Trope-a-Day: Law of Alien Names

Alistair Young

Dec 3, 2011

Law of Alien Names: HEY! I have phoneme tables, thank-you-so-very-much, and an entire strictly-defined phonology, and word roots to use for name generation in multiple previous languages, and notes on how phonology is affected by different mouth-parts, even. Respect the tables!

And, hell, half the names aren’t even pronounceable by any throats. An esseli name is a slice of DNA strand, myneni names are made up of chimes, whistles, and gurgles, galari names are musical chords transliterated directly out of their true EM format, and then there are all the sonar pings, electrical waveforms, patterns of bioluminescence, and complex aromatic chemicals… so when the names those guys go by sound familiar, that’s because they’re nicknames.

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