Marain is the Culture's shared language. Designed by early Minds, the Culture believes (or perhaps has proved, or else actively made true) the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that language influences thought, and Marain was designed to exploit this effect, while also 'appealing to poets, pedants, engineers and programmers'. Designed to be represented either in binary or symbol-written form, Marain is also regarded as an aesthetically pleasing language by the Culture.