The Word Language in Cybersmily's Cyberpunk 2020 World | World Anvil

The Word

The Word is a creole of the Highriders. It is composed of words from French, German, English, Japanese, Swahili, Yoruba, and Igbo. Often removing a letter or two from a word or dropping a syllable.

Vocabulary

Aerials - To do zero-G gymnastics
Apagee - The best
Arbita - Worker(s)/Labors/Workganger
Bas - low
Breath Vac - To run out of air
Belt, Belting - Main asteroid belt, living/working in the Belt.
Belta - Belter someone who lives/works in the belt
Bure - Free, also the name of a Highrider nation

Chool - tough
Config - to arrange something

Dance - braindance The Dark - space
Delat'd - to make maximum speed to somewhere
Dirt Sniffer - See Groundsider
Drop Out - return to the gravity well
Dock - to meet someone, also to have sex with

Et/Eta - Eat/Eater

Go LEO - to leave the gravity well to Low Earth Orbit
Groundsider - Someone who is rarely in space
Gee - weight or gravity
GoopBall - a ball of sicky polymer which can be used to seal small pressure violations temporarily.
Grab Gee - To spend time in a gravity field.
Grav - See Gee
Gyousha - traders

Icus - short for the Luna base Copernicus Irawo - star

Kasi - to go fast, speed
Kranston - to become violently space-sick

lun - luna, the moon

Mtumwa - derogatory term for corporate workers in space. Mostly applies to new arrivals from Earth.

Ngozi - outer hull of a ship/facility. Comes from the Swahili word for skin.

Ogagun - Captain of a ship
Ominira/Omini - Independent

Popsicle - frozen corpse, usually from a ship wreck

Rad - radiation, also a dose of radiation

Salv - retrieve space junk, for a reward.
Sauti - voice, opinion.
Signal - Personal style.
Spaca - another term for spacer

Tike - short form of Tycho luna base

Wassa - Water
Watu - People, the people. Often used by Highrider to describe themselves.
The Word - the spacers own creole

Zeit Shite - Shit Time, or having a bad time, The usual connotation is imminent death.

Dictionary

42 Words.