Aliens/strange beings nouns

[dsatow]

So, this sounds stupid but when do you -ling vs -ian?  For example you have Earthling or Ratling but not Earthian or Rattian.  You have Martian or Venusian but not Marsling or Venusling.

[Duke Bushido]

Personally, I base it on the liaison itself.  That is, the connecting sounds.  If it ends in a fricative sound, like "earth," or "Snarf," I go with "Ling."  If it ends in an S, change it to an "Sh" sound-- Mars to Martian.  anything else is something of a toss-up between "ian" or just "an."  (Witness the occasional episode of Star Trek where Spock is "Vulcanian" as opposed to "Vulcan").  As a quick and dirty rule of thumb, if it ends in a simple syllable, I go with "an".  If it ends in a dual-vowel syllable, "ian," to preserve the pronunciation of the root word.  If it ends in a vowel, either "Ling" (uncommon) or just slap and "N" on that bad boy and let it ride.

 

 

I have no idea why, but I feel if you dig back far enough (in years) amongst some old grammar text books, you'll probably run across actual rules for this sort of thing.  

 

 

[icehawke]

You could use "Earthican"

[PhilFleischmann]

Let's see...

 

Ferengi

Klingon

Romulan

Borg

Jem'hadar

Vorta

 

Hutt

Wookiee

Gungan

 

Kree

Skrull

Chitari

Shi'ar

 

Pierson's Puppeteer

Kzinti

 

Conehead

Gweenie

 

-i is a reasonably common ending as well, with Earth-based equivalents like Pakistani.  But it seems pretty much anything goes.  Whatever sounds good.  The same question could be asked about a fantasy setting:  What do you call the people from this particular country or region?  Well, in part it depends on how close to English the place name sounds.  To use some examples from my own fantasy setting

 

Place Name     Demonym           Adjective

Virbenland       Virbenlander       Virbenlandic

Neron               Neronian              Neronian

Modro-Tonla   Modro-Tonlan     Modro-Tonlan

Jasser              Jasseri                Jasserese

Boo-Wa-Doki   Dokian                 Boo-Wa-Dokian

Gromingia       Gromingian         Groming

[PhilFleischmann]

Also, with regard to alien species, there are two possible sources for names, depending on what you really mean as the name for these people:  Are they the specific species, or are they named after the planet where they're from?  These are not necessarily the same thing.  A human from the Mars colony could be called a Martian, which does not have to contradict being a Human.  Likewise, two different sentient species from the planet of Ooban would have two different names, even if they're both "Oobanians".  And of course, other flora and fauna, and anything else associated with the planet is also Oobanian.

 

What are Earth-humans called in the campaign setting?

Earthlings?

Earthicans?

Humans?

Hoo-mahns?

Terrans?

Earthers?

[Duke Bushido]

Ah,   Gweenies.... 

 

If only.....   

[icehawke]

In all seriousness, I am fond of the -i suffix for pluralization. In one setting though, I have the Kal'Shak which is both singular and plural; and the Trit'ikk'it which is also singular and plural. The humans are Terrans, Novaya Ruskayans, Republicans, and pirates.

[dsatow]

There is an argument for ending in an "ee" sound as well as ending in a "n".  But in a lot of samples from science fiction, it's hard to tell whether it the name denoting location of the species or the species name.  For instance,  Klingons come from Q'onos, so it's much more likely that the term Klingon is a species designation much like Human is not related to a location on Earth. 

 

Of course, I started down the wrong road when I used the term Ratling, so I apologize for that.  

 

But say for example, you come from a colony on Uranus.  If the colonists from Mars are called Martians and Earth, Earthings, what are people from Jupiter or Uranus called?

 

(And yes, I know the obvious joke about people coming from Uranus being s#!t, but lets not digress there)

[Lucius]

24 minutes ago, dsatow said:

There is an argument for ending in an "ee" sound as well as ending in a "n".  But in a lot of samples from science fiction, it's hard to tell whether it the name denoting location of the species or the species name.  For instance,  Klingons come from Q'onos, so it's much more likely that the term Klingon is a species designation much like Human is not related to a location on Earth. 

 

Of course, I started down the wrong road when I used the term Ratling, so I apologize for that.  

 

But say for example, you come from a colony on Uranus.  If the colonists from Mars are called Martians and Earth, Earthings, what are people from Jupiter or Uranus called?

 

(And yes, I know the obvious joke about people coming from Uranus being s#!t, but lets not digress there)

 

 

Jovians and Uranians.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And palindromedaries

[PhilFleischmann]

And people from Venus are Venereal.

[dsatow]

20 hours ago, Lucius said:

 

 

Jovians and Uranians.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And palindromedaries

 

Wouldn't people from Saturn also be a Jovian (Jovian being a class of giant class planet)?

[Lucius]

4 hours ago, dsatow said:

 

Wouldn't people from Saturn also be a Jovian (Jovian being a class of giant class planet)?

 

No, any more then you would call a Martian a Terrestrial even though Mars is a terrestrial planet.

 

The name of the Jovian class of planets derives from the name of Jupiter.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary proposes calling people from Saturn "Ringlings"

[PhilFleischmann]

Something I often find useful - and it applies to sci-fi settings as well as fantasy - is to ask the question:  What does it mean in *their* language?

 

What would the sentient beings from another planet name their own planet?  The Earth-based designation for the planet would be either the (Earth-based) name of the star, followed by the number of the planet around that star, or the name of the constellation (as seen from Earth), followed by a Greek letter indicating which star in that constellation (Alpha for the brightest, Beta for the second brightest, etc., and again - as seen from Earth), and then followed by the number of the planet (1 for the planet closest to the star, 2 for the next closest planet, etc.)

 

But there's no way an alien race would name their own planet that way.  We don't call our planet "Sol-3".  We cal, it "earth", which means "dirt, soil, land".  Chances are, most sentient races would name their planet with the word in their language for dirt/soil/land.  Unless they're a primarily aquatic species, in which case they'd probably call their planet their word for water/sea.

 

And what would they call themselves as a species?  Probably some word which in their language means "people" or "humans" or however they designate sentient beings as distinguished from animals and plants and non-living things.