Make you own Space Colony dialects!!!

In the tradtion of A Clockwork Orange...

Of the novel I been writin' lateful, my task be to represent the evolution of new dialects by includin' them (symbolicful, as in not representin' real extrapolations of changin' linguistics) in different variations to be spoken by the characters.

The main dialect be how the main character speaks, besince he be 'bout 40,000 standards old, and been all over the galaxy in his time, pickin' up diff'rent ways of talkin' from diff'rent sources, so he got a kinda hybrid dialect, spoken by him and his son.

Other characters got other dialects which I be workin' on at this time. Haft you got an idea or more, I'd like to make a thread for creatin', and learnin' to fathom alternate dialects.

This post been written in the main character's dialect, and you ain't seen the full of it becourse, besince not all needs to be said in such a post, and I got the full breadth of it in the book I be writin'; there be others in the book, spoken by characters hailin' from diff'rent colonies. They ain't all be so western-soundin' as be this (though my intent was to combine a pseudo-western drawl with street language). Becourse, thousands of diff'rent planets means hundreds of thousands of streets, each with their own dialect.

Make a note of diff'rent planets holdin' to diff'rent tech levels and levels of social development, which be bound to influence language. For 'xample, two sisters who be from a highful cosmopolitan, urban world use slang derived from computer and internet technology, 'specialful from social networkin', thenst mixed with slang they pick up from travelin' more of the galaxy thanst most humans, who spend their lives on a single planet or moon, usualful the world of their birth.

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/END DIALECT

Note that this thread's purpose is not to predict how language will change in the future, but just to generate ideas to use in interstellar settings so people from different planets actually sound different in a meaningful way. The language is symbolic, not predictive.

edited 15th Sep '13 6:18:42 AM by fulltimeD

Talkin' Like A Space Pirate Day

Spacers are a bunch apart from normal people, and that's reflected in their speech. Their jargon is made from both scientific and technical terms and plain old slang, and a mud-pounder won't understand half of a phrase an old space dog says unless the spacer wants himself to be understood.

Adrift - a crewmember is said to be adrift when the ship is going to start and he isn't aboard. Ahead - towards the ship's front. Astronaut - what? How exactly old are you, geezer? No one but poets uses this antiquated word anymore. Atrail - towards the ship's back. Ball - a small, high-speed meteoroid. If it hits anything, it impacts and does damage like a .50 BMG bullet. Burn - to use the fusion drives to accelerate. Burp up some gas - a phrase used for attempting something ridiculously impossible, like gathering money for the next run after a disastrous one. Captain (cap'n) - the ship's commanding officer. On some ships, he's The Second Man After Our Lord Almighty Himself. On some ships, he's merely an elected war leader. Comm Officer - the crewman in charge of communications and sensors. Cooler - a standard drinking water dispenser found onboard every ship. Also the gossip that occurs naturally around the cooler. Creeps - cosmic rays, high-energy quanta and particles that come from every direction and maintain a low, but permanent level of background radiation aboard every ship. Dog (noun) - a locking device on an airtight door. Dog (verb) - to make something sealed and airtight. Donkey farts - low-quality hydrogen, specifically the kind made on stations from local stuff. Engineer - a crewmember in charge of ship maintenance. If there are also technicians on board, the engineer's task is to yell at them like an army sergeant does at soldiers and doing difficult repairs they can't handle. If there are none, the engineer does everything by himself. Footlocker - an ubiquitous container for personal belongings aboard spaceships. Even smaller craft have at least one. Fragger - a spacer who makes a living blowing up comets and selling comet fragments. They contain lots of good ices. Gas (singular), The Gas - fusion-grade hydrogen or any of its substitutes. Gasses (plural) - hydrogen and helium, in any shape or form. Stuff that most of space is made of. Gator (navigator, astrogator) - a crewmember in charge of determining the best, shortest and safest trajectory for getting the ship from A to B. Head - the front of the ship. Hurtle - to orbit, to move naturally by an orbit without burning. Ices - gaseous or liquid compounds like water, methane and ammonia, in any shape or form. Lee side - the side of the ship sheltered from solar or belt radiation, exposed only to the ubiquitous cosmic rays. Kick the helmet - to quit spacefaring. To become a mud-pounder. Metals - any elements that are not hydrogen or helium. Even nonmetals like oxygen and chlorine. Outlaw - an adventurous spacer who likes to bend a law a bit, but not a full-fledged pirate. Oversun - going oversun means passing in the really close vicinity of a star. Pothole - an asteroid. Pounder - Brainer, moron. A Mud-pounder is even worse. Adjective - "pounderly". Rubbergoo, or simply goo - a substance made by dissolving old rubber and latex in strong solvents, a makeshift form of rubber glue. Used for dogging. Sail - a solar or mag sail, a contraption used for slow, but fuelless propulsion. Slow Hurtle - a low-energy transfer orbit. A special kind of eccentric orbit that lets you move between planets very efficiently, but very slowly. Snow Line - an imaginary line (a sphere, actually) around a star, beyond which ices can exist in space in solid form without evaporating. Separates the realm of terrestrial worlds from the realm of gas giants and icy dwarfs. Space Dog - a spacer, a person who travels through the irradiated vacuum of space for a living rather than simply getting from A to B. Space Monkey - a somewhat less endearing term for a Space Dog. Spacing - a form of execution used by the more nasty guys found traveling in space. Involves throwing out of an airlock without a vacc suit. Spinwards - a direction on an orbit, the direction a ship (or a pothole, or a planet) is hurtling. Storm - a surge in wind (radiation), usually caused by solar activity. Tack - to use mag sails for moving in a direction other than the rads' velocity vector. Technician - a relatively unskilled crewmember performing simple shipboard maintenance tasks. Usually the lowest "rank" onboard a spaceship. Trail - the rear of the ship. Trailing - a direction on an orbit, opposite to the direction a ship (or a pothole, or a planet) is hurtling. Wind - strong directed radiation, caused by the star or magnetic rad belts. Weather side - the side of the ship facing the star. Solar wind and radiation come from this side. In gas giant rad belts, weather side is the side the belt particles come from.

