I'm thinking we really only have to worry about English and Russian in developing the "SolSpeak"/Proto-Galach stage. Once we get that set up, we just run with it.
Right now there are six big divisions on the timeline (I've updated it a bit in response to our discussion there, btw). It's probably beyond what we want to get into (???
) to develop a full language for even one or two of them, so it has occurred to me that we might want to decide which one we really want to focus on (the last? Lanthanian Atreidean?) and take an approach similar to that of Meyers in the
DE Galach article, although with a much fuller specification for each stage. Then when we need a word in our target variety, we just work through the etymology from Proto-Galach. (Remember Tolkien's description of how he created the word "hobbit"?) OR we do a mini spec of another language (like the "transite tongue of Perth" or the "Blue Hill speech of the Rima miners"
) and bring in a new word through borrowing.
On the assumption of a "slow down" during the galactic age, I'm just extrapolating from what we've seen over the last 100 years with improved communications and transportation.
The 75/25 ratio sounds good to me. Got dice? (Or other random number generator?)
The Russian dimunitive suffixes are a great idea! Add -nik to the list.
Just saw your edit when previewing....
Yeah, I've got that page on my watchlist.
I take that to refer to "Standard Galach". Naturally, Galach is not the only language spoken in the Imperium, but it will be the native language of many of its inhabitants AND serve as a lingua franca when native speakers of other languages meet. (When I first arrived over here and was more in contact with students from around the world, Japanese often served as our mode of communication. And I think I've mentioned before the guy from some Dur-forgotten outback village whose English was so impenetrable that even the other Aussies talked to him in Nihongo.
)
But I think you're right, that a standard language is more insulated from change than the daily vernacular. (There's the literacy effect to keep in mind, too. Irulan is going to write in a variety that a majority of her potential readers are going to feel comfortable with. Of course, she would be a native speaker of the prestige dialect to being with.)
"Chancho...sometimes when you are a man...you wear stretchy pants...in your room...alone."
"Politics is never simple, like the sand chigger of Arrakis, one is rarely truly free of its bite."
Arrakeen is an unawakened ghola.