The Common Language(s) [Archive] - Wizards Community

The Common Language(s) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
fodigg
10-25-07, 11:00 AM Howdy, I have a few questions about the nature of the "common" tongue:

What does common sound like?

Is it whatever you want it to be? Is there an 'accent' associated with Common? Multiple accents depending on region?
Does common have a name in any setting other than just 'common'?
Are local, native languages spoken in addition to 'common' or any of the racial languages?
What does 'common' look like when it's written down?
Are there multiple 'common' tongues in one world?
I would be grateful for any official guidance or personal opinions. (But please let me know which one you're posting!) Thanks! :)
Delfedd
10-25-07, 11:13 AM The common tongue sounds like whatever language the players speak.

Yes. I'm sure there is. Unfortunately, I don't speak elvish, so I couldn't tell you.

I would say definately different accents depending on the region.

I'm not sure, But I believe that in Faerun there are multiple tongues and no "common tongue."

In my campaign based on Lords of Creation, the common tongue is called the Imperial tongue, due to the fact that all the western lands where united into an empire at one point.
VampyresThrenody
10-25-07, 01:26 PM I've always disliked the idea of a 'common' tongue and generally replaced it with the idea of a "merchant" or "trade" language. Essentially a language that was developed by traders and travellers to and from various lands in order to facilitate trade with the people who lived there. While not everyone knows the 'trade' it is known by most shopkeepers and such.
This helps to have a realistic approach to language while not requiring the players and NPC's to have a large foundation of language.
VampyresThrenody
10-25-07, 01:28 PM I've always disliked the idea of a 'common' tongue and generally replaced it with the idea of a "merchant" or "trade" language. Essentially a language that was developed by traders and travellers to and from various lands in order to facilitate trade with the people who lived there. While not everyone knows the 'trade' it is known by most shopkeepers and such.
This helps to have a realistic approach to language while not requiring the players and NPC's to have a large foundation of language.

I generally have this trade tongue sound exactly like english albeit with some slang thrown in depending on where you are. I.e. people in the mountain foothills do not sound exactly the same as merchants along the southern coastline but it's all the same language and thus generally understood. Just look at the variations in English from New England to the Midwest in America. Same language and everyone started (generally) learning from the same people (british..going back a ways) and yet language does evolve.
Tovec
10-25-07, 04:07 PM For the 'trade' language, what language do halflings and humans speak?

I have always used the common tongue as English, or whatever language a person speaks for the game. That being said we still speak English when speaking in Elven or any other language so whatever. As far as our application Common was just that, a language spoken by most of the creatures and even more often understood. I never really thought about it.

I have a plan for a campaign called the 'Western Kingdoms' in which each kingdom or region has its own sub-language, this would be treated as Elven(Drow). The reason for this specification is because each kingdom hates the others and seeks to dominate the others. For that reason having a full blown dialect works for me. I also apply this to my other games but in the other games having a slight accent doesn't really make or break anything and probably can't stand out that badly.

However over the while that I have been playing and DMing I have looked for a variation where each race would speak their own while using some more common languages, such as dwarf and elf, but my biggest problem is that this throws a wrench in a lot of things so I haven't done it yet. I do like this idea of 'trade' language it might be a partial solution to my dilemma.
Mark_Aged
10-27-07, 09:39 AM I read somewhere on the WotC website that Common is mostly a trade language. This of course has problems, seeing as it's Humans main language. I did my best to fix everything with my Alternative Language Rules (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=929633).
queenfange
10-27-07, 12:18 PM Howdy, I have a few questions about the nature of the "common" tongue:

What does common sound like?

Is it whatever you want it to be? Is there an 'accent' associated with Common? Multiple accents depending on region?
Does common have a name in any setting other than just 'common'?
Are local, native languages spoken in addition to 'common' or any of the racial languages?
What does 'common' look like when it's written down?
Are there multiple 'common' tongues in one world?
I would be grateful for any official guidance or personal opinions. (But please let me know which one you're posting!) Thanks! :)

Since I've never been a fan of Common as it is in the traditional rules, I'll give you my take on it (how it's used in my campaign world).

Common and its southern equivalent (Sudercommon) sound like pidgin languages, established as a trade tongue and hence picking up aspects of the native languages of most peoples who speak it. Is it whatever I want it to be? I don't know exactly what you mean by that; I'm making it what I want in my setting... There are different dialects of Common dependent on region, but all are fairly understandable to speakers of other dialects.

