Hey guys, quick question about language usage according to RAW (but happy to hear RAI and ROC as well if clearly stated as such).
So, my question: Do characters/creatures only know the exact languages written in their character sheet/stat blocks?
The specific language that made me ask this question is Primordial and its 4 dialects Aquan/Auran/Ignan/Terran. According to Forgotten Realms lore as well as the rules found in PHB (see below), Aquan/Auran/Ignan/Terran are simply dialects of Primordial, and any creature that understands either Primordial or one of the dialects understands all other dialects as well as Primordial.
"Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another."
I guess this makes sense from a lore perspective, but it is odd when put on paper. An example of this is Triton vs Aarakocra. According to RAW, Tritons speak Common and Primordial. On the other hand, Aarakocra speak Common, Aarakocra, and Auran. To me, this means that Tritons speak the raw primal language of Primordials, not the dialect of Aquan, according to RAW. While this wouldn't make any mechanical difference it is odd to me from a lore perspective. Most importantly though, this is extremely confusing for new players as well as veterans who haven't read up on the cosmology and history of the multiverse. Is there a reason the dialects haven't been removed as languages of their own? Or a reason they haven't been more clearly included underneath the Primordial language as e.g. Primordial (Auran)?
Personally, I am going to treat each dialect as a separate language but allow a character to make an Intelligence Check to understand any of the others when relevant.
I think of it as Primordial being the parent language (Such as Queen's English), with the elemental languages being regional variations of it. So they will mostly be the same or similar enough that a conversation can be had but with some different words being used for the same thing which would potentially cause confusion. A Glaswegian, a Geordie and a Cockney having a chat together would be hilariously funny. Depending on where you live a bread roll could also be called a bun, a bap, or a cob. A platonic greeting between a parent and child could be a cuddle, a hug or a cwtch (if you are from Wales). Using only polite names a police officer could be called a police(wo)man, a cop, the fuzz, a bobby, a peeler, the bizzies or the rozzers - and probably a few others. Where I live there are the 'valley commandos' which refer to the rather rough young ladies that come into town on a Friday or Saturday night usually in high heels and short dresses without underwear. Someone from east London would generally not have the faintest idea what that would mean if used in a sentence, whereas having lived in London I picked up some slang that my Welsh friends had never heard eg Ayrton Senna meaning a tenner, a pony being £25 or a monkey being £500.
Generally, dialects of the same language share most of the rules of the language, but a specific dialect would have a lot of its own pronunciations and words/usages of words. The example of the various dialects of the British Isles is good above, for American English it would be like comparing generic American English with the southern/appalacian dialects. Wash vs Warsh is different pronunciations, but understandable, and the general AE speaker might not know what a "gully-warsher" is (its a heavy rainstorm), but they could probably understand each other and communicate in the context of a conversation.
Now I'm wondering what dialects I would assign to Ignan, Auran, Aquan, and Terran in the context of Primordial being general AE/BE.
I wasn't aware of the lore that these sort of "elemental" languages are intended to be dialects of Primordial... that said, in my group we are aware that they are all quite similar. We chose to treat it sort of like the "Romantic" languages we have in the real world... there are many shared words between the languages, so when playing as my Tortle character who speaks Aquan, we've had times where he's communicated rough concepts to elemental beings we've encountered. Sort of like if you're an English Speaker and you watch a spanish soap opera... you might recognize a few words that use the same root in both languages, and maybe you can pick up a general idea of what's going on through context, but you're still missing a ton of nuance and will be pretty much completely boned if it comes to word play or symbolism.
My understanding would be that it is like Latin. Each elemental species will have its own means of speaking, and as they try to speak Primordial, it will naturally take on the flavor of that elemental, which seems to be what I find in the descriptions of Aquan, Ignan, etc. So someone speaking Ignan to someone who speaks Terran would be like someone speaking French to someone who speaks Italian. "So there was an earthquake?" "No, there was a tsunami." "So a landslide?" "No, think of it as a waterfall." "A what?"
One of my favorite examples of subtlety like this in real life was a meeting between a native English speaker and a native Italian speaker: "We will do that eventually." "No. We have to do it." "Eventually." "No, we must." What happened was that ly in English is often mapped directly to ment in French/Italian. Eventually becomes eventualmente. But the meaning is slightly different. Eventually means not now, but later. Eventualmente (Italian) means maybe.
IMO, this whole thing could be a source of a lot of fun in a campaign.
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Hey guys, quick question about language usage according to RAW (but happy to hear RAI and ROC as well if clearly stated as such).
