#Lang belta

[quasi-normalcy]

It just occurred to me that "-lowda" is used to connote plurals in Lang Belta because there are a load of whatever you're talking about.

[folatefangirl]

It really is a super cool conlang though. If I'd known The Expanse had a goddamn creole made for it, I'd have hopped on the bandwagon much sooner, sasa ke?

[doolallymagpie]

One thing you need to know about Ab-sum DAAAGH! Dalek-Killa is that 'e picked up a very peculiar dialect of Low Gothic from a bunch of humies 'e refers to as "da Belta-Loadaz", so 'e says stuff like "bosmang" and "beratna" alongside 'is propa Orky speech patterns

[alas-poor-cesario]

Fandom: Pacific Rim

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb

Characters: Hermann Gottlieb, Newton Geiszler

Additional Tags: gratuitous use of conlangs, Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Mando'a Pet Names (Star Wars), Lang Belta, Belter Creole (The Expanse)

Summary: Hermann wakes after the events of Pacific Rim 1, looking for Newt. A small interlude between our favourite nerds.</p><p>Written as a Valentine's Day present for one of my favourite nerds.

[lucas2101]

The fact that Belter creole is only half done and not usable as an actual language yet is deeply upsetting to me.

[theexpansefcrged]

For those that might want a refresher course or need an intro in to Lang Belta, there's a Memrise guide HERE made by one of my dear friends Iro that's incredibly useful.

[lazzerot]

I relate to your enjoyment of seeing code-switching represented on a TV show so I decided I do want to reblog this since I like the overall message of your post. Originally I did just wanna let it slide, but I can't reblog this in good conscience without commenting on one of your tags:

I don't think The Expanse as a whole is that much about settler-colonialism as it is about exploitative colonialism and in turn about imperialism in general. Granted, I haven't finished reading Babylon's Ashes yet as I'm writing this post, so maybe the Laconia plot is very settler-colonialist and I'm talking out of my ass here. If that's the case I apologize. But if it's not I just want to say this: In the Expanse canon Ganymede, Io or Ceres weren't settled by any living organism known to humans before humans gained the technology necessary to expand from earth out into the SOL system and colonized it. It's just plain "old" colonialism, which is impossible to have back on earth since every imperial expanding superpower in history colonized parts of earth that were already settled by other people. I get that from an US-American perspective "settler colonialism" is a big buzz word, but not every piece of literature is meant to be read as a metaphor for the US. In a way The Expanse's main message is one of anti-imperialism.

One of the things that i really really love about the expanse is the attention it pays to the language the characters speak. Obviously for practicality reasons the belters have to speak mostly english but the little bits of belter creole we get here and there are so distinct and feel so lived in, and i love that the show just. Refuses to translate them. You just kind of pick up the dialect over time.

I also really love the care that was put into the characters accents. Like i dont know if ive ever watched a show where a character audibly code switches like Naomi Nagata does. When we meet her she's speaking pretty standard English but when she's back with other belters her accent comes on pretty strong. Which is so cool! I feel like the only time we see characters with more than one accent is when one of them is fake because theyre like. In disguise or pretending to be someone else. Its really cool to see a character who just talks differently in different situations and it makes the whole world feel so grounded and real even tho obviously theyre like. In space.

[talesfrommedinastation]

Perhaps that’s why he caught Tanke’s gaze, sitting in that hospital bed, months ago. 

A soldier from an alien empire, his ship caught in the crossfires of the Transport Union Border patrol. Tall, thin, broad shouldered. The man could have been Sjaelland’s brother, from his buzzed hair to his razor-thin face, the circle tattoo around his eye. He spoke with a raspy voice, with words that were selected with the precision of a sharp-shooter.

'The Missing and the Murdered, Part 5' To Guard Against Titans

---------------------

Latest chapter's up. The following happens:

Hunter wakes up on Mt Tantiss.

Crosshair's ('Kros-Heya' in Lang Belta) adopted mother pulls a Tywin Lannister.

AZI saves someone.

Juno Caheere (from @wrenkenstein) makes an appearance!

As mentioned earlier in the fic, Crosshair rocks MCRN armor, but decides, at the last minute, to keep his old Clone Force 99 helmet. As seen above.

This decision has some serious consequences....for the better.

