In a sci-fi world full of various types of alliens, what word would be best used to refer to the type of allien? #sciencefiction #writing #scifi
Oh, my, this is a fun one.
When writing for my (English-speaking) readers, I use "race" for both "subspecies" and "a sophont quote-species-unquote". Those who read my linguistic appendices and/or footnotes will find the note that those uses are translations of completely different words in the in-world language; English broken, please fix.
(Those paying extra attention will also note the sub-footnote that the former isn't cognate to the way 'race' is used in English, either: biological races have to breed true, which human races don't. Humans have ethnies and clines, and the Imperial Exobiological Institute is more than pedantic enough to make this point repeatedly, and with emphatic hand gestures.)
