Language & Common Term Questions
Under the CTA, a standardized trade language was adopted early on to ensure communication across sectors. While it draws from older tongues, it has been heavily regularized, stripping away irregularities and regionalisms. Local dialects persist privately, but official and practical life demands the CTA standard.
Dialects appear mainly in the periphery, where CTA Standard blends with older local speech. These dialects are tolerated so long as Standard remains the language of contracts and terminals. In fringe zones, workers often shift between the two.
The standardized language has an extensive vocabulary for trade, process, and system operation, but it lacks many poetic or metaphorical forms. Words for inefficiency, waste, or deviation tend to be precise and negative. Slang exists, but much of it borrows technical terms and repurposes them.
Patience and silence are valued. Pushing ahead or asking unnecessary questions marks you as disruptive. Greeting is minimal. People know the system will move eventually, so impatience is considered childish.
Because language is framed around utility and procedure, people are conditioned to think in terms of systems and flows. The absence of broad metaphorical vocabulary means that abstract thought often defaults to logistical or mechanical comparisons.
Since the language was engineered for precision, metaphor was intentionally pared away. This makes it difficult to express abstract feelings, poetry, or layered meaning. Emotion is described mechanically (“she runs hot,” “he’s out of sync”) because the words for deeper nuance simply don’t exist in Standard.
The CTA language was formalized alongside the Authority’s founding at 0 CY. It was an engineered amalgamation of several pre-war trade tongues, stripped of irregular grammar and simplified into an efficient, standardized system. The intent was less about cultural preservation and more about administrative clarity. Over time, it has changed to better suit the needs of those who use it.
Several pre-war trade pidgins share similarities, particularly in their clipped grammar and technical borrowings. But none achieved the same universality. The CTA language is both a descendant of these pidgins and their enforced conclusion.