GalCon and GalCon Variants

GalCon (and GalCon B) are the name of two artificial languages which the Galactic Confederacy uses for official forms of communication between the many species that are a part of interstellar society. It is estimated that ninety nine percent of all species to species contact uses either pure GalCon or GalCon B and in legal and governmental matters they are used exclusively.
Both forms of GalCon are performative languages rather than written ones, being used in arenas where speech would serve for human to human communication. GalCon is a pure language of light which requires special GalCon generators to pattern it. The image at the head of the article is a Galcon B generator of the same type that was used in the trials described in the story of the Galactic Tourists
GalCon B is a derivitive of GalCon employed by humans (and several other species) which, whilst still using light generators, also employs sound modifiers to assist in distinguising subtle spectral differences that are too finely graduated for human vision, so it is a hybrid sound and light system.
GalCon B has some serious disadvantages compared to GalCon. Multiple speeches cannot easily be processed at once, since sonic interference is more difficult to deal with than parallel observations of a silent language. Conversation must be limited, as with all sonic language families, to a turn and turn about exchange instead of the more fluid constant sparkling interchanges natural in perfect visual languages like pure GalCon.
GalCon B has a smaller vocabulary and a simpler grammar. The distinction between pure GalCon speakers and GalCon B speakers runs deep in Confederacy politics and can be controversial.
A third variant known as GalCon C is a muffled version of classical GalCon; a dialect shifted 917 Å to the violet and with its absolute intensity halved. This variant is only used internally by the iotans who have adopted it as a way to overcome the many varieties in their natural languages. They find the luminosity of classical GalCon too bright for their strongly dark adapted eyesight.

Writing System

There is no written form of GalCon but a GalCon generator will record and can replay any GalCon which has been broadcast in the local area. To do this, generators exchange radio messages with an encoded representation of what has just been said. A complex protocol has been established for error correction, so that the processors in different GalCon generators will come to an agreement of the record automatically.

Geographical Distribution

GalCon is used throughout the Galactic Confederacy and even beyond its borders.

Phonology

In its pure form GalCon is a language of light, rather than sound. The problem with sound based languages is that the pitch and tone vary according to the pressure of the medium through which the sound travels, making it difficult to be sure a consistent message is being transmitted. The experience of using photoreceptors to pereceive electromagnetic radiation is a more universally applicable sensory modality and easier to standardise.
Pure GalCon, however is often better augmented with sounds to assist in the distinguishing of subtle spectral differences. The simplified form of GalCon used by humans adopts this technique and is called GalCon B.

Structural Markers

GalCon has some standard ways of directing attention to the speaker. Formal occasions, for example, often start with a flaring orange and vibrant red flickering strobe hidden inside at a hundredth of a second duration, 10 Hertz frequency. This begins a well known invocation; the soundless cry (that is GalCon’s equivalent of the muezzin’s ululation) to God the Watcher. Implicit in this mode of address is an acknowledgement of God as the sustainer of the boundaries between dimensions.
The almost hypnotic pattern of light has a classical effect on watchers brought up on GalCon, inducing a calm readiness by association.