You might want to reformat that post. My eyes shut down in self defense.

Well, the beginin' of the Age of the Ancients was whenst MUSA launched the first spread of deep space survey vessels, the Spirit-class. By mapping astrometric phenomenon and other objects, they blazed the trails, or be it in this case, FTL Jumps, for colonists and supply craft to follow.

Civilization spread cyclicalful. There was... at least seven major emigrations from Terra in 40,000 standards. All from different cultures, different times... scientists who thought they could all to Utopia; Culture be as much a reflection of choice as circumstance. Agrarian utopians. Businessmen. Religious organizations. Zealots, extremists, the whole human strain that-be.

Obviousful, there be "Black Sectors" where interstellar civilization simpleful cannot expand. The voids of stars. And thenst there be places like the center of the galaxy where humans cannot live 'cuz the radiation be lethal. And becourse there be clusters and arms of planetary cultures that be relativeful isolated from each other.

edited 23rd Sep '13 5:35:07 AM by fulltimeD

I came up with a dystopian bio/cyber/amazon/scifi thing once. It wasn't very good, in case you can't tell from the description, but it did give rise to a lot of slang.

• Drone- the sole male member of an otherwise-female organization.
• Frank- a slur, usually aimed at transhumans. Derived from "Frankenstein," because people in the future don't remember that "Frankenstein" is the doctor either.
• Splice- a person conceived by direct genetic fusion as opposed to the old-fashioned way. Typically the child of same-sex pairings or relationships involving more than two people.
• Stunt [number]- "stunting" is a process used to cap the intelligence of certain people. The number is the approximate age that they're capped at, i.e. a "stunt 12" is capped at the mentality of a twelve-year-old.
• Trestle- like stunting, trestling is a process used to control psychological development, in this reshaping the mind to develop certain talents or predilections.
• Quota- a slur, usually aimed at men. Declares that they were only born to fill a sex quota.
• Zero- an individual with no genetic manipulation, often looked down upon.
• Zapoi- in-universe neologism, derived from the acronym ZAPOI ("Zero And Proud Of It.") Usually an adjective, as in "zapoi gang" or "zapoi organization."

A few notes on my setting (NOT in the Starfarer dialect)

Humans inhabit most of the galaxy, but intergalactic travel is not considered possible. There are no intelligent aliens (the main character goes on a rant about the plentitude of alien worms and slugs at one point... apparently they're the most common animal forms in the galaxy). These humans are essentially the same as us except with some differences due to sexual and natural selection in different environments like the shape of the ear of the violet eyes people from the Rigel System are famous for. Most people have an organic USB type device implanted (a bio-graft called a Zip Strip) and many humans have other biografts (like wrist venom glands as weapons) or cybernetic implants. T Hey're still biologically human though.

FTL Jumps are instantaneous, of the Battlestar Galactica variety, but since there are no FTL sensors and very limited FTL communication, Jumps can't be traced.