[pitaenigma]

A quality of Marco Inaros's that I wish they'd kept for the show is how, when he does interstellar transmissions, he puts on an Earther accent in the books. He doesn't do that in the show, sticking with a Belter accent throughout. Other Belters do code switch - Miller shows he can do it when he needs to be friendly to a Belter but conspicuously refuses to do so most of the time, as part of how he aligns with Earthers, Naomi does so very often. There are also Belters who don't - Prax, being well educated and working with Inners, has a fairly standard American accent, and Drummer speaks English haltingly and with a thick Belter accent because her English is much worse than Lang Belta - but I feel like having Marco be someone who does would have made him a bit more interesting.

That said, maybe it's just that if Keon Alexander drew any more attention I'd probably still be single and the showrunners were doing me a favor

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

SAVANNAH - REVELATION

[Argo internal monitoring system - record created 16.04.3025 - record last accessed 21.05.3060 - record accessed by: Precentor Omicron (PX) VI Liška]

[Record Location - MechBay Chief Tech Office - assigned to Y. Virtanen]

[sound of hatch opening]

Savannah Caruso [SC]: You called for me, Yang?

Yang Virtanen [YV]: Uh - yeah, boss, come on in. And close the hatch, wouldya?

[sound of hatch opening fully and closing, followed by locking sound]

SC: Okay, Yang, you were pretty hush-hush. Keting xox? [trans. “Lang Belta”: “What’s up?”]

YV: It, uh, it’s about the new guys, boss.

SC: Our weird’uns? 

YV: Uh, well, Melissa and her little clique, yeah. I know when we hired ‘em, them said, “don’t ask questions-”

SC: But you’ve been asking anyway.

YV: Uh - yeah. No, not asking questions, but investigating. I just didn’t buy their story. At first just about their ‘Mechs. I mean there’s lots of Belters out there that, well, uh. Go like you. Go furry.

SC: Yeah, pretty common. Okay, so you didn’t buy their story. You don’t think those new ‘Mechs are old SLDF prototypes?

YV: No, ma’am, I don’t. And I can prove that - and a lot more.

SC: That so?

[sound of chair being pulled into position - followed by pause - 2 seconds]

SC: Okay. Go.

YV: All right, so the first thing that got me weirded out was the connectors. For the cables.

SC: [unidentifiable sound - pos. expression of interest]

YV: That and how clean everything is in those ‘Mechs - not clean, like, not dusty, but how… how uniform it all was. It’s all standardized. I don’t need to tell you what that means.

SC: Either these were newly built ‘Mechs and never saw action…

YV: … or wherever they came from has functional, fully standardized ‘Mech factories. Which… they have to be factory-built. They’re just not… messy enough for prototypes.

SC: Could be late stage prototypes? Near-production?

YV: See, I thought that too. But we’ve got two of those … [sound of snapping fingers, repeated 3 times]... “Catamarauders” out there -

SC: [interrupting; sound of snorted laugh]

YV: Well, I gotta call ‘em something, boss, and Melissa and her little menagerie aren’t naming names. Anyway, if those were prototypes, even late stage, I’d expect to find some kind of difference, even tiny ones.

SC: Well, the weapons load -

YV: [interrupting] I mean at the functional component level, boss. The screws, the connectors, the O-ring seals. They’re all identical, boss, even with connecting different weapons in.

SC: Okay. Serial numbers?

YV: Scrubbed. Completely. Lasered, sanded, dremeled off. Everything-

SC: [simultaneous] Hmm.

YV: - but all the locations of the serial numbers are identical. Part to part.

SC: Okay. Okay. So they’re not prototypes. So… Keting to showxa? [trans. “Lang Belta”: “What are you saying?”]

YV: What I’m saying is that those are production ‘Mechs. And they’re not SLDF. Not all of them.

SC: Okay. Elaborate.

YV: Obviously the Lancelot, Mongoose, and that Phoenix Hawk LAM are SLDF designs. Those are in the Argo’s databanks and we know them. But the others, we don’t know, right? Well, I’m certain the other ‘Mechs are based on Star League tech. I checked. The connectors and screws and such in the new ‘Mechs - dimension-wise, they’re perfect matches for SL-Standard components, but improved. Made out of some new material compounds and seemingly a little beefed up to allow for repeated swaps in and out -

SC: [interrupting] Like the weapons.

