Marain is the
language of the fictional pan-species
civilisation of
the Culture. Created by the
author Iain M. Banks in his
novels, Marain is a
languagecarefully devised by the
AIs which form the highest level of power in the Culture. The AIs, being aware of the effects that a language has on the people who speak it, devised a phonetically
subtle, very
complex language. It has a single pronoun for any
sentient being, whether
male,
female,
androgynous,
human,
alien, or
machine. Of course, there are ways of distinguishing between the
genders in Marain, but they're not used in everyday
conversation. "The message is that it's brains that matter, kids; gonads are hardly worth making a distinction over," as Banks would say.
The complexities of Marain would be impossible to describe briefly(especially since they remain largely undefined by Banks). However, much is implied of the complexity of the language, and of the affect it has of shaping the attitudes of the population of the Culture, into a benevolent and pacifist lot.
N.B: Marain's system of numbers is nonary(based on nine), as opposed to our decimal system.