Belter Creole

Development

Belter Creole first appeared in the 2011 novel Leviathan Wakes, the opening book of The Expanse series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who wrote under the pen name James S.A. Corey. In the novels, the language was not fully developed—it lacked a complete vocabulary, grammar, sound system, and writing system. Instead, it was a blend of words from many languages, presented mostly as a dialect mixed into English dialogue. The authors chose words based on how they sounded, not with the intention of creating a real language, and used it to make readers feel like outsiders to the culture.

When the language was later expanded for the television adaptation, the novel’s authors advised fans to learn the TV version rather than the book version. Linguist and polyglot Nick Farmer was hired to build the constructed language for the show during the first season’s production between 2014 and 2015. Ty Franck recommended Farmer for the job, as they had worked together previously. In the universe of The Expanse, set roughly 200 years in the future, Belters—people living in the asteroid belt and the moons of the outer planets—use this language.

It began as a pidgin spoken by colonists from Earth who came speaking many different languages, and over generations it evolved into a creole. The language has multiple dialects and accents that vary from place to place; Farmer has stated that the vocabulary and grammar rules seen in the show and shared by him represent the dialect spoken on Ceres. Farmer modeled the creole on English, with influences from Romance languages like Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian; Germanic languages such as German, Dutch, and Swedish; Slavic languages including Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian; and also Japanese, Chinese, Persian, Hindi, Arabic, Hebrew, Zulu, and others. He created over 1,000 words, adding more when the show’s producers or fans asked for them.

Phonology

According to Farmer, there is no standardized orthography of Belter Creole within the universe; variants are used in different parts of the asteroid belt and outer planets. Although all of Farmer's posts and written appearances in the TV series use the Latin script, the language can also be written with other writing systems. The standard alphabet used by Farmer for the TV series script and his Twitter posts includes 24 letters of the Latin script, omitting J and Q from the standard 26-letter English alphabet.

Farmer's script also includes five digraphs (⟨ch⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨ny⟩, ⟨ow⟩, ⟨sh⟩) and one trigraph (⟨dzh⟩). Letters ⟨c⟩ and ⟨h⟩ appear only in the digraphs ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨sh⟩ and the trigraph ⟨dzh⟩, while ⟨j⟩ and ⟨q⟩ appear only in loanwords. As an exception, ⟨c⟩ is sometimes used in place of ⟨k⟩, as in copeng (usually kopeng) and condenashang (usually kondenashang). Farmer also uses the turned alpha (⟨Ɒ⟩, ⟨ɒ⟩) as an alternative spelling for the digraph ⟨ow⟩, representing the open back rounded vowel; for example, owkwa (water) can be spelled ɒkwa.

The acute accent placed above ⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨o⟩, and ⟨u⟩ indicates different-than-usual stress in word pronunciation, as in ámolof (love), idzhifobék (weak), belówt (blood), and gútegow (ready). When forming compounds, epenthetic vowels ⟨a⟩ or less commonly ⟨e⟩ are sometimes added, as in bekedabúsh, nakangepensa, túngeting, and imalowda. Consonants at morpheme boundaries can also be elided, as in kowmang and zákomang. In most cases, primary stress falls on the penultimate syllable, as in showxa, seteshang, and gufovedi; words with stress on a different syllable are marked with an acute accent.

Grammar

Nouns in Belter Creole are not inflected for grammatical number; for example, mang can mean both a person and people. Quantity is determined by quantifiers, numerals, or context, such as wang mang (one person) and tu mang (two people). Pronouns are an exception, having both singular and plural forms. Adjectives follow the nouns they modify, as in setara mali (little star).

Nouns can also serve as adjectives and follow the nouns they modify; for instance, diye beref (birthday) comes from diye (day) and beref (birth). Many verbs are formed by adding du (do, make) before a noun, such as du ámolof (to love) from the noun ámolof (love). Adding the prefix du- to a verb can change its meaning, as in du-sensa (apologize) from sensa (feel). The language has two articles: indefinite wa (a, an) and definite da (the).

The indefinite article marks an indefinite noun phrase, as in Tenye wa diye beref gut. (Have a happy birthday). The definite article marks a definite noun phrase, as in Kepelésh da seteshang? (Where is the station?).

When a noun is marked with da, any attributive nouns or adjectives must also be so marked, as in da setara da mali (the little star). The definite article is sometimes used before a person's name, such as da Naomi. There are two sets of three pronouns, each with singular and plural forms; all pronouns are gender-neutral. Plural pronouns are formed by adding the suffix -lowda to singular pronouns.

The language has three basic tenses: past, present, and future. Sentences without tense indicators are in the present tense, e.g., mi showxa (I speak). The past tense is indicated by adding ta after the pronoun, e.g., mi ta showxa (I spoke). The future tense is indicated by adding gonya after the pronoun, e.g., mi gonya showxa (I will speak).

In popular culture

Belter Creole, a constructed language from the TV series The Expanse, appears in a handful of songs commissioned for the show. These are covers of "Tighten Up," "Highway Star," and "All by Myself" (retitled "I'm All Alone"). The lyrics were reworked to match the series' setting, blending Belter Creole with English. The songs aired in the first and third seasons, which debuted in 2015 and 2018.

Full versions were included on the Collector's Edition soundtrack, released on December 13, 2019. Justin Young performed the cover of "Tighten Up," originally by The Black Keys, for the first season's premiere episode "Dulcinea." Cory Todd performed the cover of Deep Purple's "Highway Star," swapping the original's car references for a spaceship. Ghian Wright performed "I'm All Alone," the renamed version of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself."

Both "Highway Star" and "I'm All Alone" were used in the third-season episode "Delta-V." In January 2022, the Twitter accounts of NASA and the European Space Agency posted messages in Belter Creole.