YV: Like the weapons, but at a smaller scale. Everything seems geared towards making refits easy. Like they’re expecting to do them often. And the old Star League had a couple designs that had modular weapon setups, but this is a lot more comprehensive. Plus the weapons themselves. What they’re calling a “small laser”? Boss, that thing pumps out as much energy as a medium laser, and range wise I’m seeing a 25% increase over a normal small. It does generate more heat, but that gets into discussing those compact double heat sinks they’ve got… all the weapons are like that. Same or reduced weight and space, better range, and for the energy weapons, better energy output. They’re just better, and I can’t explain it without what might seem like some logical leaps.

[silence - 3 seconds]

SC: So you’re saying that someone has a factory out there churning out ‘Mechs with components matching Star League standards, and with weapons that are lighter, less bulky and hit harder than standard designs.

YV: Yeah, and those new weapons, well, Melissa and her little group - the way they speak about our weapons? Those better weapons aren’t prototypes or sidegrades, boss. Wherever they come from, those are standard-issue.

SC: Okay, that’s… [exhale] Pashang mi, Yang. [trans. “Lang Belta’: “Fuck me, Yang.”] I’m beginning to get an idea of where you might be going here... [pause, ½ second] They were all really chuffed to get to ride on the Argo, weren’t they?

YV: They were, boss. They were. But, I’ve got more.

SC: Go go. [trans. “Lang Belta”: “Go on.”]

YV: I was born on Bryant, not all that far from Combine space. Spacers come through, we’d hear tales. I once heard a rumor about something that happened during the First Succession War. Mysterious raiders come out of the coreward Periphery. No communication. They attack four Combine worlds - Svelvik, Trondheim, Jarret, and Richmond. They have advanced tech, seemingly modified Star League kit. One of these raiders died on Richmond - driving a pristine Lancelot.

SC: [chair shifting]

YV: Yeah, a little like the one out there. This MechWarrior killed himself to avoid capture when his ‘Mech was disabled. Some kind of suicide pill, I heard. Anyway, the ‘Mech had two insignia on it - a white Terran wolverine with blood-covered fangs, and an insignia of a landmass with “331st” on it. And get this. The raiders ‘Mechs were painted in regular army colors - regular Star League army colors. Y’know, that one shade of green - and they used SLDF tactics in battle. Had advanced full body cooling suits, slimmer, more advanced than Inner Sphere standard. Not as advanced as what we have here on the Argo, but still.

SC: Sounds like the suits our new friends had when they joined us. When was this?

YV: 2825. Two hundred years ago exactly. I cross referenced those logo descriptions with the Argo’s computer library, boss. No dice on the wolverine logo, but the other one… belonged to the SLDF 331st Royal BattleMech Division. Minnesota Division.

[silence - 1.5 seconds]

SC: The 331st didn’t go Blue Star or ELH… did they.

YV: No, ma’am. All records stop when Kerensky left.

[silence - 2 seconds]

YV: Yeah. Still not done though.

SC: [nonplussed] Oh good.

YV: Y’know how the Argo, she has that funny little habit of sneaky copying the jump logs on JumpShips we dock with?

SC: I do. We get shit for it, but Doc Murad hasn’t figured out a fix yet?

YV: Yeah, well, it turns out that applies to DropShips too, when they dock with us. Including the one that Melissa and her group docked on way back when they joined up. I had Sumire pull up the records. They used the same DropShip for quite a while.

SC: And where did it come from?

YV: First record on the DropShip’s string is at Richmond, and the JumpShip made at least one jump rimward from the coreward Periphery before that.

[silence - 4 seconds]

YV: But I don’t think they’re this Minnesota group, boss. None of them had that logo anywhere on their ‘Mechs.

SC: They didn’t have ANY insignia, as I recall.

YV: Yeah. But that’s not the kicker, boss. I know who they came from, or at least, a 99% guess. When I was doing maintenance last week on Remus’ “Catamarauder”, I accidently tripped a memory dump. There were hidden files. Including the neural config file. You know how none of them have given us their last names?

SC: [hesitantly] I do…

YV: [pause, audible swallow] Makes sense they didn’t scrub it, it’s a key file, and one that you can’t just modify without root access, except by changing the neurohelmet sync, and even then it doesn’t... [shaking exhale] Well, on Remus’ ‘Mech… and probably all of them… well, their ‘Mechs have their names, listed right there in the neural config files. Remus’ last name… is Kerensky.

[silence - 2 seconds]

SC: … fffffuuuuuck.

[other-fandoms-reblogs]

TL;dr yet.