As I said above, I have two trade languages, Common and Sudercommon. I'm considering changing the former to Nodercommon or similar, so that it doesn't sound like Sudercommon is just a corruption of Common, or maintain a northern-centric feel. When they're written down... Don't really know. Probably English, at least as far as representing it to the players, solely for simplicity's sake.
Eldritch_Lord
10-28-07, 02:23 PM I haven't really liked Common as it is presented, either, so here's my take on it:
In the campaign I'm currently running, there are three "Common" languages:

--High Human, which is sort of like Latin in the modern world in that some people everywhere understand and speak it but nobody uses it in day-to-day life,

--Low Human, which is a local variation on High Human in the same way that Spanish, Italian, French, etc. are all classified as Romance languages, and

--Common, which is an Esperanto-esque trade language that was developed by elves, dwarves, etc. and that everyone except humans speaks.

(No nation calls the human languages "_____ Human," instead using a country name, so for example the nation of Kheffaros calls them High Khefferan and Low Khefferan, but I digress.)

Humans by default know their two languages, and nonhumans know their own language and Common. The PCs generally make sure to know Common and High Human, but the local languages provide color in that PCs might be the only ones who can mediate disputes between halfling tribes and humans, locals might distrust PCs heard speaking "that stinkin' Elf language," and so on. As you might have guessed, humans are quite insular in this campaign, so the idea of a single language that everyone speaks does not exist as it does in most campaigns.

That said, however,
Howdy, I have a few questions about the nature of the "common" tongue:

1) What does common sound like?
2) Is it whatever you want it to be?
3) Is there an 'accent' associated with Common?
4) Multiple accents depending on region?
5) Does common have a name in any setting other than just 'common'?
6) Are local, native languages spoken in addition to 'common' or any of the racial languages?
7) What does 'common' look like when it's written down?
8) Are there multiple 'common' tongues in one world?
I would be grateful for any official guidance or personal opinions. (But please let me know which one you're posting!) Thanks!

1) Common is simply a trade language according to WotC, so a pidgin is about the best you're going to get, but most groups play it as a fully-developed language understood by all.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by this.

3) Presumably you would have the same accent in Common as you would in your native tongue, so to stereotype for a moment, a native Spanish-speaker would espeak Cómon like thees, a native German-speaker vould speek it like zis, a native Italian-speaker woulda maybe talk like-a dis, and so on.[/bad movie accents] If you can do an Elven accent at will, good for you; otherwise, I'd avoid them.

4) Again, up to you; I'd say humans all speak Common the same way, same for elves, dwarves, etc. just for simplicity.

5) In D&D, no. Star Wars calls it Basic, one or two other RPGs I've seen have called it Trade or Pidgin, and I'm sure a few other settings have other names for it.

6) I run it that way, but it is assumed that all humans speak Common and only Common unless you are in a cosmopolitan setting like the Realms where there are multiple "Common" analogs.

7) There is no "official" answer, but I assume the Common alphabet is to other alphabets what spoken English is to other languages: Add 2 parts elven script, dwarven runes, halfling trail markers, etc.; add 1 part draconic and other common magical markings; pour into blade barrier; mangle well for 1000-2000 years; serves 5-6 races.

8) Like I said, only in the Realms as far as published settings go; most homebrews I've seen use 2+ Common tongues for verisimilitude.

One question you didn't ask, but that I want to address anyway:
9) Why do humans all speak Common, a "trade pidgin," instead of their own language?

9) I run it, when I do run Common as a full language, as if Common were the current lingua franca of the world. Just like French used to be the go-to language for diplomacy while English is now, I assume that based on the most powerful races around, humans will adopt different languages. Elves rule the world? Okay, we humans speak elven. Now it's dwarves? Fine, we'll learn that. We rise up, take over, and need our own language? Uh...we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.
fodigg
10-28-07, 08:59 PM 2) Is it whatever you want it to be?

What I meant with this question is...does common always sound like the native language of the players? For me that would be English. In Russia, I imagine it would be Russian. Etc.
Eldritch_Lord
10-28-07, 11:08 PM The language the players are speaking is completely different from what the characters are speaking; if you have all English players but the campaign is set in a pseudo-Germany, whether they speak normally, put on ze accent and vish to speak like ze Germans, or do something completely different is immaterial, and likewise if you have German players in a pseudo-Britain. I played in a campaign once where Dwarvish=Gaelic, Elvish=French, Halfling=Italian, Gnome=Spanish, and Human=Russian, with accents to match, but that's a bit extreme. Once again, no official answer, that's just from my experience.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
fodigg 10-25-07, 11:00 AM	Howdy, I have a few questions about the nature of the "common" tongue: What does common sound like? Is it whatever you want it to be? Is there an 'accent' associated with Common? Multiple accents depending on region? Does common have a name in any setting other than just 'common'? Are local, native languages spoken in addition to 'common' or any of the racial languages? What does 'common' look like when it's written down? Are there multiple 'common' tongues in one world? I would be grateful for any official guidance or personal opinions. (But please let me know which one you're posting!) Thanks! :)
Delfedd 10-25-07, 11:13 AM	The common tongue sounds like whatever language the players speak. Yes. I'm sure there is. Unfortunately, I don't speak elvish, so I couldn't tell you. I would say definately different accents depending on the region. I'm not sure, But I believe that in Faerun there are multiple tongues and no "common tongue." In my campaign based on Lords of Creation, the common tongue is called the Imperial tongue, due to the fact that all the western lands where united into an empire at one point.
VampyresThrenody 10-25-07, 01:26 PM	I've always disliked the idea of a 'common' tongue and generally replaced it with the idea of a "merchant" or "trade" language. Essentially a language that was developed by traders and travellers to and from various lands in order to facilitate trade with the people who lived there. While not everyone knows the 'trade' it is known by most shopkeepers and such. This helps to have a realistic approach to language while not requiring the players and NPC's to have a large foundation of language.
VampyresThrenody 10-25-07, 01:28 PM	I've always disliked the idea of a 'common' tongue and generally replaced it with the idea of a "merchant" or "trade" language. Essentially a language that was developed by traders and travellers to and from various lands in order to facilitate trade with the people who lived there. While not everyone knows the 'trade' it is known by most shopkeepers and such. This helps to have a realistic approach to language while not requiring the players and NPC's to have a large foundation of language. I generally have this trade tongue sound exactly like english albeit with some slang thrown in depending on where you are. I.e. people in the mountain foothills do not sound exactly the same as merchants along the southern coastline but it's all the same language and thus generally understood. Just look at the variations in English from New England to the Midwest in America. Same language and everyone started (generally) learning from the same people (british..going back a ways) and yet language does evolve.
Tovec 10-25-07, 04:07 PM	For the 'trade' language, what language do halflings and humans speak? I have always used the common tongue as English, or whatever language a person speaks for the game. That being said we still speak English when speaking in Elven or any other language so whatever. As far as our application Common was just that, a language spoken by most of the creatures and even more often understood. I never really thought about it. I have a plan for a campaign called the 'Western Kingdoms' in which each kingdom or region has its own sub-language, this would be treated as Elven(Drow). The reason for this specification is because each kingdom hates the others and seeks to dominate the others. For that reason having a full blown dialect works for me. I also apply this to my other games but in the other games having a slight accent doesn't really make or break anything and probably can't stand out that badly. However over the while that I have been playing and DMing I have looked for a variation where each race would speak their own while using some more common languages, such as dwarf and elf, but my biggest problem is that this throws a wrench in a lot of things so I haven't done it yet. I do like this idea of 'trade' language it might be a partial solution to my dilemma.
Mark_Aged 10-27-07, 09:39 AM	I read somewhere on the WotC website that Common is mostly a trade language. This of course has problems, seeing as it's Humans main language. I did my best to fix everything with my Alternative Language Rules (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=929633).
