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Scientific names for non-terrestrials?
Topic Started: Aug 2 2017, 06:46 PM (550 Views)
Darth_Biomech
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Cybernetic organism
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I have maybe a bit of specific problem, but still. There is two question basically - can I use earth-defined kingdoms and classes (mammals, vertebrates, animals, ETC) for describing alien life, and should I use latin-esque scientific names for species that weren't discovered by humans (case of an alien world with sentient life that first contacted humans and passed them knowledge about their world and it's fauna before humans were able to get to their homeworld, for instance)?

For the first question I heard opinions that no, they shouldn't be animals, or plants, because they have no common ancestry with earth life. That means I would need to invent my own taxonomy from the ground up?

With the latin-naming there's a bit of confusion as well. My species have in general six-legged body plan, so naturally I thought that, logically, in a scientific classification they would form superclass (or is it subphylum?) named "hexapoda", right? But then from Earth's reference point, that would mean that they are insects, despite not being arthropods.
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Inceptis
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For the first, it's true that a lot of people on here are sticklers when it comes to proper cladistics-you can see a fair few threads have been started for that very reason. While more specific terms such as mammals, fish, or vertebrates can confuse people, kingdom-level earth names cause less trouble. I myself try to stick to more original names, but you do you. It should be in your style, not someone else's. Investigate another languages for common names if you go for originality but get stuck.

As for the second, if the natives provide their own names (or scientific names even) for their creatures, it would add to the atmosphere of the project if you incorporated those 'alien' names into Latin binomials. It already happens a lot with Greek being latinized.
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Rodlox
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Darth_Biomech
Aug 2 2017, 06:46 PM
With the latin-naming there's a bit of confusion as well. My species have in general six-legged body plan, so naturally I thought that, logically, in a scientific classification they would form superclass (or is it subphylum?) named "hexapoda", right? But then from Earth's reference point, that would mean that they are insects, despite not being arthropods.
the same name can be used for organisms of differing planets - hexapoda, in your example. (the people who will think that alien hexapods = Earth bugs...they don't come here anyway)
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Flisch
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Darth_Biomech
Aug 2 2017, 06:46 PM
I have maybe a bit of specific problem, but still. There is two question basically - can I use earth-defined kingdoms and classes (mammals, vertebrates, animals, ETC) for describing alien life

Short answer: No.
Long answer: In taxonomy and cladistics alike groups are defined by relationship. Technically you cannot have a group that skips a middle form, for example. So you wouldn't be able to have alien lifeforms be part of the group "animalia". However if you use the nonscientific term "animal" I think it makes sense that such term would become applied to all mobile heterotrophs even among aliens. The scientific term "animalia" however would only be used for earth life on the other hand.

Darth_Biomech
Aug 2 2017, 06:46 PM
For the first question I heard opinions that no, they shouldn't be animals, or plants, because they have no common ancestry with earth life. That means I would need to invent my own taxonomy from the ground up?

Well, yeah. If you're talking taxonomy then you literally can't have shared groups between earth and alien life. That's like saying glyptodonts are ankylosaurs but not dinosaurs per se.

Darth_Biomech
Aug 2 2017, 06:46 PM
and should I use latin-esque scientific names for species that weren't discovered by humans (case of an alien world with sentient life that first contacted humans and passed them knowledge about their world and it's fauna before humans were able to get to their homeworld, for instance)?

This is actually a hella tricky question that I've mulled about myself. Binomial terminology is such a fundamental part to classifying earth life, that we sometimes take similar systems for granted for aliens, which I don't think has to be necessarily. They will likely come up with systems like cladistics and/or taxonomic ranks, but not only are binomial names not a given, but also the way they create those names could differ a lot. It's well possible that most biology systems use the common names for the species designation. It's also possible that the scientific names will be made up of common language words. Infact, german for instance has its own names for biological groupings. Cephalopoda are Kopffüßer, Ungulata Huftiere etc. It's actually more likely that scientific terminology will end up this way in alien cultures and that "human" terminology is more of a special occasion. Remember that latin and greek became the default for scientific language due to the rennaissance which put emphasis on rational thought and also took inspiration from the classical era, first and foremost from ancient greek and rome. A culture that did not go through this exact series of events will very likely not use dead languages for scientific nomenclature.

Furthermore, depending on how compatible the different systems will be, the names could either be taken over as is, or humans will come up with their own names anyway, which may or may not use latin/greek words or native alien words. I mean, we're already starting to branch out taxonomic names into other languages, such as chinese. As a result this is largely a worldbuilding issue.

