At the moment, if you're talking about Earth as a territory, it gets capitalised as a proper noun. It's not got a universal culture that everyone from Earth participates in, so there's not a proper noun to identify that culture.
Read the post again, they don't know Mandalorian is a culture and not a species, they list them among species , before talking about culture. Nitpick posts have to have their facts straight, lest they be nitpicked themselves.
Mandalorians, like Sith, were originally a species before the term included a broader inclusive culture but otherwise sure.
Agreed that nitpickers should get their facts straight.
Beyond that, I think one of the best things the EU did was build up all these background details to give the Star Wars galaxy this immense history that stretches back so far people barely even remember these things, so of course Disney got rid of all that shit and started name dropping things like the specifically forgotten Rakatans.
My head canon is that the shows simply show the aliens from a human perspective. A Klingon would laugh if you told them Klingons are a monoculture. In fact, they would probably pull out a knife and threaten to slit your throat:
Sometimes it's also acknowledged in universe. Like that early Babylon 5 episode when there is a day of Earth culture or something and they showcase their hundreds of religions, and all the aliens are like "holy shit we only have one!".
Mass Effect is also kida guilty of that, though it's more of "human genetic diversity" that makes them special (not sure if it's better or worse).
That’s because all sci-fi alien species are monocultures
And all sci-fi planets have exactly one type of terrain/biome.
You got desert planets, swamp planets, forest planets, ice planets, hell -- even city planets ... but you never see any planet that has similar diversity to Earth ... or even similar diversity to California. In sci-fi, every planet looks the same across its entire surface.
Desert planets and, to a lesser extent, ice planets, are actually pretty realistic. We have more desert planets in our own star system than Earth-like planets. Of course, they're not habitable like sci-fi desert planets.
They also usually have one place of origin, or if there are multiple, it's just vaguely in a direction (lots of planets have a north), or an off-world colony, so the whole species is named for the planet they came from.
Martians are from Mars, Vulcans are from Vulcan, Humans are from Hume, etc. You don't tend to have them mention any more specific regions than that. Where on Earth do Earthlings come from? Why, the Earthling city, of course.
I've been assuming the lemmy app I use is German in origin because it capitalizes a lot of nouns at random. Not all of them. I don't know how it chooses.
But 'Mandalorian' should be capitalized. They're not a different species, most of them are human. They're a culture/nationality/ethnicity/religious cult.
The same may go for Klingon (though I'm not as familiar with Star Trek, so I can't be sure). Maybe it shouldn't be capitalized when you're referring to the species, but it may be that the word is typically used to refer to the culture/ethnicity, rather than the species.
The thing with a lot of sci-fi is that most planets have only one sentient species and only one culture (that the reader/viewer/player interacts with, anyway). If the world building is like that, it makes a lot of sense to just call the species/culture after the planet, or the planet after the species/culture.
If history truly rhymes, the aliens are going to be named "hello" or whatever the humans hear them saying often, unless the aliens can visibly destroy us in a fight.
Star Trek governing bodies tend to include the founding species in their name so citizens of "The Klingon Empire" can be called "Klingons" regardless of whether or not they're actually of the klingon species. The same doesn't apply to any species like humans who are citizens of The Federation, unless you're talking about the Mirror-universe Terrans who are citizens of The Terran Empire.
I don't get the confusion. It's just a sign of respect, an acknowledgement that these other alien species are truly our equals. Or at the very least, equal enough that it would be disrespectful to refer to them the same way we do animals.
We don’t capitalize “human” because as of now there are no other intelligent species we have relationships with on that level; there’s no need to add that level of “respect” to the word. But if we did make first contact with an intelligent alien species, I wouldn’t be surprised if cultural conventions like whether or not to capitalize the names of sentient species became a thing.
I'm not sure I see why we'd do that when we don't already draw the distinction that way between ourselves and other animals. The only way I see "Human" as a proper noun in English is if we wind up uniting under "the Human Federation" or something like that and it specifically becomes the demonym of the polity we belong to
Is "Klingon" a species or is it the name of a racial or ethnic group? You don't capitalize the name of a species, but you do capitalize the name of racial and ethnic groups, like African Americans.
Because of that, maybe it would be proper to say "We're at war with the Klingons." But, also "I'm not an expert on klingon biology."
