So there's Primordial language, which is supposedly the lingua franca of the elemental planes.
Then there's Auran, which Air Elementals, Aarakocra and Djinn speak along with the other related denizens of the Plane of Air. Ditto for Aquan (Water Elementals, Marids, Sea Elves), Ignan (Fire Elementals, Azers, Efreet), and Terran (Earth Elementals, Dao and Xorn). A quick search of the word "Primordial" in D&D Beyond's search tool shows that none of the creatures native to the elemental planes speak Primordial.
What's up with that?
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I am a Canadian Dungeon Master, which means I reflexively apologize when the monsters score a critical hit on the players' characters.
I was going to use the example of Latin vs Italian vs French vs Spanish. Latin is the base, and Italian, French, and Spanish are close enough to to get an idea, but not do not expect to read a book.
Story and world building lore hook: If Ignan, Aquan, Terran, and Auran are all derived from vulgates of Primordial, what civilization, species really spoke Primordial? I know you could call them Primordials, and that could be fun, but I like the idea of Substantials or Proto-materials (basically positing that there was some precursor substance or matter from which the elemental matters derived). "You're fighting a substantial." "What?" "A substantial." "Yes, but a substantial what?" makes my metaphysical wit smile.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I get that Romance languages have the same roots (Latin) and if you knew enough French, Italian, and/or Spanish then you could be understood by most of the medieval Mediterranean - "Lingua Franca" literally means "language of the Franks" which had Arabic, Turkish, Greek, and Slavic loan words, and that leads into where we get the concept of Common as a language in D&D.
If a Terran speaker can understand an Aquan speaker, and a Primordial speaker can be understood by both... why the divisive terms? I dunno, feels like an editorial oversight.
Meh. I once made the executive decision to have all NPCs hailing from the Moonshae Isles speak in nigh-incomprehensible Newfoundlander dialects. G'wan b'y!
I don't think languages have ever been dealt with seriously in D&D, including prior editions. They're more a device for a DM to enable or disable communication between the party and intelligent encounters. I mean, the default in every edition is that every sentient race has their own language, regardless of geography, history etc (unless one wants to use language as a device that makes understanding information from the past difficult). I'm sure there are games that have full language trees spread over species and geographies, but those are made by people with a passion for fictional linguistics, not anything encouraged or supported by the game. I think it's cool folks can do that, and I dabble with it a bit myself too, but you're really left to your own devices.
I wonder if the linguist background in a game world with a thought out language tree would be competitive with comprehend languages.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If a Terran speaker can understand an Aquan speaker, and a Primordial speaker can be understood by both... why the divisive terms? I dunno, feels like an editorial oversight.
Probably because the dialects are based on how the sounds are created by elemental beings composed of living water, air, fire, and earth.
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Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Story and world building lore hook: If Ignan, Aquan, Terran, and Auran are all derived from vulgates of Primordial, what civilization, species really spoke Primordial? I know you could call them Primordials, and that could be fun, but I like the idea of Substantials or Proto-materials (basically positing that there was some precursor substance or matter from which the elemental matters derived). "You're fighting a substantial." "What?" "A substantial." "Yes, but a substantial what?" makes my metaphysical wit smile.
Primordials is absolutely what they are in D&D lore, but I do like the idea of "substantials" 😂
If a Terran speaker can understand an Aquan speaker, and a Primordial speaker can be understood by both... why the divisive terms? I dunno, feels like an editorial oversight.
I would assume it goes beyond simply being dialects as we might understand them in common; since we are talking about primordial beings I would say that the universal primordial language is the form of the language, but the dialects are the function of it, i.e- a water elemental does not speak primordial unless it has no other choice, as aquan is fundamental to what it is, but a tourist who knows primordial would be able to understand it and make themselves understood, perhaps with effort on both their parts.
As a DM I would also rule that the dialects can be heard when language normally isn't possible like so:
Aquan: Can be understood by creatures breathing water (i.e- words carry through the water, other languages are literally drowned out).
Auran: Can be understood in the midst of a howling wind (where other languages would be figuratively drowned out).
Ignan: Can be understood within lava and/or a raging inferno (i.e- words carry through fire).
Terran: Can be understood within the earth (i.e- words carry through solid matter).
Meanwhile primordial requires you to be able to speak normally, i.e- you'd need a pocket of air to say the words aloud, and they'd have no special properties in how they can be heard.
