Speaking Orkish

[El Jeraldo]

Important question. Can a character speak Orkish without a bottom jaw? Were not sure because a lot of orkish is grunt-like sounds.

Thanks for the help.
-El Jeraldo

 

[Sithobi1]

Can it speak otherwise? After all, by RAW, anything with Int 3 or higher speaks Common unless otherwise noted, even if it doesn't have a mouth at all.
By the way, in D&D, the language is "orc".

 

[El Jeraldo]

Well, Our DM has ruled that without his bottom jaw, our bard is essentially a mute. But, we were wondering if by grunting and using other guttural noises, he could effectively communicate with a band of orcs, even though he cannot clearly speak common.

 

[interwyrm]

Baron Unterbeiht?

 

[El Jeraldo]

Yeah, but no, because our Bard doesn't actually have a jaw anymore, it wasn't replaced, it just doesn't exist now. Effects of a poor surgery.

 

[Sejs]

Is he missing -just- the jaw, or the whole concurrant area including the tongue?

I mean ultimately the DM's the arbitor, but realistically there are certain sounds you could make if you had some of the working parts: vocal cords, throat, tongue, sinuses, upper palette, etc.

 

[Asmo]

Yeah, but no, because our Bard doesn't actually have a jaw anymore, it wasn't replaced, it just doesn't exist now. Effects of a poor surgery.

Now you got me interested.

Asmo

 

[3d6]

Important question. Can a character speak Orkish without a bottom jaw? Were not sure because a lot of orkish is grunt-like sounds.

Thanks for the help.
-El Jeraldo

I wouldn't think a character could speak orc without lips. If you look at the examples we have of orc, the half-orc example names in the PHB, almost all of them would be impossible without vocal cords, lips, and a tongue.

For reference, the names are: Dench, Feng, Gell, Henk, Holg, Imsh, Keth, Ront, Shump, Thokk, Baggi, Emen, Engong, Myev, Neega, Ovak, Ownka, Shautha, Vola, and Volen.