Does Language Matter?

[Drow Jones]

Our group consists of 5 linguists, so yes, there's a heavy focus on languages and their relations to each other. We have different proficiency levels for PCs (a condenced Rolemaster table), language relation trees, etc...

When using Decipher Script skill your character deduces parts of grammar, syntax and semantics from the unknown text based on how high your roll was. If you have mastered related languages you get synergy bonuses.

There's more, but I guess this gives you an overall idea on our take.

- DJ

 

[AGGEMAM]

We use the FR languages. And we have two levels of fluency; fluent and native. Fluent means you can communicate just fine and understand pratically every owrd in the language, however very special words you wont understand, also try to pass as someone from the particular region and/or race of that languages requires a succesful Bluff check to fool one that is native in the language. Native means just that, you're native in the language.

 

[Peskara]

We use homebrew languages. I voted that there is moderate emphasis on them, but I'm not really sure what moderate is in comparison to.

The languages we use include some homebrew variations on some of the PHB languages like the elemental tongues, fiendish (Pria Kumureth) and celestial (Pria Illyriel and I've likely spelled both of those wrong). In our current campaign area there are two dialects of Common (other, distant continents have other forms of common based on different sources), which developed from the language used by slaves in the dawn ages of the world when slavery was much more common.

Of course there are Elvish and Dwarvish. Halflings speak heir own, sometimes incomprehensible, dialect of common. Gnomish is a dialect of Dwarvish, which is based on 33 true runes.

There are some dead languages of extinct cultures which scholars and historians know. There's Vedan, which is the language of magic and wizards and is sort of in the state that Latin is today only not really dead.

Different humanoids have their own languages. Orcs, who were slaves of the elves, developed their own language. Gnolls have their own language which can be learned by the "faceless" races (as they call those lacking snouts) but it is difficult to pronounce and may not have a written version. Goblinoids speak a degenerate dialect of elvish. Dark elves (Morafir) have a similar language to Elvish, but have consciously steered their language development away from their cousins, it's probably turned out to be similar to the way the black tongue of Mordor is related to the Elvish of Middle Earth.

Our DM has come up with a few important words in just about any language a PC knows (even the dead ones), and some have larger glossaries than others as he's made a conscious effort to come up with Orcish, Elvish, Dwarvish and Drakhan (a rare and lawful good race of creatures similar in appearance to Dragonlance's draconians) since we deal with those most often. For the less common languages, he comes up with words and phrases as they are needed or as they occur to him.

 

[diaglo]

i referee a campaign that still uses alignment languages.

you bet language is important.

the roleplay value of the RW misinterpretation of:


"Have you got your rubbers on?"

is just to valuable to miss.

 

[Desdichado]

I said moderate emphasis on homebrew languages. Actually having homebrew languages is important to me, because the default languages don't really make sense from a linguistic standpoint.

However, I realize that as linguistics is my personal hobby and nobody else's in the group, having a strong emphasis on them would probably bore everyone as well as frustrate them. Most of the campaign takes place in a single region, so for the most part, only one language comes into regular play.

I also have a player who envisions his character as a kinda of swashbuckling spy type guy, with a high INT score and a fair number of languages under his belt. This same guy is also a bit of a scholar, so he can read some archaic languages, which is actually even more important in some ways because of the strong "Cthulhu" vibe I've incorporated into the campaign.

 

[Kemrain]

Languages play an important part in the game I'm playing in currently. We have some standard, Elvish, Dwarven, Gnomish (Related to Dwarven with some Elven syntax, it's a complicated language, intentionally,) Common (Alsatian), Infernal, Abyssal... But there are some homebrew tongues thrown in there too. My current character can speak, read and write, the Ancient Common tongue (which will peobably be useful when we expand to other continents), can read and write a coded language (basically a 1 for 1 (or 2) letter substitute, decent for privacy) speaks fluent Dwarven, and will soon pick up an Abyssal tongue. However, the language everyone's scrambling to learn is Raulese, the tongue of the men 'invading' from another plane.

As a non-speaker of Elvish, I've missed out on 3 important encounters, and not speaking Raulese can be quite hazardous to your health. Language isn't always a focus, but when it is it's damn important.

- Kemrain the Dumb.

 

[diaglo]

not to mention for the bard class it is one of those "i'm different from the rest of the group and therefore important" skills.

it makes for a great negotiator role. high diplomacy, sense motive, bluff, and speak language.

 

[Torm]

I like the idea of different languages playing a role in games and fiction, but I think most of the time they get pushed to the side unless they serve an interesting and active plot point in the story being told. Or if they can be used for flavor without slowing down the action at all. And that's probably because a lot of people find linguistic details and semantical arguments to be as boring as watching paint dry.

Look at how quickly Hoshi Sato's original character concept got pushed to the side on UPN's Enterprise - she was supposed to be a linguistics expert helping to handle first contacts before there was a universal translator. Three episodes later, everyone speaks English when first met, even if its inarguably in a situation where there's no computer assistance for either speaker. BECAUSE - it would be dead boring and not very practical for Hoshi to spend several episodes learning to say "I am your friend" in Alien-of-the-week-speak and then spending another 10 minutes teaching it to Archer, and then watching Enterprise get blown up when the alien captain says "By what right do you claim my friendship?" and Hoshi scrambles for her books and Archer, of course, can't answer long enough to make the alien captain suspicious that this is some sort of trick by their dread nemesis, the Alien-of-the-week-archenemies-of-the-week.

It just doesn't work for a lot of people. Even though its more realistic, it makes crappy fiction. Or, at least, fiction only suited for a very narrow audience.

Of course, one could also argue that the writers of the above-mentioned show just don't know how to write linguistic situations to MAKE them interesting, and I'm not sure I'd argue.

 

[Silveras]

I use homebrew languages with slight emphasis.

"Common" varies from place to place; it is generally the spoken language of the dominant nation in a region. For example, "Aruthkaran" serves as Common for the bloc of 10 nations and 20 wilderness regions surrounding the Kingdom of Aruthkar.

I use some real-world languages as flavor sources. Aventonian is modeled on Latin, and I would likely use some latin-sounding quote for an ancient Aventonian text. As "children" of Aventonian, some languages are closely related, and cost 1/2 skill point to learn if you already know one of the "family". Aruthkaran, Karibdani, Free-Statish, and Imperial are sibling languages descended from Aventonian with different mixes of other influences. Aruthkaran is like English (conveniently), Karibdani is like Italian, Free-Statish is French, and Imperial is Spanish.

That is about as far as I have taken it. I'd like to do more, but I also like to keep things simple.

 

[ichabod]

I'm like Joshua. I know linguistics, but it's not something my players have ever been that into, so I don't stress it too much. I've come up with my own languages, and done away with common, and for my next campaign I may add a paragraph's worth of rules on languages, but that's about it.