In order to more clearly understand the derivation logic, however, we must accept the limitations of attempting to write an alien vocabulary without resorting to completely creating a new languages that would be spoken by our characters at all times. To do this requires the writers to �translate� what is spoken by the characters into language that can be understood.
There are a number of approaches to this in science fiction. The first is to translate completely, so that all aspects of the culture appear �in translation�, and thus can be readily understood. This is the technique utilized by Galactica �03.The advantage of this approach is that the language (among other things) is easily understood and interpreted by the viewer without too much stretch. The disadvantages are twofold however, the first being that the culture presented is no longer presented as alien, and looses some of its fascination. We could just as easily be looking at Earth in 100 years. The other is that everything in the language, since it is in total translation, must make sense to us.
The route taken by Classic Galactica was to translate only enough to establish understanding, while creating terms and phrases that give a sense that we are hearing a translated alien language. This requires a more open mind as to what one is hearing (akin to watching a foreign film with subtitles, or perhaps more appropriately, watching a foreign film without subtitles in a language one is almost fluent in, and understanding about eighty percent of what is being said), which is a risk as it can limit the audience. It does, however, give a truer picture of the culture in which the players are supposed to live, as well as a stronger sense of �not us�.
Of course we see and hear the standard language of Classic Galactica rendered as English, but the created vocabulary and referential alphabet gives us clues as to how other languages might be rendered for us. The two languages we see and/hear the most are Colonial Standard, and Gemonese. From these I suggest the following:
The only language it is possible to actively identify as coming from a specific colony is Gemonese. This language is best rendered as some form of Latin. We are also told that �Terra� is the Gemonese term for Earth. Terra is Latin for �land�, and becomes �earth� in Italian. And while in the pilot, it is not clear that the old couple speaking Gemonese is speaking some variant of Latin, it is more so in the deleted scenes on the DVD. The two phrases that are relatively clear translate roughly as �shielded from blast� and �very (�doubly�) sick�.
Colonial Standard is the language we see and hear most often. As it is rendered as English, it clearly has Germanic roots, but there is much more of a Greek flavor to words we don�t readily translate, suggesting that some other early Colonial language is rendered as Greek, and that its influence on Colonial Standard is greater than Greek is on English.
The referential alphabet used for almost all categorizations in the Colonial military and sciences is the Greek alphabet (which actually gives us the word �alphabet�). It consists of 24 characters, and in order, is:
