Terminology and Pronunciation

TERMINOLOGY

baseline: A biologic entity showing minimal phenotypic or genotypic variation from pre-genetic engineering stock of paleo-humanity.

bioroid: From “biologic android.” A biologic humanoid organism created by artificial means.

clade: A group of organisms derived from a common ancestor or ancestral template. The grouping may be biological, cultural,
or some combination of both depending on the context.

fabber: A nanofabrication unit, ubiquitous across civilized space, used to manufacture finished products from raw materials.

infosophont/infomorph: An intelligent entity comprised of information; a sophont AI.

meme: An idea, behavior, or other information pattern that spreads from one sophont to another.

memeplex: Meme complex; a set of related memes that are mutually reinforcing.

metascape: The augmented reality overlay through which citizens of technologically advanced societies view the world.

mind: A sophont being, physical form unspecified (if any); A sophont ai.

moravec: A general term for self-replicating, sophont robots.

near baseline: A biologic entity phenotypically distinct from paleo-humanity but with an overall high degree of genetic similarity.

noosphere: The environment of human(oid) thought of a civilization or world, populated by infomorphs. It evolved from the ancient technologies of cyberspace, augmented reality, spimes, and the sophont minds with which they interact.

sim: Shortened from “simulated reality”;  A popular form of art and entertainment.

sophont: An intelligent and self-aware being; often used synonymously with “sapient,” though the terms have slightly different connotations.

splice: A chimera made from blending human genetic material with that of one or more nonhuman species; a member of a species or clade descending from such a chimeric line.

xe/xem/xir: Gender-neutral pronouns.

PRONUNCIATION

The names of people and places in the Strange Stars can be exotic, but they’re reasonably straightforward in pronunciation. There are a few orthographic conventions that might require a bit of explanation.

The following sounds occur in English, but not at the beginning of words like you’ll encounter them here:
 dz - as in “adze”
 ks - as in “kicks”
 ng - as in “sung”
 ts - as in “fits”

The following sounds aren’t found in English:
gh - A voiced velar fricative; a hard “g” sound is reasonable approximation.
kh - like the sound in the German Buch or the Scottish pronunciation of loch.
ss - A voiceless retroflex sibilant; the “sh” of ship is a good substitute.
x - In Nxanga, this is a voiceless palatal fricative like in the German nicht.