Human Standard

Human Standard, Standard English, or simply Standard is a standardized dialect of English, acting as the de facto official language of Governance and as the largest lingua franca for Humanity. Standard was initially engineered a formal middle-ground between English dialects and to supersede the pre-existing informal usage of English as a Lingua Franca, though it has since become a home language on several Colonies. Pre-existing English dialects continue to exist independently of Standard.

Known Features

• Ryouko claims a lack of honorics
• Retains noun inflection for number

Quotes

""Au Contraire, nee‐chan," Yuma said boisterously, as they walked through the doors. "She respects my privacy. She has to. It was part of the deal." She said "deal" in colloquial English, playing with the word's accent with the fluency of a practiced speaker, emphasizing the pronunciation differences with Human Standard."

—Chapter 8

""Speaking in Human Standard was a bit awkward, Ryouko realized. For her, it was a language practiced in the classroom, or encountered in various forms online. She had certainly done far more than her fair share of reading and hearing the language but, as she was realizing now, almost never spoke it. The language module in her brain certainly helped, but there were still irregularities. For example, she was so used to placing honorifics onto the names of those she didn't know, especially in formal environments, that she had stumbled and placed the Japanese version onto "Kishida", when Standard had no honorifics. It hadn't helped that she had been forced to do a snap‐search for Maki's surname, since she had apparently never looked it up or heard it from any of the others. "

—Chapter 10

""Oh, uh, yes, er, sir?" she managed, confused, for some reason pulling out the Human Standard "sir" rather than "Sakura‐san"."

—Chapter 14

"Visions? Juliet repeated back to her. You've had more than one?

Ryouko mentally reviewed the syntax of her last sentence. Yes, "visions"—that was what she had said.

'Damn Standard and its declensions!' she thought, even though she knew very well that telepathy carried no ambiguity, regardless of what surface language was used."

—Chapter 25

""Is this world even worth saving? What exactly have I been fighting for? Answer me! I'm ordering you to tell me! If you don't, then…"
— Graffiti found inscribed into mesa‐spire on the planet San Giuseppe, language Human Standard, noted into log by arboreal patrol drone XK‐2A57 immediately prior to removal."

—Chapter 8

""I didn't expect to see you here," someone next to her said, in Standard. "You are the real Sakura Kyouko, right?" "Yeah, that'd be me," Kyouko said—and resisted the urge to move her hands to her mouth in shock. That was her voice? Standard was a blunt, straightforward language—probably why she liked it—but the high‐pitched lilt she had just spoken with ruined the effect entirely."

—Chapter 53

""You're talking about Machina, aren't you?" MG interrupted, hastening the conversation even though it didn't help her. "Machina, Mami's tactical computer, and Clarisse, Shizuki Ryouko's." In her lack of processing power, she had very nearly said "belonging to Shizuki Ryouko", running into a wording glitch in Standard. You couldn't say that about one of them. If there was one thing to be said for machine language, it wasn't ambiguous unless it wanted to be."

—Chapter 58

""I'll keep that in mind," Yuma said. "And for the record, I have no good idea what's in this base, just that it may not be very friendly. I couldn't tell you much more about that even if I wanted to." Precisely worded, to the limits of Standard, and Yuma could tell the woman had caught that nuance."

—Chapter 61

Trivia

• All dialogue for the translation of Standard into 21st century English uses American spellings, unless quoting from another source (c33)
• There is one instance in the translation of "y'all" (c68)