Tell me about languages in your game

[Voadam]

In the shared DM campaign I'm currently running there is common but only PH races automatically know it, others know their racial languages as written in MM and other sourcebooks. So orcs speak orcish and goblins speak goblin.

We created Olde tongue out of whole cloth for a paladin PC at his creation and have weaved it a ton into the campaign as the language of the olde gods and in a lot of stuff in the ancient banewarrens from the time period when it was the world's common tongue.

Mongolic is another dead language on the world only known by some ancient dead (and my plane hopping character who knew it from another earth type world before he converted to 3e).

The paladin also used a lot of draconic which tied into his amnesia past as an evil warlord tied to the evil dragon cult we overthrew.

Abyssal I've had a lot of fun with in Demon god's Fane changing lots of the written messages there into olde tongue or abyssal. And I've been using google language translation for all in game abyssal references with German doing well for abyssal, it has a cool ring to it that feels right as a non-german speaker. The PC who picked up abyssal gets the translation back through google and it comes up a bit wierd translated twice but he gets the gist. Which is cool for a picked up language.

Celestial is used by 3/4 of the party so they almost have a secret language in front of NPCs when they want, excepting the dwarf.

 

[Hypersmurf]

And technically spells can't be scribed from scrolls, but I overlook that in my games, anyway.

Someone better tell WotC, then. The PHB needs errata right away!

Spells Copied from Another’s Spellbook or a Scroll: A wizard can also add a spell to her book whenever she encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard’s spellbook. No matter what the spell’s source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings, above). Next, she must spend a day studying the spell. At the end of the day, she must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell’s level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from her specialty school. She cannot, however, learn any spells from her prohibited schools. If the check succeeds, the wizard understands the spell and can copy it into her spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook, below). The process leaves a spellbook that was copied from unharmed, but a spell successfully copied from a magic scroll disappears from the parchment.

If the check fails, the wizard cannot understand or copy the spell. She cannot attempt to learn or copy that spell again until she gains another rank in Spellcraft. A spell that was being copied from a scroll does not vanish from the scroll.

In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to the spell’s level x 50 gp.

-Hyp.

 

[mythusmage]

Here in San Diego we have this long running ad campaign for the car seller, Hoehn Motors. In the commercials the proprieter Bill Hoehn is in a German Location trying to communicate with the locals using a German/English phrase book, and getting it utterly wrong. The tagline is, "Bill Hoehn may not know how to speak German, but he certainly knows how to sell German."

Where RPG worlds are concerned ... The world of Ærth has many languages. Most correspond to Earth languages, but there are some differences, and there are a few missing. For instance, there is no English, because the Angles and the Saxons were defeated by the Celts. Hebrew does not exist either, because the hill tribes that would become the Hebrews in our world were conquered by the Amorites when the Ægyptians withdrew from the area.

There are ancient languages; Hiero-Ægyptian for example. Revived Languages; such as Sumerian. Languages known on Earth; French for example. Languages unknown on Earth; Brytho-Kelltic for instance, which is not the same as our Irish, Scottish, or Welsh.

Ærth also has dialects, creoles, and border dialects. For instance, in the border region between Francia and the Deutsch states you have Franco-Deutsch. Chinese has a number of dialects, as does Kelltic and Brytho-Kelltic.

The closest to a 'common' tongue is the Trade Phoenecian dialect. Essentially a pidgen Phoenecian used in trade. It has a rival (of sorts) in Turkic-Sumerian, which is a created language intended to take the place of Trade Phoenecian by the god Marduk and the Babylonian government. (Marduk has gotten it in his head that he should rule the world.)

Some languages and dialects are very closely related. Others are distantly related. For instance, if you speak French your skill with a French dialect is at 90% of your skill with French. On the other hand, if your language is Khazarian you facility with Slavic is only 10% of your facility with Khazarian.

One thing to note about Trade Phoenecians is, not everybody speaks it. As a matter of fact, the further you get from Phoenecia's trade routes the less people understand Trade Phoenecian. Someone living in Shamash (our Israel) might speak Trade Phoenecian rather well, but someone living in Siam might now only a few phrases, if any at all.

Learning a new language is abstracted and simplified. For instance Iberian (a proto-Basgue/Atlantlan creole) is as easy to learn as French, or Chinese. When Col. Pladoh designed the world he was more interested in adventures than linguistics.

That the languages of Ærth for you in part. Hope this gives you ideas.

 

[Mercule]

And technically spells can't be scribed from scrolls, but I overlook that in my games, anyway.

Didn't realize that. I'll have to revisit those rules and see what I think.

I did look this up and here's what I found. Just an FYI.

