This is the Polyglot Symposium's first experience in language design and compiler construction. We are doing it in Python because of the rapid development, though if we were to ultimately build a legitimate language, we would probably do it in Haskell.
MM/I is short for Michelson-Morley One, meaning our first attempt at a failed experiment. Our physics professor used to say that this was the biggest failed experiment in all of science. Not a statement I would want to defend rigorously, but it inspired the name of this language. This is not a language built to be a language. This is a language built to be a failure. We intend to learn by failing. Perhaps if we fail enough we will build a real language some day.
The reason for slash in the spelling is because it has such a cool retro look, like PL/I or OS/2.