Editing Stars Without Number: Back in Black (section)

=== Language & Culture ===

*All PCs receive at least two languages at generation.  English, a second language of their choice (One of these two should be the most common language on their world of origin), a number of languages equal to their intelligence bonus, and the most common language of any world for which they have at least Culture 0.  
*Superior maintenance of written records and standard reference works has done a lot to stave off the worst of linguistic drift, although of course there are dialects everywhere.  For this reason, most languages in wide use are the very close descendants of modern languages.  Also, it's much more fun to have characters using languages we know than it is to make up a dozen with no pre-existing cultural connotation for the players.  Because it's fun, we'll also assume that at least some cultural traces of Earth cultures survive in those civilizations that have inherited their languages.
*The languages most common in the State cluster are: Mandarin, English, Hindustani, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, French, Afrikaans.  There are also a few worlds with their own offshoot languages.