Spells Copied from Another’s Spellbook or a Scroll

: A wizard can also add a spell to her book whenever she encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard’s spellbook. No matter what the spell’s source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings, above). Next, she must spend a day studying the spell. At the end of the day, she must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell’s level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from her specialty school. She cannot, however, learn any spells from her prohibited schools. If the check succeeds, the wizard understands the spell and can copy it into her spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook, below). The process leaves a spellbook that was copied from unharmed, but a spell successfully copied from a magic scroll disappears from the parchment.

If the check fails, the wizard cannot understand or copy the spell. She cannot attempt to learn or copy that spell again until she gains another rank in Spellcraft. A spell that was being copied from a scroll does not vanish from the scroll.

In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to the spell’s level x 50 gp.

Independent Research: A wizard also can research a spell independently, duplicating an existing spell or creating an entirely new one.

 

[Psion]

Given the assumption of widespread literacy in D&D

Ancient Japan had widespread literacy too. That one doesn't bother me.

(That said, I don't assume all commoners are literate.)

Do you have active deities in your game?

Depends on your definition of active. It seems to me that the divine, while undeniable, is aloof and mysterious. Deities generally don't just appear and warn their priests of dangers, for example. To get such warnings, one must generally be an advanced divine spellcaster. I translate this as meaning that to truly communicate with the divine, one must be spiritually in tune and dedicated. This is not a model which allows for overly convenient and blase manipulation of something so diverse as an entire culture.

Is it really that much of a stretch to assume that they did in inverse Tower of Babel thing?

Somewhat, yes. Latin was maintained as a language by the Catholic church in Eurpope, but it didn't prevent Europe for developing diverse languages. So it makes sense to me that Celestial (or Infernal) might be a lingua franca among organized religions, but not among common folk who might have an itinerant priest visit once a month.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Here in San Diego we have this long running ad campaign for the car seller, Hoehn Motors. In the commercials the proprieter Bill Hoehn is in a German Location trying to communicate with the locals using a German/English phrase book, and getting it utterly wrong. The tagline is, "Bill Hoehn may not know how to speak German, but he certainly knows how to sell German."

Chinese has a number of dialects, as does Kelltic and Brytho-Kelltic.

Didn't Monty Python have a skit about a "naughty" Hungarian to English phrase book? A man from Hungary would go around England asking women if he could fondle their bottom when he was really trying to ask to find a bathroom? Sounds like Mr. Hoehn may have watched the Flying Circus back in the day.

And, just about every city in China has their own dialect - In addition to Cantonese, which is spoken in Hong Kong & Guangzhou, there is Shanghai-nese, Nanjing-ese, Suzhou dialect, and others within a small area (Jiangsu province & Shanghai) and, it is similar in other areas of China as well. Cantonese is the most different, though.

 

[Desdichado]

Well, China's an odd case. Be decree, everything in China is a dialect, even if from a linguistic point of view, they would be clasified as seperate languages. Of course, Scandinavia has gone the opposite route. Most linguists would tell you that Norwegian vs. Danish vs. Swedish should be dialectical differences and there's not enough mutual unintelligibility to classify them as separate languages, but because they exist as seperate political entities and have their languages designated as official languages, thats what they are called.

 

[TerraDave]

Interesting to see that I am not the only one playing around with language rules/skills, though it is not too surprising.

But I am also not too surprised to see people then going back to something simpler after using these things in play.

From my own experience using what are essentially composite languages (i.e. Slavic) instead of common has been fine. Using a more realistic system (bulgar, russ, pole...) wouldn't work, unless it was a lot easier to learn languages. It is one thing to encourage players to spend a few more skill points here and there, it is another to require them to know 6-7 languages at low levels. (you also have to factor in the cost of literacy)

In terms of dialects, old versions of languages, etc, taking a light touch and only bringing them into play occasionally works best: it can be good flavouring, but just gets in the way if used to much.

(this can also be an effective way to with the speaksers of the same language who live far apart. As an aside on this, in RL you have lots of cases of peoples in close proximity who speak very different languages, and those far apart who speak similar ones, or the same one, even through time)

As for skills, we are moving away from what I linked above, because inspite of how nice it looked on paper, in practice it worked only so well. And the game already has social skills that basically represent the ability to communicate. But the occasional int/cha/wis check to understand the distant speaker of a "common" language probably doesn't hurt.

 

[TerraDave]

Well, China's an odd case. Be decree, everything in China is a dialect, even if from a linguistic point of view, they would be clasified as seperate languages. Of course, Scandinavia has gone the opposite route. Most linguists would tell you that Norwegian vs. Danish vs. Swedish should be dialectical differences and there's not enough mutual unintelligibility to classify them as separate languages, but because they exist as seperate political entities and have their languages designated as official languages, thats what they are called.

Sometimes you see a reference to a language called "serbo-croation", but there are no native speakers of this language...they speak Slovenian, Croation, Bosnian, Serbian, Kosavar...but now we are starting to get into politics...