Darth_Biomech
Aug 2 2017, 06:46 PM
With the latin-naming there's a bit of confusion as well. My species have in general six-legged body plan, so naturally I thought that, logically, in a scientific classification they would form superclass (or is it subphylum?) named "hexapoda", right? But then from Earth's reference point, that would mean that they are insects, despite not being arthropods.

Names are just names. They simply exist to distinguish between the different groups. If there were two groups of hexapodal animals, the name hexapoda might not even exist or it might be applied to only one group. It doesn't matter what name you choose for alien groupings, as long as the name is clearly distinguishable from other names. (And even then Nemo Ramjet circumvented this issue in Snaiad by saying that biological names can be repeated across different "alien" trees of life. But again, this is a worldbuilding aspect.) The names themselves don't have to describe a certain feature. For example, the taxonomic name for six-legged organisms on an alien planet doesn't need to describe the number of legs, it could reference another anatomical detail of that grouping or soemthing else entirely, like the name of the guy who discovered and/or described them first.
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IIGSY
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You could call them Parahexapoda
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Flisch
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That's a good point. Maybe "repeated" taxonomic names will use a prefix like "Terrahexapoda" (Earth hexapods) etc. So you could have multiple "-hexapoda" but each has the planet's scientific name as a prefix in front. If life is abundant enough, these prefixes could even become the standard for any clade/taxonomic rank regardless of whether or not the name is unique.
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LittleLazyLass
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Flisch
Aug 4 2017, 07:44 AM
That's a good point. Maybe "repeated" taxonomic names will use a prefix like "Terrahexapoda" (Earth hexapods) etc. So you could have multiple "-hexapoda" but each has the planet's scientific name as a prefix in front. If life is abundant enough, these prefixes could even become the standard for any clade/taxonomic rank regardless of whether or not the name is unique.
Can't wait for the genus Terraparapropalaehoplophorus.
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Dr Nitwhite
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Slap the pre-fix xeno on an alien version of an earth name and you'll probably be good, though that might be a bit trite.
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syzithryx
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I have the advantage of a constructed language, Saolikc, which is spoken by the dominant culture on Pantellia, the "dragon" empire or Gamborix, who include many scientists among their number. Biologists use terms in their native language (or sometimes, for prestige, one of the older forms of the language spoken by the immortal Elders) for clades, but due to the nature of the language accidentally have a somewhat Linnaean-like system when "stacking" terms.

For instance, "with three forms, without the motile form, which eat wind, and have wing-like leaves" (sail-leafed ventophages, one of the most common forms of "plant" on the planet) literally translates in normal, spoken Saolikc to "Poktobaya Rogobag Zigran Nuznaya," often abbreviated to Nuznaya. In Latin terminology this would be something like "Trimorpha Immobilia Ventophagia Pennifolium," often abbreviated to Pennifolium. You see the similarity.
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bcforstadt
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Very cool! Do you have interlineal gloss for that? I have interests in conlanging as well and I'd love to see a morphological breakdown if you have one.
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Dr Nitwhite
Aug 4 2017, 09:11 AM
Slap the pre-fix xeno on an alien version of an earth name and you'll probably be good, though that might be a bit trite.
What happens when there's more than one planet with alien life?
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Flisch
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CryperVilla
Sep 9 2017, 09:34 PM
Dr Nitwhite
Aug 4 2017, 09:11 AM
Slap the pre-fix xeno on an alien version of an earth name and you'll probably be good, though that might be a bit trite.
What happens when there's more than one planet with alien life?


Flisch
Aug 4 2017, 07:44 AM
Maybe "repeated" taxonomic names will use a prefix like "Terrahexapoda" (Earth hexapods) etc. So you could have multiple "-hexapoda" but each has the planet's scientific name as a prefix in front. If life is abundant enough, these prefixes could even become the standard for any clade/taxonomic rank regardless of whether or not the name is unique.
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Sigmund Nastrazzurro
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In the Furaha universe, biologists solved this problem by having the designation of the planet precede the Linnaean name (which is kept not because the Linnaean system is still there but for the same reason people have first and last names: it suffices). So 'Sol III Panthera leo' is an Earth lion, and 'Nu Phoenicis IV Tonitrus onerosus' is the Fuarahan gromachin. In daily use people most often use the binomen only, as the planetary context is usually obvious.
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