Musings on the Belter language

(based on this article and this cheat sheet)

What I find really interesting about the Belter language is that the distinction between Us (Belters) and Them (Inners) is visible on as basic a level as personal pronouns. Many languages have nouns and adjectives to distinguish between one’s own group and the Other, however it may be defined, but Belter does not only have nouns (Inya/Belta), but pronouns. That’s one of the basic building blocks of any language, one of the first things you pick up when you learn a new one. For plural pronouns there’s the general milowda (1st person), tolowda (2nd person) and imalowda (3rd person), but you can specify which group you mean by replacing any of those with inyalowda (Inner) or beltalowda (Belter). I don’t know if there’s a parallel for that in any of the languages that Belter is based on because I don’t speak them all, but even if it is, the creator of the language chose to keep that feature, and I think that’s really interesting. It means that Belters’ alienation from the inner planets runs so deep that it’s not only in the meaning behind the words, but the structure of the language itself. It means that both in-group solidarity and othering are basic building blocks of Belter identity (although this othering probably started with the Inners, not Belters), which reflects itself in their language. And it means that there’s not a lot of space in between - you have to be either one or the other in order to fit into this linguistic system.

In this regard, Belter is very similar to another mechanism of distinction that is also reflected on the level of pronouns, namely gender markers. Belter doesn’t have those, but I think the distinction between Inners and Belters works the same way and has the same limitations as grammatical gender markers (especially in languages that don’t have the singular they option). People are assigned to one or the other based on the accident of birth, and for some people the trouble already starts there - what to do, for example, with the child of Earther parents who was born in space and therefore has the Belter physique, but is able to live on Earth thanks to their responsiveness to gravity drugs? They’d look like a Belter, but they wouldn’t be culturally, and they wouldn’t have the same set of physical and social limitations as Belters. Then, as the kid grows up, other factors come into play that result from a combination of cultural conditioning and identity formation, which complicates things further. This is where the anxiety about people like Miller in season 1, who was born and raised as a Belter but imitates Inners, or the Ilus colonists in season 4 comes from. They don’t fit neatly into one category, and since the distinction between Inners and Belters is a deeply political one, they touch a very sensitive spot, which is why accusations of treachery are never far off.

The way that different languages deal with gender are obviously very different, but I think that this supposedly clear model of ethnonational affiliation and the ambiguities it nevertheless produces are, on a fundamental level, very similar to languages with gendered pronouns and their problems of categorization. Neither the spectrum of biological sex nor of gender really fit into the neat categories that the linguistic system provides, and attempts to create space (= terms) for those who do not fit are met with anxieties and conspiracy theories because the distinction between man and woman, or Inner and Belter, is so fundamental to the language and, relatedly, the way people think that it’s hard to break through these established structures. But language eventually adapts to social realities, even though it might be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes, so I hope that eventually the inventors of the language will add another pronoun for people from the colony worlds, at least. I know that this is a lot of thoughts to have on something as basic as the term beltalowda, but the language and worldbuilding in general seem to be so well thought through that I wouldn’t entirely discount it.

[fickle-fixations]

Diogo calling you by Lang Belta romantic terms/terms of endearment

wrote this a couple years ago while watching season 1, before he became The Little Shit lol. I just found it in my drafts on my sideblog and thought it was cute

When you first meet him, he calls you kopeng. Friend. He knew he liked you from the first moment he saw you. It was like he knew that you two would have a connection. He felt that he could trust you. So he called you friend.

He’s never really called you ámawala - boyfriend/girlfriend/lover. The word didn’t feel important enough to him. The term sounded temporary. 

He prefers to refer to you as his ánkawala. His “anchor-person.” It’s not that you hold him down in any way. He calls you this because you’re his constant. When he feels lost in the chaos, he knows he can always go back to you, and you’ll keep him grounded, and stay by his side as the two of you try to make sense of this universe together.

When he’s talking to other people about you, he called you pexa. It’s the term for spouse or partner. The two of you aren’t married and you don’t yet have any plans to be, but he still finds it to be the most fitting term. You were his partner in war and in domestic life. He smiled whenever he called you pexa, because the word communicated to everyone how important you are in his life. He wanted everyone to know just how much he loves you.

When you’re together, he addresses you as ámolof mi. My love. Whether it’s in casual conversation or in passion, he always calls you ámolof mi because he never wants you to forget that his love for you is more vast than the space between the stars.

