up words that are just as arbitrary in nature is "lieutenant" - "Alclad", "Garn", "Istelenberi". Whatever you do, you'll still have to hint who is the boss of whom, so the words themselves don't matter that much.
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They only imply those things if you intend to imply them, and for all we know, this society does have nobility. That is the basis for my previous comments; ranks don't appear in a vacuum. There are cultural considerations, history, traditions, and language that all play into it. That is why I suggested working out all these details before asking what to call the ranks. And, I suggested that if he wants to translate the ranks into English, he could just use the English equivlents, and he/she can let the story tell if one becomes an officer by birth or promotion. Again, we know nothing of the context, so all I suggested was replicate the natural way ranks come into existence or simply call them standard names and chalk it up to translation (perhaps verbally in an introduction or something).
 
Joshua Jones said:
Again, we know nothing of the context, so all I suggested was replicate the natural way ranks come into existence
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It's all good. I was just trying to point out that there is nothing natural about the common military rank structure - it is actually pretty weird - especially in egalitarian societies.

I'm sure that the OP has some much larger fish to fry before this stuff matters. It's just interesting to talk about. :)
 
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