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<blockquote data-quote="Samothdm" data-source="post: 703170" data-attributes="member: 5473">Slightly off topic maybe but I think it's related:Why do most campaign settings have dozens of human languages, but only &quot;Elvish&quot; and &quot;Dwarven&quot;?&nbsp; Why would elves or dwarves on one side of a continent speak the exact same language as the elves and dwarves on the other side?&nbsp; That doesn't make sense to me.I have different languages of elven, dwarven, etc. just like I have different ones for my humans.&nbsp; It makes the &quot;racial language&quot; bonuses a moot point, so I let players select other languages to fill up those racial language bonuses with other languages based on the languages that are commonly spoken in the area where they were born.I have a pretty extensive language tree, by continent, listing which languages are spoken in each country of that continent, and which of those languages have become the default &quot;common&quot; tongue for that continent.&nbsp; The &quot;common&quot; tongue is actually not really like common at all in my world.&nbsp; I treat it more like Latin in that it's the speech used by the nobility and the clergy for politics and trade.&nbsp; An average 1st level commoner living in a particular country in my world would not speak the &quot;common&quot; tongue because it's of no use to him.&nbsp; He would speak the language that his parents spoke, which is most likely his country's language (using a real world example, during the Middle Ages, an English peasant wouldn't know how to speak common and wouldn't really be able to speak with and understand a French or Spanish transplant into his country.&nbsp; But, he'd be able to speak with his neighbors with no problem whatsoever).&nbsp; The elves and dwarves in my world live amongst the humans so they may also speak these &quot;country languages&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Samothdm, post: 703170, member: 5473"] Slightly off topic maybe but I think it's related: Why do most campaign settings have dozens of human languages, but only "Elvish" and "Dwarven"? Why would elves or dwarves on one side of a continent speak the exact same language as the elves and dwarves on the other side? That doesn't make sense to me. I have different languages of elven, dwarven, etc. just like I have different ones for my humans. It makes the "racial language" bonuses a moot point, so I let players select other languages to fill up those racial language bonuses with other languages based on the languages that are commonly spoken in the area where they were born. I have a pretty extensive language tree, by continent, listing which languages are spoken in each country of that continent, and which of those languages have become the default "common" tongue for that continent. The "common" tongue is actually not really like common at all in my world. I treat it more like Latin in that it's the speech used by the nobility and the clergy for politics and trade. An average 1st level commoner living in a particular country in my world would not speak the "common" tongue because it's of no use to him. He would speak the language that his parents spoke, which is most likely his country's language (using a real world example, during the Middle Ages, an English peasant wouldn't know how to speak common and wouldn't really be able to speak with and understand a French or Spanish transplant into his country. But, he'd be able to speak with his neighbors with no problem whatsoever). The elves and dwarves in my world live amongst the humans so they may also speak these "country languages". [/QUOTE]

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