This gets confusing because in Sci Fi, the common idea is that humanity has reached a point where there are galactic empires. Because of that, a single planet rarely has more than one racial or ethnic group on it. Everybody from the planet Vulcan is part of one Vulcan racial, ethnic and cultural group. In fact, it's pretty rare for there to be a warp-capable species who doesn't have some unified government.
So, in most Sci Fi, the name of the planet is the name of the species, and also the name of the single racial and ethnic group that species belongs to. In the 21st century, "humans" is a species, because there's no distinct racial or ethnic group that represents all of humanity. But, in the 31st century (assuming humans survive that long) maybe it will be Humans because we'll all consider ourselves to be one unified group, and it will be useful to distinguish us from Siriusans, Procyonians, etc.
I think in the context of Star Trek, Klingons are a racial or ethnic group. They're part of a galactic empire
Thank you Mass Effect for properly categorising aliens as just another species of animal. Now, let me romance that dog real quick.
We will 100% capitalise the names of alien races as if they were Romans etc. if only because that is what most sci-fi has done for decades now. Life imitates art in some cases.
French has a specific quirk (one among a metric ton of others) with this subject. The country and the country's people names get a capital, but the nationality adjective does not.
Les Anglais d'Angleterre sont des personnes anglaises.
The English from England are English people.
I think it may also be the case for all Romance languages.
That's a fair point. I suppose in my mind I just saw things like dog cat duck lion bear as derivatives. General terms to name a specific group of animals or species. Calling them by their actual scientific names feels more like a proper noun to me.
I wouldn't capitalize brown bear but I'd capitalize Grizzly or Kodiak.
English is dumb anyway so it's whatever at this point
Well, I think that's kinda the point of the OOP. Species aren't supposed to be anything special. By capitalising the names of alien species we're elevating them to be synonymous with culture, even though it's impossible for any species to have a monoculture. We're monolithising a (fictional alien) species.
By the way, Grizzly bear and Kodiak bear aren't species either. They're both brown bears (ursos arctos).
A proper noun is a specific (i.e., not generic) name for a particular person, place, or thing.
😯 Tumblr user is right!
::: spoiler also kind of embarrassed that I had to Google the definition to double check, because:
I've been doing a course on "Foundations of Writing", inspired by the historical school syllabus The Trivium once used across Europe.
It explores the rigid - but generally unwritten - rules of how the English language works, so among them was that definition of when to capitalise words. I found that particular fascinating because when I learned it at school it was just explained as "names of places people or things" which isn't significantly more simple than the afforementioned, correct definition.
So by that modern-school rule, one would perhaps assume the name of species names (or nationality names) falls under the capitalisation rule - but alas, no!
:::
I'd say the system would usually be named after the culture/species too. It's not like our solar system even has a proper name, we kind of decided that sun is just a generic name for stars.
I think it's pretty obvious that humanity is a culture, and it's not a very good one. I'm otherkin; I don't identify as human. I wouldn't want to be a human, because humanity as a construct is used to justify so much evil. When people wanted to do the slave trade or the holocaust or colonisation, they did it by stripping humanity from these groups. Because human culture says it's acceptable to treat nonhumans this way. And that's why I want nothing to do with such a toxic construct. I'm not interested in appealing to colonial values.
Well I don't think that's inherent to humanity or humanism. I agree though that humanity isn't a value in of itself, because if we accept that it is, stripping someone of that humanity is enough to denigrate and mistreat them. I also see the colonialist baggage that humanist philosophy continues to carry to this day. If we'd ever manage to establish contact with nonhumans, I'd definitely be on the lookout for anyone who suddenly starts talking about progressivism and "humanist values".
72 Comments
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world · 70 pts · 31d
Nitpick: it's absolutely correct to capitalise Mandalorian as it's a territory/culture with a proper noun.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 30d
Are we Earthlings or earthlings?
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 30d
We're just Earthlings, worms are Earthlings and earthlings.
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 30d
At the moment, if you're talking about Earth as a territory, it gets capitalised as a proper noun. It's not got a universal culture that everyone from Earth participates in, so there's not a proper noun to identify that culture.
