Language

The most common spoken tongue throughout the galaxy was originally a trade language, composed of a variety of terms from various Earth tongues, called polyglot. Polyglot grew initially from a commutation of slang terms in an age where humanity was largely confined to a single star system and communication was fast and easy.
Generally-speaking, characters who have had any interaction with those outside their home community can be assumed to have some proficiency in polyglot, as can most characters raised in corporate space.
Space is very large, however, and a variety of languages have emerged due to isolation or cultural tradition.
*The ICC conducts all meetings and news feeds and reels in Polyglot. Any ICC member colony receives Own Language rating in Polyglot and whatever other colonial language is locally spoken.
*Free colonies speak a number of languages, usually distant descendants of Earth cultural tongues; very few colonial languages are entirely new. Example colonial languages follow:
**Chjagyar, initially a creole of numerous Asian and Germanic tongues, has persisted for some time.
**Sweifrikaans, an extremely lilting, rhythmic language considered by linguists to be 'Earth global'.
**Muscojeek, descended from an Amerindian, Indian, and Greek-heavy colony.
*Many Omni-Tek worlds speak Rubikon, a romance language known for its highly enunciated expressions and the ease with which acronyms can be interpreted.
**Curiously, the Krmija of Aldebaran II speak a creole of Rubikon and the ancient Earth languages 'Arabic' and 'Cantonese'. They can usually speak Rubikon in addition to their own language.
*Hemophage communities have two languages.
**Mora, the Ladiszlian separatist language, is a Slavic tongue descended from their Earth home language of 'Georgian'. Its alphabet has not changed in all this time.
**Strix, the true hemophages' language, is also Slavic but from a different region. Its terminology and pronunciation differ so strongly that speakers of either language cannot understand each other; additionally, Strix uses the Cyrillic alphabet, therefore the written forms are utterly incomprehensible.
*Martian communities tend to speak a language called 'Pravic' that caters to their community/herd-oriented cultural norms. Pravic has difficulty expressing concepts of private property, and lacks any real vulgarities.
*Autregrand language groups are not widely understood outside of Autregrand space. There seem to be several distinct branches of the Autregrand linguistic tree, suggesting some degree of stratification in their society. Ancient romance languages are known to be a root of the language group, although so far divorced from Rubikon as to be mutually unintelligible. Of particular note is that Autregrand language is highly dogmatic and ritualized, as if the language was constructed to be hostile to the development of slang or acronyms.
*ArmaTech corporate lingua developed from multicultural mercenaries operating under Arma oversight, and so the ArmaTech tongue - Teamspeak - incorporates fairly standard tactical hand signals as motions of emphasis and additional meaning to the spoken language, which is itself a creole of Rubikon and Chjagyar. Accordingly, it's pretty strange.
*Psi-Corps incorporates telepathy into their language, internally, as it is the single most common discipline. Gestures supplement telepathy, for those who lack the ability. Most PCO citizens born into the ship environment speak only Polyglot, but communicate more readily via hand sign and telepathy.
*Other tribal cultures
*NCR makes use of Polyglot in line with the wishes of the Sponsors as its official language. However, among the colonies all sorts of languages are common, and it isn't unusual to come across worlds which feature signs and advertisements both in Polyglot and the native tongue. During the Old Republic, Polyglot was made illegal in an effort to purge the sector of corporate influence. The language officially adopted by the Old Republic was the ancestral language of Callas Prime, Callene. Since Reconstruction, Callene has fallen into disuse, being cited as a vulgar language. Using Callene words or phrases is grounds for dismissal from the work place for unprofessional conduct. It's popular amongst the elderly, revivalist factions and criminals.
*MayGenE language is a flowing, soft consonant tongue that is at least somewhat rooted in whatever language the Phostons used to speak. Many of its words have bizarre and seemingly nonsensical meanings, such as vuzsar, which means 'she who flogs the beautiful man at night.' "Hard" words such as phlangbot and marvonx are considered vulgar and incredibly offensive, especially to higher castes. Lower castes such as the military and the labor force have their own dialects and slang, which are considered uncouth to the elite.
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