Have a question for David Petersen, creator of languages in Defiance?

[dahanese]

Thanks everyone. These are great questions - looking forward to the show on Monday!

[DoomFrog]

In the Defiance Essential Guide book (the iBook) the letter and number guide shows the Indojisnen counting system as base 7.

What was the reason for using a none base 10 system? Why base 7 when their alphabet and number system use hexagons (why not base 6)?

Also the number system shows a zero, but it isn't used with the 7 (10) symbol. Do the Indogene not use a zero in their mathematics?

[akatsukiitachi85]

will we ever go to st. louis and meet cast from show on ps3

[JMadFour]

If each alien race has their own language, then why does everyone, regardless of race, seem to speak primarily Castithan?

will we hear more Irath and Indogene, and the other languages?

[Shogo_Yahagi]

Oh, I just remembered one that occurred to me while I was watching the show.

Is there a usage difference between "Irathient" and "Irath"? Should we be drawing conclusions about characters who use one word or the other?

[The Bronze]

Oh, I just remembered one that occurred to me while I was watching the show.

Is there a usage difference between "Irathient" and "Irath"? Should we be drawing conclusions about characters who use one word or the other?

Yeah I was wondering this as well. Is Irath a racial slur of some sort? Is Casti? I can't see shortening a species name being a positive thing.

Also, we see a lot of humans speaking the alien tongues and switching back and forth as do some of the aliens. Is this because the languages have started to merge or because the writers are trying to give you the impression that the entire conversation is in the alien language like they did in Star Trek VI?

[Talawsohu]

Did you stick primarily to Western (Latin) based grammar or did you branch out? What language was the easiest for the actors to pick up and why?

[TheFlash]

+1 to the request for a naming guide by Votan race

+1 to the request for access to dictionary and grammar tools for Irathient and Castithan languages

Question for David: When it came to language and culture construction, what did you most seek to improve with your efforts for Defiance over your efforts for previous shows/media?

[someone]

+1 for an Irathient language course (hey, langenscheidt even has a klingon course...)

It would be really nice to be able to say more than "shtako"

[someone]

Yeah I was wondering this as well. Is Irath a racial slur of some sort? Is Casti? I can't see shortening a species name being a positive thing.

It not necessarily is a negative thing... Most people say "US" instead of "United States" and "Americans" instead of "Citizens of the United States" or "UK" instead of "United Kingdom"...

Plus there are regional preferences... Germans love to shorten everything in colloqial speech patterns, but tend to use longer forms when speaking formally.

On the other hand it may very well be negative since racism and nationalism (or maybe "culturalism", since the original nations have vanished) are some of the main themes in the world of defiance.

IMHO this is a fairly spot on extrapolation (if not a depressing one) of current social behaviour into the kind of "crisis mode behaviour" the people of defiance must be in.