Learning Lang Belta: The Basics List
Oye, xunyamwala!
This is going to serve as a go-to link to pull together links to the various lang belta learning resources I recommend to people. It'll be updated as new resources become available.
Entry Level:
The Lang Belta Memrise Course. Where everyone should begin their studies. Learn your essential phrases and vocabulary here. By the folks who brought you The Expanse Cocktails.
Lang Belta Cheat Sheet by @ItReachesOut. Original debut: Worldcon 75
Da Tékidok Da Lang Da Belta Da Lexica ("Lexica's Belter Vocabulary Spreadsheet"). This is as close to a dictionary as we currently have. Everything is sourced either to something Nick Farmer has tweeted, or confirmed via his Patreon. NOTE: the sheet “Eyepatch & Cork” is valid LB entries that Pirate made that still needs Lexica to go over it and verify the formatting. before moving to the main “Words” sheet. Yes; that is a “Dirty Rotten Shoundrels” reference.
Moving Beyond the Basics:
BELTER GRAMMAR: Tense & Aspect. Tense is about place in time (past, presesnt, future). Aspect is about relation to the low of time (ongoing, habitual, or completed actions).
BELTER GRAMMAR: Mood. Mood describes the speaker's attitude towards what they are saying. Ideas like "must", "should" "would", etc.
BELTER GRAMMAR: This, That, & Which; Interrogatives, Relatives, etc English is very casual about how one deplys words like "this", "that", "which", "who", etc. Belter is much more specific in how one says things. The interrogative such as "which(?)" are not only different from the relative "which…", there can be different words depending on number and proximity, as well as what the subject is (thing, person, time, place…)
BELTER GRAMMAR: Of Being, and Being Of: Copulas, POssessives, and Genitives (NEW 4/2020)
Written Belter: An Alternative Orthography: Why does Pirate often write the digraph "ow" as "ɒ"?
Fo finyish vedi ɒta xunyamwala (“To find other students of lang belta”):
r/LangBelta
Sharing with the Class: Questions and answers to/from Nick Farmer’s Patreon.
The Expanse Discord: Lang Belta channel
The Paine x MacTane Lang Belta Class Convention Scedule (COMING SOON): Introduction To Lang Belta taught by some of the earliest students.
Lang Belta as a Creole Conlang
Unpacking Creole Languages: a 4-part series.
Creole Exceptionalism and the Mis-Education of the Creole Speaker:
Pwof. Michel DeGraff is an MIT Linguistics Professor and creolist who helped Nick Farmer get his head wrapped around creole languages so that he could create a creole conlang.
“Unpacking” heavily cites DeGraff, and is very much an introduction to his (and related sxholars’) ideas around creole linguistics and sociology. “Mis-Education” is by DeGraff and while it’s not obtuse, but it is dense. But Pirate & Lexica Have found the comparisons of Kreyol and French very illuminating when thinking about how Belter works.
These two articles above are for people who want to know more about creole languages and the history of racism/colonialism around them, as well as get an idea of what Nick was going for when he designed lang belta.
More about Belter:
Ars Technica interviews the Creater of Belter Creole from “The Expanse”
Deciper Sci-Fi Podcast ep. 46: Language & The Expanse (w/ guest host Nick Farmer)
Nick Farmer (Lang Belta) & David J Peterson (Dothraki, Valyrian, Trigedasleng) in conversation: “The Art Of Language Invention”. Stay all the way to the end of the Q&A. Yes, Pirate manipulated his place in line so he was last Q. Yes, Pirate’s Belter was once that jankety. So keep practicing!
Nick Farmer on Geek News Radio (NEW JAN 2020)
Q&A With Nick Farmer (NEW JAN 2020)
A Silicon Valley Linguist (NEW JAN 2020)
The Belter Bartender Playlist: videos in & about Lang Belta
Nick Farmer’s Conlang Patreon. Got questions about Lang Belta (or language in general)? Wanna request new Belter words that we don’t already have? Join up, and drink from the source.