professional crafter of artisanal queer tatterpigs | I'm the monster wreathed in smoke and orange blossoms
AMA questions for Bip, a sapient server room on the top floor of the Runaway spacecraft.
Read the whole AMA here:
https://jayeaton.site/Art/RttS/AMA/3
Read the 2 previous character AMAs here:
https://jayeaton.site/Art/RttS/AMA/1
https://jayeaton.site/Art/RttS/AMA/2
Those are the Bug Ferret Languages. They are sign languages and not easy to "transliterate" so they tend to get stuck with acronyms the same way irl sign languages do (ASL, BSL, LSB, etc.) The typical written "transliteration" for BSL-2 is [B-X Grasp D-C Drag] [B-P Fist B-D Drag] [L-P Palm-O B Twist 2].
ahh, yeah that makes a lot of sense! given there only being the three, and them being numbered, I had a bit of a brain-blip moment because that's how the visual language standards for mekani in my own setting are short-named (VLS2, VLS6, etc...)
but bug ferret seemed likely here, just didn't know why the numbering. writing down a sign language (in multiple versions) works out great for 'em, though likely takes a lot of getting used to for critters with a very different arrangement of limbs than they have! wondering now how Gillie and Idrisah handle those...
Oh yeah, they are numbered in order of when they were encountered by humans, so the most widely used languages tend to have higher numbers. Though ironically, BFL-1, which was spoken by the crew of bug ferrets who made first contact with humans, has a speaker base comparable to Finnish. BFL-2's speaker base is more like 10 billion.
