Awesome ideas! I like the idea of Common being a creole/pidgin language that’s a mixture of various words and grammar from multiple languages, so someone who speaks Common but doesn’t speak Orcish or Elvish could at least pick up a basic idea of what those individuals are trying to say. I also tend to use languages as national or cultural identifiers than purely racial, and that can reveal a lot about a character. In my campaign, there’s an island that’s predominantly inhabited by elves with a couple of large ports where a lot of trade takes place. They met a half-orc woman who grew up in one of those cities, so she speaks perfect Elvish with a proper accent, which was a delightful surprise for one of the elves in my party who was born on the same island. This shared language allowed the two to connect and get to know each other better.
Gods yes I've always wanted better systems of languages in D&D. One way to also explore it is with linguistic families, where different languages would be related into a larger group, meaning that speakers of say, dwarven and giant, would both be able to get certain points between the languages but not entirely, same for abyssal vs. infernal, elven and sylvan, and other groupings you could make. Could also try to make intelligence ability checks to determine how well you can understand a language you don't speak but is in the same linguistic family as yours. Happy birthday Wren!
The campaign I am in is set in the normal world with portals to another. "Common" is just English. So when we go through a portal to the other world, languages are super important. One of the players didn't take fantasy languages and instead took Russian and Spanish. The ways he has tried to communicate, including drawing bad pictures and charades, has been so much fun to watch. The rest of us took different languages (without talking about it I might add), so who gets to talk to who is important. And some NPC characters have learned a bit of English, so navigating what they are attempting to say has been super fun!
I've just started watching this but to be honest, I've done away with the default D&D languages and tied them into various regions and even within groups of people. Players have even encountered people speaking languages that they didn't even know about because they're from far off regions. Common tongue becomes just the most prominent language in the region, usually due to economic or political powers with a lot of influence and is treated as such as it's the language of trade. Merchants and travelers probably speak it, but locals? Depends on the place but probably not. Edit: It seems we think alike haha
Incredible ideas here! Like others, I was particularly inspired by the chinatown idea with a dominant language other than common, although common-speakers can still be found in certain places. This lead me to create a situation for my players where there is a language-based conflict between two groups of NPCs where neither party can understand the other, and allows the players to have the chance to facilitate communication between the two parties. Thanks for the inspiration!
My tiefling druid like to be respectful and be respected so, she once spoke in orcish with a gentleman orc. Also i love there's sign languages in pathfinder 2e, nice addition.
A big thing about why languages are difficult to use is that it's so binary. You know it or you don't and, in the eyes of a scenario writer, a totally arbitrary way that could effectively wall off progress. What is lacking in the rules is the _relationship_ between languages. Maybe Dwarven has a connection with Terran and so a Dwarf could have a vague idea of what a Primordial speaker may say (especially earth-related), and so on. They are also race-aligned, which'd discourage diversity (especially in the group) if they didn't have a Common language to rely on. Maybe Common could be literally that: whatever shared words and concepts the group has, a sort of language for their friendship or bond that they developed by getting familiar (which'd mean most NPCs won't know Common unless they're familiar or very multicultural... and some groups or members wouldn't have it, especially in campaigns where the group assembles for the first time).
Quick things that could help: have it where spellbooks & spell scrolls can't be written in Common, but must instead be written in one of the other written languages (and not just draconic). The verbal components of spells could also be tied to certain languages (Draconic & Primordial to Evocation, for instance). Unfortunately, for non-magic & non-environment/puzzle aspects, having multiple languages can't really be given more use. There isn't anything mechanical that could really be done there without just adding fruitless frustration to the plates of both the DM & players (think about our world - outside of cool language tid-bits that can be absorbed into other languages, how helpful is the multitude of languages used in the world? It's a barrier more than it is a tool.).