Tonuka@feddit.org · -21 pts · 31d
Read the post again. Why do we conceptualise these aliens as a culture, rather than a species? Why did we name them after their planet?
KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world · 77 pts · 31d
Read the post again, they don't know Mandalorian is a culture and not a species, they list them among species , before talking about culture. Nitpick posts have to have their facts straight, lest they be nitpicked themselves.
Tonuka@feddit.org · 17 pts · 31d
I see. I did not know
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 14 pts · 31d
Yeah ... most Mandalorians are human.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social · 1 pts · 30d
Mandalorians, like Sith, were originally a species before the term included a broader inclusive culture but otherwise sure.
Agreed that nitpickers should get their facts straight.
Beyond that, I think one of the best things the EU did was build up all these background details to give the Star Wars galaxy this immense history that stretches back so far people barely even remember these things, so of course Disney got rid of all that shit and started name dropping things like the specifically forgotten Rakatans.
deegeese@sopuli.xyz · 50 pts · 31d
Foreign cultures get capitalized names, animals do not.
Those people are Klingons, their species is klingon. They come from Qo’nos.
deadcream@sopuli.xyz · 30 pts · 31d
That's because all sci-fi alien species are monocultures (Mass Effect included though).
WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 31d
My head canon is that the shows simply show the aliens from a human perspective. A Klingon would laugh if you told them Klingons are a monoculture. In fact, they would probably pull out a knife and threaten to slit your throat:
DO ALL KLINGONS LOOK ALIKE TO YOU??
deadcream@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 30d
Sometimes it's also acknowledged in universe. Like that early Babylon 5 episode when there is a day of Earth culture or something and they showcase their hundreds of religions, and all the aliens are like "holy shit we only have one!".
Mass Effect is also kida guilty of that, though it's more of "human genetic diversity" that makes them special (not sure if it's better or worse).
pressanykeynow@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 29d
If I remember correctly Centauris also have a big holiday where they celebrate how they genocided some other race on Centauri Prime.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 15 pts · 31d
And all sci-fi planets have exactly one type of terrain/biome.
You got desert planets, swamp planets, forest planets, ice planets, hell -- even city planets ... but you never see any planet that has similar diversity to Earth ... or even similar diversity to California. In sci-fi, every planet looks the same across its entire surface.
VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 30d
Desert planets and, to a lesser extent, ice planets, are actually pretty realistic. We have more desert planets in our own star system than Earth-like planets. Of course, they're not habitable like sci-fi desert planets.
T156@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 31d
They also usually have one place of origin, or if there are multiple, it's just vaguely in a direction (lots of planets have a north), or an off-world colony, so the whole species is named for the planet they came from.
Martians are from Mars, Vulcans are from Vulcan, Humans are from Hume, etc. You don't tend to have them mention any more specific regions than that. Where on Earth do Earthlings come from? Why, the Earthling city, of course.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org · 1 pts · 29d
Biomes on planets often too
whyrat@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 30d
Right, if we're talking about humans who are French... One gets capitalized the other does not. "French" is a proper noun "human" is not.
But this is an English rule. If we were writing in French we would not capitalize the reference to the people of a specific nation.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 30d
And if we were writing in German we'd capitalize every single noun, which is simultaneously more and less confusing imo, lol
Okokimup@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 30d
I've been assuming the lemmy app I use is German in origin because it capitalizes a lot of nouns at random. Not all of them. I don't know how it chooses.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 35 pts · 31d
But 'Mandalorian' should be capitalized. They're not a different species, most of them are human. They're a culture/nationality/ethnicity/religious cult.
The same may go for Klingon (though I'm not as familiar with Star Trek, so I can't be sure). Maybe it shouldn't be capitalized when you're referring to the species, but it may be that the word is typically used to refer to the culture/ethnicity, rather than the species.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 4 pts · 30d
The thing with a lot of sci-fi is that most planets have only one sentient species and only one culture (that the reader/viewer/player interacts with, anyway). If the world building is like that, it makes a lot of sense to just call the species/culture after the planet, or the planet after the species/culture.
Elechicken@lemmy.ca · 25 pts · 31d
Aren't humans commonly referred to as Earthlings? I do respect the point you are making, especially with reference to the Star Trek species.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 31d
We're Terrans from Terra.
