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<blockquote data-quote="AFGNCAAP" data-source="post: 1192260" data-attributes="member: 871">Personally, I'm in the pro-Common camp, mainly because I see the Common Tongue as the &quot;lingua franca&quot; of my homebrewed campaign.&nbsp; Then again, the PCs begin in a limited area (a large kingdom), so they aren't really interacting with different human nations, only nonhuman ones.&nbsp; Even then, each nonhuman race has one core language (Elven for elves, Orcish for orcs, etc.).I like the idea of a vast variety of languages in a setting (for the realism of it), but then again, I've come up with a few ways to explain why languages are the way they are.For example, the Common language IMC is essentially English, if you look at the evolution of the English language.&nbsp; Originally from 1 linguistic group, with a lot of loan-words (like place-names and item names) from other languages.&nbsp; Then, due to invasion &amp; conquest, it amalgamated with the language spoke by the ruling class (ala the heavy Norman French influence in Middle English, and before that the &quot;marriage&quot; of Old English and old Norse during the days of the Danelaw).&nbsp; This amalgamated version endured &amp; evolved into the language now spoken by the populace.&nbsp; The human kingdom where the PCs start off at speaks this language, with various dialects in different regions (still understandable, but it &quot;places&quot; a person, so to speak).For the OA setting, their Common language is due to the same thing, though it is from a completely different language family altogether.For other languages, I envision them as something that reflects their speakers.&nbsp; Elven is a complex yet beautiful language that takes at least a century to master (i.e., an elf's life from birth to young adulthood), and hasn't changed in millenia.&nbsp; The &quot;outsider&quot; languages (Celestial, elemental languages, etc.) don't change at all---they are relatively &quot;dead&quot; or static compared to mortal languages. Dwarven is rather simple, with specific grammar and vocabulary.&nbsp; Orcish is a gutteral, simple mish-mash of a core language with a lot of loan words that have been mangled to match its unique phonetic sound.&nbsp; The languages of the long-lived nonhuman races (like elves, dwarves, gnomes, &amp; fey) have very little (if no) dialects, while the languages of orcs, trolls, &amp; the like have a large number of different dialects (almost a different dialect per tribe).As time progresses and the PCs travel the globe, they will encounter other languages (mainly other human languages), and maybe even encounter scraps of the &quot;parent&quot; languages of Common.&nbsp; But, for the meantime, the languages IMC are pretty straightforward.FR is another story, tho.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="AFGNCAAP, post: 1192260, member: 871"] Personally, I'm in the pro-Common camp, mainly because I see the Common Tongue as the "lingua franca" of my homebrewed campaign. Then again, the PCs begin in a limited area (a large kingdom), so they aren't really interacting with different human nations, only nonhuman ones. Even then, each nonhuman race has one core language (Elven for elves, Orcish for orcs, etc.). I like the idea of a vast variety of languages in a setting (for the realism of it), but then again, I've come up with a few ways to explain why languages are the way they are. For example, the Common language IMC is essentially English, if you look at the evolution of the English language. Originally from 1 linguistic group, with a lot of loan-words (like place-names and item names) from other languages. Then, due to invasion & conquest, it amalgamated with the language spoke by the ruling class (ala the heavy Norman French influence in Middle English, and before that the "marriage" of Old English and old Norse during the days of the Danelaw). This amalgamated version endured & evolved into the language now spoken by the populace. The human kingdom where the PCs start off at speaks this language, with various dialects in different regions (still understandable, but it "places" a person, so to speak). For the OA setting, their Common language is due to the same thing, though it is from a completely different language family altogether. For other languages, I envision them as something that reflects their speakers. Elven is a complex yet beautiful language that takes at least a century to master (i.e., an elf's life from birth to young adulthood), and hasn't changed in millenia. The "outsider" languages (Celestial, elemental languages, etc.) don't change at all---they are relatively "dead" or static compared to mortal languages. Dwarven is rather simple, with specific grammar and vocabulary. Orcish is a gutteral, simple mish-mash of a core language with a lot of loan words that have been mangled to match its unique phonetic sound. The languages of the long-lived nonhuman races (like elves, dwarves, gnomes, & fey) have very little (if no) dialects, while the languages of orcs, trolls, & the like have a large number of different dialects (almost a different dialect per tribe). As time progresses and the PCs travel the globe, they will encounter other languages (mainly other human languages), and maybe even encounter scraps of the "parent" languages of Common. But, for the meantime, the languages IMC are pretty straightforward. FR is another story, tho. :D [/QUOTE]

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