Of course that's 100% interpretation and house-ruling, as in their pursuit of simplification Wizards of the Coast have arguably simplified these languages too much. 😝
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@Haravikk I like the idea of giving the Primordial dialects nuances that are mechanically reinforced. I might incorporate your idea into my own setting :)
At my table I run the Primordial dialects as their own separate languages mechanically. I do however ask players to make a DC15 INT checks to decode Primordial or one of its dialects, if they already understand one of the dialects. The DC is reduced to 10 if a player understands Primordial.
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So there's Primordial language, which is supposedly the lingua franca of the elemental planes.
Then there's Auran, which Air Elementals, Aarakocra and Djinn speak along with the other related denizens of the Plane of Air. Ditto for Aquan (Water Elementals, Marids, Sea Elves), Ignan (Fire Elementals, Azers, Efreet), and Terran (Earth Elementals, Dao and Xorn). A quick search of the word "Primordial" in D&D Beyond's search tool shows that none of the creatures native to the elemental planes speak Primordial.
What's up with that?
I am a Canadian Dungeon Master, which means I reflexively apologize when the monsters score a critical hit on the players' characters.
They are different dialects of the same language. Like British English, new England (east coast) English, redneck English, and Ebonics.
They can all understand eachother with some effort, but they all have completely different expressions and use the same words differently.
Primordial is the dictionary English of the bunch. No expressions, and just use words by their literal definition.
I was going to use the example of Latin vs Italian vs French vs Spanish. Latin is the base, and Italian, French, and Spanish are close enough to to get an idea, but not do not expect to read a book.
Primordial = “all of you”
Ignan = “all’a youse”
Aquan = “y’all”
Terran = “you lot”
Auran = “the bunch’a ya”
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Story and world building lore hook: If Ignan, Aquan, Terran, and Auran are all derived from vulgates of Primordial, what civilization, species really spoke Primordial? I know you could call them Primordials, and that could be fun, but I like the idea of Substantials or Proto-materials (basically positing that there was some precursor substance or matter from which the elemental matters derived). "You're fighting a substantial." "What?" "A substantial." "Yes, but a substantial what?" makes my metaphysical wit smile.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I see it as they're just like swedish, danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, etc. Or as dialects, depending on how i'm feelin'.The book says they're dialectsEr ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
They're mutually intelligible, but Aquan is spoken wetly, Auran windily, Ignan firely, Terran dirtily.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Yeah, that is the first sentence of my answer.
Aquan and so on are dialects of primordial in the same way wood, high, and drow are dialects of elvish.
I am a Canadian Dungeon Master, which means I reflexively apologize when the monsters score a critical hit on the players' characters.
I don't think languages have ever been dealt with seriously in D&D, including prior editions. They're more a device for a DM to enable or disable communication between the party and intelligent encounters. I mean, the default in every edition is that every sentient race has their own language, regardless of geography, history etc (unless one wants to use language as a device that makes understanding information from the past difficult). I'm sure there are games that have full language trees spread over species and geographies, but those are made by people with a passion for fictional linguistics, not anything encouraged or supported by the game. I think it's cool folks can do that, and I dabble with it a bit myself too, but you're really left to your own devices.
I wonder if the linguist background in a game world with a thought out language tree would be competitive with comprehend languages.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Probably because the dialects are based on how the sounds are created by elemental beings composed of living water, air, fire, and earth.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Those Terran speakers. You can never have them in polite company.
This is the best example of Primordial I've ever seen. Thanks my friend!
Primordials is absolutely what they are in D&D lore, but I do like the idea of "substantials" 😂
I would assume it goes beyond simply being dialects as we might understand them in common; since we are talking about primordial beings I would say that the universal primordial language is the form of the language, but the dialects are the function of it, i.e- a water elemental does not speak primordial unless it has no other choice, as aquan is fundamental to what it is, but a tourist who knows primordial would be able to understand it and make themselves understood, perhaps with effort on both their parts.
As a DM I would also rule that the dialects can be heard when language normally isn't possible like so:
Meanwhile primordial requires you to be able to speak normally, i.e- you'd need a pocket of air to say the words aloud, and they'd have no special properties in how they can be heard.
Of course that's 100% interpretation and house-ruling, as in their pursuit of simplification Wizards of the Coast have arguably simplified these languages too much. 😝
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
@Haravikk
I like the idea of giving the Primordial dialects nuances that are mechanically reinforced. I might incorporate your idea into my own setting :)
At my table I run the Primordial dialects as their own separate languages mechanically. I do however ask players to make a DC15 INT checks to decode Primordial or one of its dialects, if they already understand one of the dialects. The DC is reduced to 10 if a player understands Primordial.