Why aliens speak English: the language of CURRENCY, commodities, and concurrency
Etymological and speculative lore. In the founder’s dream-atelier mythology, why do alien civilizations speak English? Because in this cosmology, English is the language of CURRENCY, a word that unites money and commodities with the concurrency of operations and the active running of things, exactly as preserved in the original Latin language from which it derives.
Etymological and speculative lore. This page expands the “Why aliens speak English: the language of CURRENCY, commodities, and concurrency” chapter in the neuroscience collection.
In the founder’s dream-atelier mythology, why do alien civilizations speak English? Because in this cosmology, English is the language of CURRENCY, a word that unites money and commodities with the concurrency of operations and the active running of things, exactly as preserved in the original Latin language from which it derives.
Etymologically, English currency comes from the Classical Latin verb currere (“to run, to flow, to move swiftly, to hasten”), through its present participle currens (genitive currentis, “running, flowing, in circulation”) and Medieval Latin currentia. When combined with the Latin prefix com- / con- (“together, in parallel”), currere becomes concurrere (“to run together, to coincide, to act simultaneously”), giving us concurrency (concurrentia).
In Necromancer’s lexicon, CURRENCY therefore names three inseparable pillars of any advanced civilization: first, money and commodities (pecunia et merces in cursu): the liquid medium of exchange, valuation, and tradeable goods flowing between parties; second, the concurrency of operations (concurrentia): parallel processes, distributed neural or computational networks, and multiparty protocols executing simultaneously without deadlock; and third, the running of things (cursus rerum): real-time logistics, maintenance, and operational governance.
Whether one reads this premise as playful science-fiction lore or as a serious observation about why trade languages become universal linguae francae, the operational lesson is clear: a shared language succeeds when it lets diverse minds price value honestly, coordinate parallel work in real time, and keep essential systems running smoothly.
Open this exact section in the Necromancer dossier. The original chapter status is “Etymological and speculative lore.”
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