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Rigellian: the science-fictional inhabitants of a shiny blue star

There are many phrases from traditional and present day SF that continue to be unresearched, and the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction will be continuously updated, specifically as extra sources are put online. Boing Boing is syndicating new entries from the HDSF on a ordinary basis. (Read the collection introduction.)

Rigellian (noun, adjective, and the language)

We have mentioned demonyms on various occasions: these are phrases that refer to human beings from a specific place. Given the very giant range of stars in the universe[citation needed], there is an efficiently limitless grant of viable locations the place aliens can live; finding out which actual (or fictional) worlds may want to be inhabited, and accordingly ought to generate demonyms, is a hard task.



However, there don't seem to be that many stars having established names, and SF writers have been positing inhabitants of their (perhaps nonexistent) planetary structures for many decades. We have entries for Aldebaranian, Alpha Centurian, Betelgeusean, Sirian, and Tau Cetan, all from the Thirties or earlier, and we have draft entries for many others, inclusive of Altairian, Arcturan, Denebian, and Fomalhautian.

Today's entry is the cluster of phrases named after Rigel, the blue supergiant in the constellation Orion. There are, as usual, three associated entries, for the noun, denoting an inhabitant of the system; the adjective; and the (rare) noun referring to the language of Rigellians. The important noun and adjective each date from the 1930s, and continue to be in use to the current day. Between this and Betelgeuse, we've got probable exhausted the most important candidates from Orion (not many humans are writing about the natives of Bellatrix or Alnilam, the third- and fourth-brightest stars in that constellation), so whatever's next, it's going to be time to cross on.