He also calls you mi setara - my star. You're his guiding light in this dark expanse, and he needs you more than anything.

Kori mi. My heart. He’s only called you this once, when he thought he was dying. He had been shot and he was bleeding out. You wanted to run for help but you also couldn’t bear to leave his side. “I be alright, Kori mi.” he said, trying to mask the pain in his voice. You promised you would be back in an instant, and you ran to find a medic. He survived, but he was out for two days, and those were the hardest, scariest two days of your life. You spent every moment by his side, willing him to survive. You hardly responded to anyone. Hardly spoke. Hardly moved. That moment kept playing over and over in your head. You kept asking yourself what you could have done differently. You kept imagining yourself killing whoever did this to him. When Diogo finally woke up, this unmoving state you had put found yourself in shattered, and you broke down crying in his arms. "You can't get rid-a me that easy, Kori mi," he laughed. "I'm not goin anywhere."

[doolallymagpie]

ashford singing chemical worker’s song in lang belta save me

ashford singing chemical worker’s song in lang belta

save me ashford singing chemical worker’s song in lang belta

[talesfrommedinastation]

I use a LOT of Lang Belta in my work, so this is awesome to have on file.

“Kewe mi sensa ere da ting deting mi ando showxa?” Mood markers in Lang Belta

Oye, xunyamwala!

The title of this article means “How do I feel about what I am saying?” because we’re going to discuss grammatical mood in Lang Belta.

And that’s what mood does, it describes the speaker’s attitude regarding what they are saying. This includes describing sentiments like “must”, “should”, “ought to”, “would”, “possibly”, “counterfactually” and others.

Previously we’ve discussed tense and aspect in detail as part of Tense-Aspect-Mood Grammar, and how Lang Belta has markers for each.

To briefly recap using showxa:

Unmarked verbs are present tense. Mi showxa. “I speak.”

Ta is the past tense marker. Mi ta showxa. “I spoke.”

Gonya is the future tense marker. Mi gonya showxa. “I will speak.”

Ando is the continuous aspect marker. Mi ando showxa. “I am speaking.”

Tili is the habitual aspect marker. Mi tili showxa. “I regularly speak.”

Finyish is the perfective aspect marker. Mi finyish showxa. “I have spoken/I had spoken.” (contextual)

Grammar in Belter is strictly subject-verb-object, and there is no passive construction; one uses the indefinite 3rd person plural imim as subject instead. “They/It” (unspecified) did/said it.

ENGLISH: “Sins were comitted”.

BELTER: Imim ta du papeka. (“They committed sins.”)

ENGLISH: “Things happened.”

BELTER: Imim ta du ting. (“It did things”)

Sentences in Lang Belta can have 1 tense (place in time) and 1 aspect (relationship to the flow of time), but multiple moods.

So, mood markers.

English uses modal verbs for words like “can” and “should”. Unlike in English, Belter mood markers are not verbs themselves, but auxiliary modifiers to a verb, just like tense and aspect markers. There still needs to be a verb for the mood marker to modify, (even if it’s the silent copula.

As far as the way mood markers in Belter behave, Nick gave the following answer regarding the mood marker fosho to a question on his Patreon:

“fosho always denotes the speaker’s belief, and modifies a verb, but it can move to emphasise the word after fosho”.

This is, I believe, an important indicator how how mood markers work in general in LB. The balance of this article will assume that this is the case (unless/until corrected by Nick).

The mood markers that Nick has mentioned publicly are:

Fosho (belief): Mi fosho ta vedi im. “I saw it (and I believe that I am right).” Fosho mi ta vedi im. “I (and not someone else) saw it.”

Fosho fosho (confidently held belief): Mi fosho fosho ta vedi im. “I saw it (and I have no doubts whatsoever).” Fosho Fosho mi ta vedi im. = “I absolutely was the one who saw it.”

NOTE: Mi pensa is both “I think” as well as “I believe”. Mi ando pensa ere is “I am thinking about”, which is how Belter describes having thoughts, contemplation.

Mogut fo (should, ought to): Mi mogut fo showxa. “I should speak.” Mogut fo mi fo showxa. “I (rather than someone else) should speak.”

Mowsh (must, have to): To mowsh showxa. “You must speak (rather than keep silent).” Mowsh to showxa. “You (rather than somebody else) must speak.“

Deng fo (would): Mi deng fo showxa, amash mi nasunte. “I would speak, but I am unwell.”