GraniteM@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 31d
I thought we were Humans from Hume.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 31d
Not Kantians from Kant?
homik@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 31d
Some people also claim they're just platonic. I don't know if Plato is a planet, though.
zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev · 5 pts · 31d
Did you hear about Plato? That's messed up, right?
moriquende@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 31d
From Humus.
GraniteM@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 30d
You're not that far off, really.
moriquende@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 30d
Damn lol, TIL.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 30d
By The Emperor?
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 1 pts · 31d
Probably taken from some latin language to sound cooler (eg: italians) where the Earth is called Terra
Nouvellalia@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 31d
If history truly rhymes, the aliens are going to be named "hello" or whatever the humans hear them saying often, unless the aliens can visibly destroy us in a fight.
silver_wings_of_morning@feddit.dk · 9 pts · 31d
these got dam helloans stealing our jobs
Dultas@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 30d
Annyong
the_artic_one@piefed.social · 11 pts · 31d
Star Trek governing bodies tend to include the founding species in their name so citizens of "The Klingon Empire" can be called "Klingons" regardless of whether or not they're actually of the klingon species. The same doesn't apply to any species like humans who are citizens of The Federation, unless you're talking about the Mirror-universe Terrans who are citizens of The Terran Empire.
T156@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 31d
They're usually named for their home world as well. Klingons are the exception in that their home world used to be Kling, and was then renamed later.
It's basically the equivalent of Earthlings.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 31d
I don't get the confusion. It's just a sign of respect, an acknowledgement that these other alien species are truly our equals. Or at the very least, equal enough that it would be disrespectful to refer to them the same way we do animals.
Skua@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 30d
We don't capitalise "human", though. Treating them as equals would be not capitalising it
charokol@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 29d
We don’t capitalize “human” because as of now there are no other intelligent species we have relationships with on that level; there’s no need to add that level of “respect” to the word. But if we did make first contact with an intelligent alien species, I wouldn’t be surprised if cultural conventions like whether or not to capitalize the names of sentient species became a thing.
Skua@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 29d
I'm not sure I see why we'd do that when we don't already draw the distinction that way between ourselves and other animals. The only way I see "Human" as a proper noun in English is if we wind up uniting under "the Human Federation" or something like that and it specifically becomes the demonym of the polity we belong to
merc@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 30d
Is "Klingon" a species or is it the name of a racial or ethnic group? You don't capitalize the name of a species, but you do capitalize the name of racial and ethnic groups, like African Americans.
Because of that, maybe it would be proper to say "We're at war with the Klingons." But, also "I'm not an expert on klingon biology."
This gets confusing because in Sci Fi, the common idea is that humanity has reached a point where there are galactic empires. Because of that, a single planet rarely has more than one racial or ethnic group on it. Everybody from the planet Vulcan is part of one Vulcan racial, ethnic and cultural group. In fact, it's pretty rare for there to be a warp-capable species who doesn't have some unified government.
So, in most Sci Fi, the name of the planet is the name of the species, and also the name of the single racial and ethnic group that species belongs to. In the 21st century, "humans" is a species, because there's no distinct racial or ethnic group that represents all of humanity. But, in the 31st century (assuming humans survive that long) maybe it will be Humans because we'll all consider ourselves to be one unified group, and it will be useful to distinguish us from Siriusans, Procyonians, etc.
I think in the context of Star Trek, Klingons are a racial or ethnic group. They're part of a galactic empire
KaChilde@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 30d
Thank you Mass Effect for properly categorising aliens as just another species of animal. Now, let me romance that dog real quick.
We will 100% capitalise the names of alien races as if they were Romans etc. if only because that is what most sci-fi has done for decades now. Life imitates art in some cases.
zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev · 5 pts · 31d
What about in German?
trem@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 31d
All nouns are capitalised in German, so you don't have this weird dichotomy in the first place...
yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 29d
The concept of proper nouns is so stupid and only leads to discussions like these.
There are no improper Nouns!
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 5 pts · 30d
"Greetings, Earthlings." 👽
oce@jlai.lu · 5 pts · 30d
French has a specific quirk (one among a metric ton of others) with this subject. The country and the country's people names get a capital, but the nationality adjective does not.
Les Anglais d'Angleterre sont des personnes anglaises.
