Space Cockney/Creole/Patois

[Fenris-77]

Doing the genealogical work to create fresh rhyming slang is super fun.

 

[GuyBoy]

Gor blimey, me ole cobber, sounds like you’ll be ‘avin a right larf in yer old tomcat, wot wig all them space gavvers, beamin’ Up, down and owls yer father!
You’ll be needin’ one o these ‘ere hayzzee fantazzees wot me dear ole cousin, God rest his soul, gave me as his dyin’ wish. Normally I’d ‘ave to ask a bullseye, but you can ‘ave it for a pony, us bein’ mates an’ all.

(RIP my old Uncle Fred, who “learned” me all this when I was a kid)

 

[Umbran]

I just spent the weekend running Coyote & Crow for new audiences. That game is loaded with new words for things. That vocabulary, which I thought was kind of cool, proved to be a bit of barrier to entry. When the players are still learning what the words mean, it greatly slows their integration of new material.

So, there's a warning to be had about new words - use them sparingly. There's likely a sweet spot - few for flavor, a few for things that don't actually exist in the real world, but not a whole lot more than that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I just spent the weekend running Coyote & Crow for new audiences. That game is loaded with new words for things. That vocabulary, which I thought was kind of cool, proved to be a bit of barrier to entry. When the players are still learning what the words mean, it greatly slows their integration of new material.

So, there's a warning to be had about new words - use them sparingly. There's likely a sweet spot - few for flavor, a few for things that don't actually exist in the real world, but not a whole lot more than that.

I try to put all the unusual words in the mouth of one character and have everyone else -- including the actual players -- just use ordinary game terms. If that NPC proves to be successful, everyone else will understand the lingo soon enough, and if not, Poochy dies on the way back to his home planet and the experiment ends.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I just spent the weekend running Coyote & Crow for new audiences. That game is loaded with new words for things. That vocabulary, which I thought was kind of cool, proved to be a bit of barrier to entry. When the players are still learning what the words mean, it greatly slows their integration of new material.

So, there's a warning to be had about new words - use them sparingly. There's likely a sweet spot - few for flavor, a few for things that don't actually exist in the real world, but not a whole lot more than that.

My first experiences with that kind of difficulty came with the slang in cyberpunk RPGs. A lot of those faves are filled with slang and jargon, and it can be difficult to use & understand- what’s second nature to characters is effectively a new language to the players & GMs.

A lot of times, things get slowed down doing subsequent translations. And sometimes, the slang gets completely abandoned after a while.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And sometimes, the slang gets completely abandoned after a while.

Clueless berks are everywhere.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Soooo…let’s say a “blaster” costs 100cr. Spockney rhyming slang for 100cr could be “Casper”, for instance, which could evolve further into “The Friendly Ghost”.

In retrospect, ditch what I said about the 100cr amount. It makes more sense that spockney slang for a blaster should be “Casper”, “Casper the Friendly Ghost”, or “A”/“The Friendly Ghost.” without regard to its price.

What about staple Sci-Fi weapons like needle guns, rocket pistols, and monofilament/energy swords?

Needle Gun: Hive, Clinic

Rocket Pistol: Raccoon, Miss L,

Monofilament/Energy swords: Foil, Flash n Slash, Party Favor

 

[Fenris-77]

As a player I'm often quite happy to have my attempts at slang or patois be somewhat impenetrable to the other players. As an more general writing goal for a game I find it tiresome.

 

[General_Tangent]

This is different than what you're suggesting, but I'd consider taking a page from Firefly and imagine future London has a much more diverse sets of languages in use and, much like Spanish in California, pretty much everyone in London knows and uses some words of (take your pick) Polish, Romanian, Panjabi or Urdu.

While the web page you mention discusses languages in England and Wales, there are a few that have slipped our governments notice.

Places like Hammersmith and Golders Green have a larger Jewish population so you're more likely to hear words taken from Hebrew out of context.

Neasden has a large Hindu temple which again influences the local area.

Kingston and New Malden are home to a number of Korean people, complete with shops having signs in a variety of languages.

London is indeed a vast melting pot of people, cultures and languages. Heck I once saw a job advertised in Central London that requires the applicant to speak Afrikaans.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

While the web page you mention discusses languages in England and Wales, there are a few that have slipped our governments notice.

Places like Hammersmith and Golders Green have a larger Jewish population so you're more likely to hear words taken from Hebrew out of context.

Neasden has a large Hindu temple which again influences the local area.

Kingston and New Malden are home to a number of Korean people, complete with shops having signs in a variety of languages.

London is indeed a vast melting pot of people, cultures and languages. Heck I once saw a job advertised in Central London that requires the applicant to speak Afrikaans.

Southern California is the same way. One can go driving in Los Angeles and then, without warning, look around and find they're on a block where all of the signs, except the street signs, are in Urdu. A block later, there's no sign that you passed through any sort of ethnic enclave.

I suspect technology is going to make it possible to have more small languages and ethnic communities, rather than homogenizing them out of existence, as previously happened.