NIVELO is the
Esperanto
word for LEVEL. Bilingual signs in the corridors of the
ship indicate what level you're on. Esperanto is a real language,
developed in the 1880s by the Polish ophthalmologist L.L. Zamenhof. In
the "Kryten" episode,
Rimmer
is shown trying (and failing) to learn Esperanto from a videotape. In
the same episode, Kryten, Lister, and Holly all demonstrate familiarity
with the language. In "Back to Reality", the crew meets the despair
squid while salvaging the SSS Esperanto...