The English from England are English people.
I think it may also be the case for all Romance languages.
BurntWits@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 31d
If only it had no stupid third party launcher, I’d love to play Mass Effect again. Great series.
I do have it on 360, I could always play on that I suppose.
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 31d
Are we not supposed to be capitalizing species names? I just don't do it because I'm lazy.
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 31d
Yeah I thought they were considered proper nouns and therefore are capitalized by default?
Tonuka@feddit.org · 4 pts · 31d
I don't understand, do you capitalise duck and cow and eagle? Those aren't proper nouns
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 30d
No because those are general names for a type of animal. I wouldn't capitalize dog or cat but I'd capitalize German Shepard or Maine Coon.
Tonuka@feddit.org · 9 pts · 30d
Well, you said species. German Shepherd isn't a species. The species is dog (canis familiaris).
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 30d
That's a fair point. I suppose in my mind I just saw things like dog cat duck lion bear as derivatives. General terms to name a specific group of animals or species. Calling them by their actual scientific names feels more like a proper noun to me.
I wouldn't capitalize brown bear but I'd capitalize Grizzly or Kodiak.
English is dumb anyway so it's whatever at this point
Tonuka@feddit.org · 5 pts · 30d
Well, I think that's kinda the point of the OOP. Species aren't supposed to be anything special. By capitalising the names of alien species we're elevating them to be synonymous with culture, even though it's impossible for any species to have a monoculture. We're monolithising a (fictional alien) species.
By the way, Grizzly bear and Kodiak bear aren't species either. They're both brown bears (ursos arctos).
ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 30d
Well fuck me. I'm dumber than I thought.
VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 30d
Canis lupus familiaris, actually. Domestic dogs and grey wolves are the same species (canis lupus), but dogs are a distinct subspecies (familiaris).
Tonuka@feddit.org · 1 pts · 30d
ah, thanks!
nullspace@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 31d
It's gonna be at least 20 years before another studio attempts a choice-based narrative trilogy with save imports and it's probably going to suck.
pressanykeynow@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 29d
Right now they have a problem making just a good choice-based narrative game.
FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 31d
checks definition of a proper noun
😯 Tumblr user is right!
::: spoiler also kind of embarrassed that I had to Google the definition to double check, because: I've been doing a course on "Foundations of Writing", inspired by the historical school syllabus The Trivium once used across Europe.
It explores the rigid - but generally unwritten - rules of how the English language works, so among them was that definition of when to capitalise words. I found that particular fascinating because when I learned it at school it was just explained as "names of places people or things" which isn't significantly more simple than the afforementioned, correct definition.
So by that modern-school rule, one would perhaps assume the name of species names (or nationality names) falls under the capitalisation rule - but alas, no! :::
blarghly@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 30d
I would bet that as soon as we found another intelligent species, we would start capitalizing Humans.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 31d
In real life they would probably be named after the solar system or general galactic region rather than home planet too, so hell yeah!
T156@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 31d
That seems like it would only work if you've the one species. Multiple species would be confusing.
Humans and martians would both be solarians, for example.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org · 2 pts · 30d
I'd say the system would usually be named after the culture/species too. It's not like our solar system even has a proper name, we kind of decided that sun is just a generic name for stars.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · -6 pts · 31d
I think it's pretty obvious that humanity is a culture, and it's not a very good one. I'm otherkin; I don't identify as human. I wouldn't want to be a human, because humanity as a construct is used to justify so much evil. When people wanted to do the slave trade or the holocaust or colonisation, they did it by stripping humanity from these groups. Because human culture says it's acceptable to treat nonhumans this way. And that's why I want nothing to do with such a toxic construct. I'm not interested in appealing to colonial values.
Tonuka@feddit.org · 3 pts · 30d
Well I don't think that's inherent to humanity or humanism. I agree though that humanity isn't a value in of itself, because if we accept that it is, stripping someone of that humanity is enough to denigrate and mistreat them. I also see the colonialist baggage that humanist philosophy continues to carry to this day. If we'd ever manage to establish contact with nonhumans, I'd definitely be on the lookout for anyone who suddenly starts talking about progressivism and "humanist values".
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 1 pts · 30d
Good news! We already made contact with intelligent nonhuman life. I'm one of them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin