Languages, how do you do it?

[Mr. R]

As I develop my world I came to the idea of Languages.  Some background:

 

The main area is a Basin Lake 1000km by 200km (about) that long ago was conquered fully by one state, and that language was imposed on the populous.  But now 600+ years later and the fall of the empire and the fracturing of the area, I can't help but see a parallel to Old Rome.

 

In addition there are areas never conquered by the empire and so their language development was different.  

 

Now in my experience differing languages were a PITA.  five players who could only communicate with two others at any one time for example.  

 

So do you make a detailed language table, where knowing one language gives you help with understanding a second or third?

 

OR

 

Do you go all hand wavium and make a Trade Tongue as it were, a language everybody uses?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rravenwood]

Unless you have a group of players who are interested in the possibilities of being mutually unintelligible, establishing a common language is probably advisable.  Even with a common tongue in place, though, a language chart can still be devised - not everyone in the world will necessarily speak the "common" language (or perhaps at least not to a high degree of fluency), and characters who invest in other languages can be given opportunities to use them in the form of NPCs who aren't proficient in "common", or who use a different language to try and maintain some privacy of communication within their group ("<hrz'ark fo karr>" "My colleague admires your devotion to the cause..." "Psst... actually, he said he thinks you are a weak-willed fool!"), etc.

[DShomshak]

Likewise. Unless there is some specific reason to impose linguistic difficulties on the PCs, give them a common language. 600 years is plenty of time for "Old Imperial" to split into a clade of local languages, but there are also forces that could preserve it intact. For instance, it might still be indispensable as the language or religious ritual and scholarship (as Latin was, for more than 1000 years after the Roman Empire fell). If literacy is fairly common (and you are not obliged to follow the Quasi-Medieval Europe trope of books being incredibly ratre and most people being illiterate. In Classical times, papyrus was so cheap and easy to write upon that Rome had bookstores.)

 

Or there could be more fantastical reasons. In the setting for Exalted, the world's chief languages are magical constructs that great mages of antiquity hard-wired into Creation, with gods appointed to protect them and oversee their use. And one language, Old /Realm, is the actual language of gods themselves, imposed on them by *their* creators. For something like this, modern folk still use the same language as the Old Empire, and whoever came before the Old Empire, because that's just what the language *is.* If it has ever changed, it's because someone very powerful forced the change.

 

Dean Shomshak

[assault]

The old language doesn't have to be the "common" language.

You could easily use one of its more common descendants ("French") or a less closely related one ("Greek") as a common language between the PCs.

A trade oriented Lingua Franca would be less useful if the PCs are based in a specific area where most people don't use it.

[Sketchpad]

Typically, I make a trade language an Everyman Skill, and allow players to take a complication when they don't want to have it. Otherwise, it's a table with variations on language.

[Duke Bushido]

What they said.

 

The novelty of PCs having to communicate one at a time or through interpreters wears off about eight or nine minutes into the game. 😈

[Duke Bushido]

After which, you just handwave that "we all talked and we understand each other (because I have no hair left to tear out) or demand they buy a common language on loaned experience points against their next EP earnings.

 

Remember That this common tongue dowsnt have to be the universal common tongue understood by a few people in every major city, either.  If you prefer it, it can be just some simple regional  language that they all happen to have in common, meaning they can still get value for any language that they spent points on.

 

As for language charts?

 

       

 

I mean, umm...  No; I don't bother working that out.  I am not the oldest guy here, and I started gaming with Traveller in '77.  To this day, no player has ever actually cared how many points of similarity his language has compared to another.  It boils down to "well, I can speak X, Y, and some Z.  Is his langaue similar enough to one od those that maybe we can kind of get some simple quesrions and were?"

 

at which point I can make a quick dexision based on the needs of the moment, make a note, and move on.

 

I dont even use the one 4e gave us, doe just the same reason: no player has ever fone out of his way to put 3 pts into Click or,any other language without knowing what might have some overlap anyway, even then, he has precious little clue how much, so I end up having to make that quick decision anyway.

 

So, briefly:  standing rule: all PCs have a common tongue, and that is the default against which they call other languages 'additional.'

 

A language chart has never once proven to be of any value (other than slowing the game down repeatedly) in any game I have ever played.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr. R]

1 minute ago, Duke Bushido said:

After which, you just handwave that "we all talked and we understand each other (because I have no hair left to tear out) or demand they buy a common language on loaned experience points against their next EP earnings.

 

Remember That this common tongue dowsnt have to be the universal common tongue understood by a few people in every major city, either.  If you prefer it, it can be just some simple regional  language that they all happen to have in common, meaning they can still get value for any language that they spent points on.

 

As for language charts?

 

       

 

I mean, umm...  No; I don't bother working that out.  I am not the oldest guy here, and I started gaming with Traveller in '77.  To this day, no player has ever actually cared how many points of similarity his language has compared to another.  It boils down to "well, I can speak X, Y, and some Z.  Is his langaue similar enough to one od those that maybe we can kind of get some simple quesrions and were?"

 

at which point I can make a quick dexision based on the needs of the moment, make a note, and move on.

 

I dont even use the one 4e gave us, doe just the same reason: no player has ever fone out of his way to put 3 pts into Click or,any other language without knowing what might have some overlap anyway, even then, he has precious little clue how much, so I end up having to make that quick decision anyway.

 

So, briefly:  standing rule: all PCs have a common tongue, and that is the default against which they call other languages 'additional.'

 

A language chart has never once proven to be of any value (other than slowing the game down repeatedly) in any game I have ever played.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good points all of you, thank you.

 

Looks like I am going with some local languages, but a trade lingua franca that all know to some level or another!