queenfange 10-27-07, 12:18 PM	Howdy, I have a few questions about the nature of the "common" tongue: What does common sound like? Is it whatever you want it to be? Is there an 'accent' associated with Common? Multiple accents depending on region? Does common have a name in any setting other than just 'common'? Are local, native languages spoken in addition to 'common' or any of the racial languages? What does 'common' look like when it's written down? Are there multiple 'common' tongues in one world? I would be grateful for any official guidance or personal opinions. (But please let me know which one you're posting!) Thanks! :) Since I've never been a fan of Common as it is in the traditional rules, I'll give you my take on it (how it's used in my campaign world). Common and its southern equivalent (Sudercommon) sound like pidgin languages, established as a trade tongue and hence picking up aspects of the native languages of most peoples who speak it. Is it whatever I want it to be? I don't know exactly what you mean by that; I'm making it what I want in my setting... There are different dialects of Common dependent on region, but all are fairly understandable to speakers of other dialects. As I said above, I have two trade languages, Common and Sudercommon. I'm considering changing the former to Nodercommon or similar, so that it doesn't sound like Sudercommon is just a corruption of Common, or maintain a northern-centric feel. When they're written down... Don't really know. Probably English, at least as far as representing it to the players, solely for simplicity's sake.
Eldritch_Lord 10-28-07, 02:23 PM	I haven't really liked Common as it is presented, either, so here's my take on it: In the campaign I'm currently running, there are three "Common" languages: --High Human, which is sort of like Latin in the modern world in that some people everywhere understand and speak it but nobody uses it in day-to-day life, --Low Human, which is a local variation on High Human in the same way that Spanish, Italian, French, etc. are all classified as Romance languages, and --Common, which is an Esperanto-esque trade language that was developed by elves, dwarves, etc. and that everyone except humans speaks. (No nation calls the human languages "_____ Human," instead using a country name, so for example the nation of Kheffaros calls them High Khefferan and Low Khefferan, but I digress.) Humans by default know their two languages, and nonhumans know their own language and Common. The PCs generally make sure to know Common and High Human, but the local languages provide color in that PCs might be the only ones who can mediate disputes between halfling tribes and humans, locals might distrust PCs heard speaking "that stinkin' Elf language," and so on. As you might have guessed, humans are quite insular in this campaign, so the idea of a single language that everyone speaks does not exist as it does in most campaigns. That said, however, Howdy, I have a few questions about the nature of the "common" tongue: 1) What does common sound like? 2) Is it whatever you want it to be? 3) Is there an 'accent' associated with Common? 4) Multiple accents depending on region? 5) Does common have a name in any setting other than just 'common'? 6) Are local, native languages spoken in addition to 'common' or any of the racial languages? 7) What does 'common' look like when it's written down? 8) Are there multiple 'common' tongues in one world? I would be grateful for any official guidance or personal opinions. (But please let me know which one you're posting!) Thanks! 1) Common is simply a trade language according to WotC, so a pidgin is about the best you're going to get, but most groups play it as a fully-developed language understood by all. 2) I'm not sure what you mean by this. 3) Presumably you would have the same accent in Common as you would in your native tongue, so to stereotype for a moment, a native Spanish-speaker would espeak Cómon like thees, a native German-speaker vould speek it like zis, a native Italian-speaker woulda maybe talk like-a dis, and so on.[/bad movie accents] If you can do an Elven accent at will, good for you; otherwise, I'd avoid them. 4) Again, up to you; I'd say humans all speak Common the same way, same for elves, dwarves, etc. just for simplicity. 5) In D&D, no. Star Wars calls it Basic, one or two other RPGs I've seen have called it Trade or Pidgin, and I'm sure a few other settings have other names for it. 6) I run it that way, but it is assumed that all humans speak Common and only Common unless you are in a cosmopolitan setting like the Realms where there are multiple "Common" analogs. 7) There is no "official" answer, but I assume the Common alphabet is to other alphabets what spoken English is to other languages: Add 2 parts elven script, dwarven runes, halfling trail markers, etc.; add 1 part draconic and other common magical markings; pour into blade barrier; mangle well for 1000-2000 years; serves 5-6 races. 8) Like I said, only in the Realms as far as published settings go; most homebrews I've seen use 2+ Common tongues for verisimilitude. One question you didn't ask, but that I want to address anyway: 9) Why do humans all speak Common, a "trade pidgin," instead of their own language? 9) I run it, when I do run Common as a full language, as if Common were the current lingua franca of the world. Just like French used to be the go-to language for diplomacy while English is now, I assume that based on the most powerful races around, humans will adopt different languages. Elves rule the world? Okay, we humans speak elven. Now it's dwarves? Fine, we'll learn that. We rise up, take over, and need our own language? Uh...we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.
fodigg 10-28-07, 08:59 PM	2) Is it whatever you want it to be? What I meant with this question is...does common always sound like the native language of the players? For me that would be English. In Russia, I imagine it would be Russian. Etc.
Eldritch_Lord 10-28-07, 11:08 PM	The language the players are speaking is completely different from what the characters are speaking; if you have all English players but the campaign is set in a pseudo-Germany, whether they speak normally, put on ze accent and vish to speak like ze Germans, or do something completely different is immaterial, and likewise if you have German players in a pseudo-Britain. I played in a campaign once where Dwarvish=Gaelic, Elvish=French, Halfling=Italian, Gnome=Spanish, and Human=Russian, with accents to match, but that's a bit extreme. Once again, no official answer, that's just from my experience.