There is a Separatist Civilization of human-emulating A.I.s and some other AI types that has continued to evolve in isolation for about 9000 years following a War of Separatism. Interestingly, the A.I.s were never slaves or second class citizens. It's just that if you design an android to emulate a human, they're equally likely to emulate human behavior such as nationalism. The human colonies were uncomfortable with the idea of an AI Nation but 9000 years (or "Standards") of isolation have worked out. There are still low level A.I.s used for plotting FTL jumps in human custody, but these A.I.s were never programmed to emulate humans and never gave two hoots for AI nationalism.

Over the years, Earth became increasingly mechanistic. It was the only place where humans and A.I.s continued to live side by side, and eventually on Earth there was a merging of human and AI evolution. At the same time Earth became increasingly isolationist.

About 10 years before the main story, the nations in the Rigel System unified under one (not fascist, but heavily nationalistic) government and attempted to annex several solar systems in their vicinity. In response, Terra Primus (as Earth had become known) broke its isolationism and revealed a massive war fleet, crewed by clones and A.I.s. Problem was, the clones made fine soldiers, but they had no command experience. And the A.I.s were advanced but lacked intuition. But they needed human volunteers with command experience to complete their "Enforcer Corps." So the freedom loving freighter captains and merchant types joined up to become warship commanders and squadron leaders. They did this because freedom mattered to them, and the Rigelians were infringing on their neighbor's rights. Eventually the Rigelian Expeditionary Forces were beaten back to their home system and demilitarized into a basically space police limited to their own solar system. At this time, the "volunteers" started hearing rumors that the Terran Establishment wanted to use the Enforcer Fleet to enforce a "Lasting Peace" on the galaxy. The freedom-loving volunteers refused to resign their commands, spaced the clones, reprogrammed the A.I.s, and recruited more crew from the fringes of civilization, particularly the Starfarer culture and other frontier-oriented locales. What followed was a five year civil war between the "Loyalist" clones and A.I.s and the "Rebels." This war was cut short when the Terran Establishment suddenly and without explanation ordered all "Loyalist" ships back to the Terran Solar System, and erected a Warp Bubble, like a pocket universe, around the S Olar System, as a barrier. Then they sent out a communications pulse (FTL communication without microwormholes being a BIG DEAL) to every human settlement. All it said was "Leave Us Alone."

The book focuses on the characters as they journey toward Earth in order to unify these three disparate strains of evolution.

edited 24th Sep '13 4:00:31 AM by fulltimeD

Among humans, bio-grafts and cybernetic implants are seen as status symbols similar to iPhones/Android Phones.

Some examples of Starfarer slang:

Craft or Spacecraft (or Rig, Boat, Crate, Rocket)= ship (they try to avoid using the word ship and prefer technical terms like command module/service module to "bridge" and "engineering")

Sexbooker= prostitues

Narcocorreros/Narcorunners= drug smugglers

Blanco/Ghost- anyone with conspicuously white skin... most people 40,000 odd years from now are a shade of brown, if not outright dark-skinned. They tend to either be living on the rich, technologically advanced, near-Earth planets, or begging for scraps in the outer settlements.

Starfarers don't usually say "understand", rather they use "Comprehend" (or a pseudo-Spanish equivalent) or "fathom" depending on the context. ("Yes, I comprehend." vs. "No, I ain't never fathomed it."

Standard Cycle (or Standard)= approx `1 year Quad= month Subquad= week

Rocket= ANY sublight drive (there aren't any reactionless drives)...e ven if it's not technically a rocket (like Plasma Drives)

Besince- Since Becourse- of course, naturally ("naturalful") Behaps- perhaps

Almost all adverbs are modified with "ful" replacing "ly" for example "heavily" would be "heaviful."

Neo-Asiatic: refers to a political group encompassing several distinct but related Asian-derived ethnic groups and hundreds of different cultures; one of the very, very few interstellar powers. The others are the Mohammadine Sultanate (BTW, the Sultan is a woman), the more democratic Mohammadine Republics/Empirates, and the Interstellar Corporate Republic, in addition to the Neo-Asiatic Alliance, which has a policy of separation/isolationism.

Aprrenticeship: kids grow up fast. 11 is like 14, in terms of expected maturity and social responsibility. Some Starfarer shipmasters are very young, in their twenties. Around 11 or 12 they start apprenticeships with merchants, small business administrators, engineers, pilots, dockmasters, cargo bay crews, etc, so they can be the next generation of Starfarers.

Young people are also assimilating Rigelian slang, since after the war there were few jobs for young Rigelians so they and the ex-military Rigelians fled to space in search of profit. "Mamawrecker" (you can guess) and "Blixxin'" (fuckin') are examples of THEIR slang making its way into Starfarer culture

edited 24th Sep '13 6:11:45 AM by fulltimeD