We need a new language. More specifically, we need a new name for the mangled mess of what English has become in The Mutant Epoch. It’s hundreds of years in the future, humanity has been mostly destroyed and thrown to the four winds, mutants and monsters roam the blasted wasteland, and most of the culture and history of the “Ancients” (us) has been lost. There is little to no education, the survivors have been reduced to a mostly tribal state, and hope is far, far away.
The common language, at least in the default setting of the Crossroads Region (what used to be southern California), is very loosely based on modern day American English (which is already a mess in 2020). I think we need a new name for it. Not just “English” or “common” but something unique to the setting that represents a hybrid of multiculturalism taken to the Nth degree, language-wise.
What would the people in this age call what they speak? Would they even have a frame of reference to understand why the ancient’s language was called English? And since it’s southern California, would they all talk like Saturday Night Live’s “The Californians” characters? If you don’t understand that reference, you just gotta look it up on YouTube.
Even today, it’s sometimes hard for people like me in my 50’s to understand what the younger generation is saying. They have a whole new dictionary of slang terms that I just don’t understand. That’s not a bad thing. I’m not against the changes in the language. But imagine how big that understanding gap would be if I could somehow throw myself to the year 2364 (the default year of the setting). Even though we’d technically be speaking the same language, I’d bet I would not understand it any more than I can understand Cantonese or Swahili.
So what do we call it? Any suggestions? Here’s a few of my ideas, awful as they might be:
Anglush, Hooman, Spatter, Lingish, Tako, Sprik, Lingvo, Yuyu, Linga.
Yeah, I know… horrible names. Please let me know if you got something good!
Dice Mechanic 
I belive English is known as ‘English’ (or ‘Inglish’ or ‘Englisch’) at least since the times of William the Conqueror and so I don’t think much will change in the next 300 years, even with civilization collapsing along the way. What I think would happen however, is that common English would splinter into innumerable dialects. I live in Carpathian mountains and until 50-60 years ago literally every village here would speak a slightly different dialect. Unfortunately, such ‘tower of Babel’ effect doesn’t translate well into roleplaying.
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