So, my question: Do characters/creatures only know the exact languages written in their character sheet/stat blocks?
The specific language that made me ask this question is Primordial and its 4 dialects Aquan/Auran/Ignan/Terran.
According to Forgotten Realms lore as well as the rules found in PHB (see below), Aquan/Auran/Ignan/Terran are simply dialects of Primordial, and any creature that understands either Primordial or one of the dialects understands all other dialects as well as Primordial.
I guess this makes sense from a lore perspective, but it is odd when put on paper.
An example of this is Triton vs Aarakocra. According to RAW, Tritons speak Common and Primordial. On the other hand, Aarakocra speak Common, Aarakocra, and Auran.
To me, this means that Tritons speak the raw primal language of Primordials, not the dialect of Aquan, according to RAW. While this wouldn't make any mechanical difference it is odd to me from a lore perspective.
Most importantly though, this is extremely confusing for new players as well as veterans who haven't read up on the cosmology and history of the multiverse.
Is there a reason the dialects haven't been removed as languages of their own? Or a reason they haven't been more clearly included underneath the Primordial language as e.g. Primordial (Auran)?
Personally, I am going to treat each dialect as a separate language but allow a character to make an Intelligence Check to understand any of the others when relevant.
Any insight is appreciated!
Primordial is the only example given in the PHB, so it is up to the game setting as to which other language families exist.
Personally I've never made use of these "language families" and always played that each language is distinct.
TBH, there's no point in listing any of the elemental dialects if they can all understand each other, just give them the language Primordial.
I think of it as Primordial being the parent language (Such as Queen's English), with the elemental languages being regional variations of it. So they will mostly be the same or similar enough that a conversation can be had but with some different words being used for the same thing which would potentially cause confusion. A Glaswegian, a Geordie and a Cockney having a chat together would be hilariously funny. Depending on where you live a bread roll could also be called a bun, a bap, or a cob. A platonic greeting between a parent and child could be a cuddle, a hug or a cwtch (if you are from Wales). Using only polite names a police officer could be called a police(wo)man, a cop, the fuzz, a bobby, a peeler, the bizzies or the rozzers - and probably a few others. Where I live there are the 'valley commandos' which refer to the rather rough young ladies that come into town on a Friday or Saturday night usually in high heels and short dresses without underwear. Someone from east London would generally not have the faintest idea what that would mean if used in a sentence, whereas having lived in London I picked up some slang that my Welsh friends had never heard eg Ayrton Senna meaning a tenner, a pony being £25 or a monkey being £500.
Generally, dialects of the same language share most of the rules of the language, but a specific dialect would have a lot of its own pronunciations and words/usages of words. The example of the various dialects of the British Isles is good above, for American English it would be like comparing generic American English with the southern/appalacian dialects. Wash vs Warsh is different pronunciations, but understandable, and the general AE speaker might not know what a "gully-warsher" is (its a heavy rainstorm), but they could probably understand each other and communicate in the context of a conversation.
Now I'm wondering what dialects I would assign to Ignan, Auran, Aquan, and Terran in the context of Primordial being general AE/BE.
I wasn't aware of the lore that these sort of "elemental" languages are intended to be dialects of Primordial... that said, in my group we are aware that they are all quite similar. We chose to treat it sort of like the "Romantic" languages we have in the real world... there are many shared words between the languages, so when playing as my Tortle character who speaks Aquan, we've had times where he's communicated rough concepts to elemental beings we've encountered. Sort of like if you're an English Speaker and you watch a spanish soap opera... you might recognize a few words that use the same root in both languages, and maybe you can pick up a general idea of what's going on through context, but you're still missing a ton of nuance and will be pretty much completely boned if it comes to word play or symbolism.
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My understanding would be that it is like Latin. Each elemental species will have its own means of speaking, and as they try to speak Primordial, it will naturally take on the flavor of that elemental, which seems to be what I find in the descriptions of Aquan, Ignan, etc. So someone speaking Ignan to someone who speaks Terran would be like someone speaking French to someone who speaks Italian. "So there was an earthquake?" "No, there was a tsunami." "So a landslide?" "No, think of it as a waterfall." "A what?"
One of my favorite examples of subtlety like this in real life was a meeting between a native English speaker and a native Italian speaker: "We will do that eventually." "No. We have to do it." "Eventually." "No, we must." What happened was that ly in English is often mapped directly to ment in French/Italian. Eventually becomes eventualmente. But the meaning is slightly different. Eventually means not now, but later. Eventualmente (Italian) means maybe.
IMO, this whole thing could be a source of a lot of fun in a campaign.