Languages and roleplaying

Fantasy languages are a strange problem.  It's fun for them to exist, but much less fun to use them at the table.  Somewhere in that pile of languages is an interesting story waiting to emerge: an important trade deal or secret diplomatic message depends on it.

Trade between civilizations.  (by the "artist of the chief mourner" 1769)

So how are you supposed to handle all these languages?  Realistically, every tribe and kingdom is likely to end up with a language or two.  But unless you're playing a game about linguist adventurers (please make that game) there's just no room for all that.

830+ languages on an island the size of Texas + Louisiana.  (Wikipedia user kwami)

Here's the way I handle it:

1. If you don't have a language in common with someone, you can point and gesture but you can't communicate beyond that.
2. Important languages are used widely for trade, so if you speak one of those, you'll probably be fine.
3. Foreign things have made-up language names.  Your people's kind of things have English names.

For the setting of Signs in the Wilderness, there are only two languages you really need to know, the big Common tongues of the world:

• Elven pidgin, simplified from the elves' native speech.  It's the language elves use when speaking to their animals, so they naturally extended it to the "speaking beasts" found in the Northern Lands.
• The language of the Isquentaga, a powerful human confederacy.  Their language is spoken widely for trade and diplomacy from the sea to the high mountains.

Any adventurer should already know one, if not both, of these widely-known languages.  Most people speak a few local languages as well, so if you're from, say, the Black River giants, you speak your native tongue, probably the language of the nearby humans, and likely one or both of the widespread languages above.

Giants have been very receptive to missionary efforts to spread the elven religion, so many of them have learned to speak the language of the elves, at least for liturgical purposes.  Humans often learn the language of nearby giants for trade.

No one speaks any goblin languages, except the goblins themselves.  Goblins are very good at imitating sounds, so it's far easier for them to learn to pronounce your language than for you to learn to pronounce theirs.  At the game table, goblins never have an accent.

Using invented names

If you really want different cultures' names to sound different, you can make up the barest minimum of a fictional language: a set of names that all use the same kinds of sounds.  (If anyone's interested, I could give a tutorial on doing this quickly.)

But be careful how often you use them.

If the players are leaving the town of Borgoch headed for Maldol via the Torbart road so they can get to Gomgul, you might as well not name anything.  The strategy I've ended up with is to use invented names for:

• major foreign places: "A ship from Tara Nun arrived just this morning."
• whole countries: "The king of Cambramor would like to see you."
• personal names: "The fisherman's name is Yanako, and he's delighted to meet you."
• modifiers on wholly invented things: "She carefully mashes the yendelin flower into a paste."

Otherwise, use English names as much as you can (or whatever language you speak at the table):

• "Crossing the White Mountains you find the weather starting to turn stormy."
• "This letter needs to get to a town called High Post, up the valley about three days' walk."
• "The Salty Sturgeon set sail two weeks ago and hasn't been heard from since."

News from home.  (George Baxter)

Invented names feel strange, foreign, impenetrable, but also intriguing and flavorful if used sparingly.  Given enough of them, they all start to sound the same.  English words (or whatever) can be transparent and familiar, but sometimes also dull and ordinary.

This can be used to your advantage.  A place called Quentahog sounds strange, but interesting.  That same place called Council Rock is easier to understand: more meaningful but less flavorful.  If the party is from the local culture, I'll call it Council Rock.  If they're foreigners from another land, I might call it Quentahog (if there aren't too many invented names already).

And don't be surprised when the players make fun of a name you made up.  It's pretty much inevitable, no matter how reasonable-sounding you think your names are.  Don't take it too seriously.  (This is just a game, after all.)

Inventing languages

I've made up some lists of names to give a bit of flavor to cultures.  The players never need to know what these names mean, they're just there to make different kinds of names sound different.

• Elven names tend to have lots of s/t/a/th, sharp names like talassa, karetikes, athala, variki.
• Coastal human names tend to have lots of k/q/w/sk, names like: quowak, misinikeg, waskakowet.
• Local giantish names tend to be rolling and rumbly and use your vocal cords: umburugul, aranda-mago, omorgu.
• Eastern goblin names are nearly unpronounceable to outsiders, so they never come up.

You should stop once you've got a list of names.  Seriously, stop.  Don't invent more language than you have to.  None of the players will care and you won't be able to speak it with anyone.

But...

If you really can't help yourself...

Note that this is chapter five.  Turn back before it's too late.

If you really must make up a whole language, have fun with it!  I think it's loads of fun, playing with different grammatical structures and phonological constraints and sound changes.  And no matter how far you go, you can always go further.  I've worked out how Imperial Elven descends from an earlier Old Elven language, but I haven't gone any further than that.  And just think of all the related elven tongues that might still exist in some far-flung colony of the empire.

Just remember not to foist it all on your poor players.  They have enough to remember as it is, discovering and inventing the story.  Having to pick up a new language on top of it is far too much.  (Unless you get a player who's weird like me...)

As the humans would say:

Ha ye chaskapa agakens.

Do not outdo yourself in speaking.