Common (na Xafen)
| High Common | |
|---|---|
| na Xafen | |
 Flag of the New World Order | |
| Pronunciation | [[Help:IPA|ˈʃa.ven]] |
| Created by | Peter K. Davidson |
| Setting | Earth 0077 |
| Native speakers | ~800 million, 4.5 billion L2 (2115) |
Old Common
| |
Dialect | Old Common, High Common, various Low Common |
| Official status | |
Official language in | New World Order |
| Regulated by | Na Akkatemi na Xafen Zisse (Common Language Academy) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | qcx |
Common is a language spoken on Earth 0077. In that dimension, almost the entire planet is dominated by a polity called the New World Order. Almost all media obtained from that dimension are in the Common language, although there is ample evidence of natural languages we are familiar with from our own dimension still being spoken. The history of Earth 0077 and our own dimension appear nearly identical until the early 2020s, where they begin to diverge significantly. Because of the dominance of Common in most public life in Earth 4177, the aetherscope has been able to recover ample materials from this dimension but little in the way of exposition on the Common language. Our greatest source on the Common language itself is a blog published in the Free State of Britain, which is apparently the sole remaining polity where English remains dominant.
The writer, who writes under the pseudonym "Trafalgar," writes in English for an English-speaking audience. They appear to be a former adventurer and current academic, and the purpose of their blog is to provide information on Common and the New World Order for British people, and it seems that they write under a pseudonym in order to provide unvarnished opinions without suffering personal, negative consequences. They write as though they may have collaborators, but all posts thus far have been tagged as posted by Trafalgar, and there is no definite evidence of other collaborators.
Earth 0077 is interesting because it is time-slipped relative to our own. For that reason, it is a potential source of new technologies, as well as information and cautions about the dangers we may face in our own time. The aetherscope accesses that dimension at a time point with a constant offset from our own that appears to be approximately 100 years offset.
Trafalgar's Common Social Resource blog is mirrored in real time at the link given here, but frustratingly, they don't include the year in their dates and the dates are updated when they edit their articles and increment the revision. Trafalgar's materials are invaluable, however, because they allow us to understand potentially useful materials from Earth 0077 with much greater ease than would otherwise be possible, and their exposition about the New World Order, while necessarily limited and biased, has nevertheless been hugely helpful in understanding the context of other materials recovered from that dimension. They appear to be exceptionally knowledgeable about the New World Order and at least make an attempt at academic objectivity, as a number of their assertions that researchers initially questioned turned out to be corroborated and confirmed by other sources.
Introduction
Common is the official and main working language of the New World Order (NWO - in Common, na Lufis Sefetysyn na Onpa or LSO). The NWO is the dominant governmental authority on Earth 0077, claiming to be the sole, rightful global sovereignty. The Order appears to control the entire planet with the exception of the Five Free States ("nar suz ikrowéteras sifysyn" in Common, "the five noncompliant states"), consisting of Britain, Québec, Israel, South Korea and Japan. These five states are able to exclude the authority of the New World Order form their territory. The Order is able to effectively control the rest of Earth 4177, and from the Order's perspective, the Free States are not legitimate, independent sovereignties, but NWO states in a state of noncompliance.
Common is the first language of about 800 million people, or approximately 11% of the global population, and is estimated to have approximately 4.5 billion second language speakers. These figures come from the 2115 Global Census. However, as Trafalgar writes about their world, "Yes, technological civilization survived and yes, some areas of technology like computers and biotech are more refined, but in general, the modern world is tired and broken and cruel, and healing only slowly."[1] The Order's ability to gather data in hence somewhat flawed despite its technological advantages, and it is far from transparent. These figures need to be taken with a grain of salt. However, enough corroboration exists that we believe they are roughly correct.
These numbers understate the importance of Common. Those 800 million people represent the entire elite class and most of the professional class in the NWO. Virtually all education and public life is conducted in that language, and other languages appear to be driven to a substratum position. The time point observed by the aetherscope appears to be one where language replacement of most natural languages by Common on a massive scale is in its early phases but advancing rapidly.
The language is always referred to as "Common" when speaking about it in English, and the name of the language is similarly translated when referring to it in other languages. The native name is 'na Xafen zisse' ('the Common language') or just 'na Xafen' (Common), pronounced /na 'ʃa.ven/.
Common is a constructed language. The New World Order plans to officially celebrate its centennial in 2122. It was invented by amateur language creator Peter K. Davidson for use on an early 21st century television show (what Trafalgar insists in calling a "screenshow") called Hillbillies, and developed a devoted fan following. It later became associated with the Globalist mass movement where it was used as a code language, and then began a new life as a global lingua franca when the Globalists achieved ascendancy and founded the New World Order in 2043.