Kang (capability): Mi kang showxa. “I can speak".

Mebi (subjunctive):

To quote Nick again:

“Let’s just say that if you ever studied a Romance language and the subjunctive tripped you up, mood in #LangBelta might be a challenge”

Nick goes on in that twitter thread to give several examples of using mebi in a sentence that seem a bit confusing. But if we understand what the subjunctive mood does, and combine that with understanding of how mood markers move around a sentence explained above, how the sentences work in Belter become much clearer.

The subjunctive is an “irrealis mood”; it describes that things that are, in some sense, “unreal”; things which have not happened, things which might yet happen, counterfactuals, conditionals, things other than which the speaker knows to be “real”.

NOTE: while mebi has an etymological root in the English word “maybe”, they are not the same and mebi is used differently.

Let’s look at the examples Nick gave. In each of the following sentences, mebi

A: modifies the verb showxa (“to say”) and

B: moves around so that the word(s) following mebi are “subjunctive”, i.e. “irrealis”.

Im showxa ‘ya’”. “He says ‘yes’”

Im kang showxa ‘ya’”. “He can say ‘yes’” (is capable of)

Im mebi showxa “ya”. “He might say ‘yes’ (it is possible)”

Im mebi kang showxa “ya”. “He might be capable of saying ‘yes’”

Im mebi mebi showxa ‘ya’”. It’s possible (though unlikely) that he says ‘yes’”.

Fairly straightforward, right? But it can be subtle.

Mi pensa im ta showxa “ya” = I think he said “yes”

Mi pensa im mebi ta showxa “ya” = I think he said “yes” (but I’m not certain)

Mi pensa im ta showxa mebi “ya” = I think he said yes (but maybe he said something else)

Mi pensa mebi im ta showxa “ya” = I think it was him who said yes (but maybe it was someone else)

One thing I’ve noted is that Nick has never tweeted a sentence with the word sili (“if”) without also using mebi. Which leads me to suspect that “if” statements in lang belta might necessarily be subjunctive:

Sili im mebi kom, deng showxa mi = If he comes, then tell me. (Here the if/when he’s coming is the “irrealis” as it may it may not come to pass.)

Mi du mowteng du walowda walowda fosh wowk sili mi mebi gonya du wang wit da OPA, “I must do a lot of practice if I am possibly going to join the OPA.”

Ere Sirish na desh zakong, bera zakomang. To na sasa natim sili imim mebi kom fo leta-go to fongi fode, “On Ceres there are no laws, only cops. You don’t never know if someone will possibly come to take you away.”

Mi Fosho Fosho du mowteng vedi S4! Mi mebi gonya decho sili mi mebi na vedi im ematim! Oso, mogut fo to du wang wit milowda ere da channel da Discord da Expanse.

(“I absolutely need to see s4! I might die if I don’t see it soon! Also, you should join us on the Expanse Discord Channel.”)

[optionalcausality]

There's an excellent post about how societal 'defaults' are often highly political, and fictional worlds that acknowledge this in their worldbuilding will often feel more complete and more complex. The primary example given in the post I'm thinking of involves language -- because if a setting has a specific language as the default, then a lot had to happen in the setting's past to make it that way.

And I have really enjoyed settings/works that examined this. Some examples:

The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik starts at a magical school where English was the default language track for many years because London and New York were some of the biggest contributors to the project. Mandarin was added much later, and it's a major plot point that the main character doesn't start off knowing who all the powerhouses at the school are, because the primarily Spanish-speaking students and Hindi-speaking students and Mandarin-speaking students don't necessarily hang out together with the primarily English-speaking kids outside of class.

The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One (a fantastic podcast and actual play show) straight-up names a language Imperial. The Empire and its conflicts and how that shapes the setting are a major theme.

The Expanse (both novels and the live-action series) show how successive waves of immigration led to a creole language, lang Belta, and how it ties in with inter-planetary politics and identity and socioeconomic privilege.

It's just neat to see how language and societal expectations around it can make setting and characterization so much richer.

[carp-from-space]

You know what lang belta misses? Kurwa. Where is it? Its unlikely it did not made into the belt. If Avasarala can serve so hard with classics like "Try not to stick your dicks in it" and "You want a little ass-play, that's your business.", or "roll that up and fuck it" why aren't belters more in tune with good old working class kurwa?

Ok, now back to Avasarala business. I need her book of proverbs on my shelf.