Languages Schmanguages
Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2022 3:06 pm
I have thoughts about languages. Be forewarned, as a lot of the thoughts I'm going to share may seem somewhat self-contradictory. In this write-up I will go over the current implementation of languages, how I see that interact with roleplay, where I feel its shortcomings are, and what I wish it looked like in the future.
Available Languages
As categorized by the game, there are 15 "common" languages which can be learned by phrasebooks and are starting languages for various races or given freely by different classes. They are Abyssal, Celestial, Draconic, Dwarven, Elvish, Giant, Gnoll, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling, Infernal, Orcish, Sylvan, Undercommon, and Xanalress.
There are also 7 "exotic" languages, which are learned exclusively by classes or by very rare races. These cannot be learned via phrasebooks, and one must spend a number of levels in a class, or a Normal award, to know the language. They are Animal Language, Deep Speech, Druidic, Loross, Roushoum, (Drow) Sign Language, and Thieves' Cant.
I think our categorizations here are missing a step in between "common" and "exotic," where a lot of the more uncommon planar languages could fit. To see Elvish on par in commonality with conversational Celestial seems strange to me. Likewise, it's odd that Drow Sign Language is technically even more difficult to learn than the Eldritch tongue.
Furthermore, there are languages included and excluded in our system that seems rather odd. The gnolls get their own language, but Primordial is excluded. Sign Language exists, yet Drow maintain an exclusive monopoly on it. We get Roushoum and Loross for the hyper-evolved pseudo-humans, but no regional dialects for the Mazticans and Kara-Turans. I don't mean this as an admonishment, I should clarify - I understand that implementing additional languages would undoubtedly be a huge PITA, and I'm sure a lot of what exists is just built off of work done in the past which no one really has the emotional fortitude to endure the process of enacting changes upon. Frankly, it's amazing that we have so many options to choose from in the first place. I do feel compelled to lay everything out, however, because the implementation as it stands leads to some... odd impressions.
Language Usage
What's the point of a language? Well, let's look at how they're used in-game.
Of mechanical relevance, they're used in runic dweomercrafting, where the person enchanting a piece of equipment must know the language inscribed in order to utilize the rune.
But, speaking towards the broader experience - they're used to exclude The Others.
Almost every race gets a free language, solidifying their identity. Oftentimes this racial language will slip into conversation, even among others outside of that racial group, to make private comments intended only for the fluent - those members of the race who are in the in-group, or those who bothered to learn. Very rarely is a special language used with the purpose of "including" others. By its nature, a language limits the amount of people who can engage with what you're saying. Knowing a group's language gives you access to these private conversations, and puts you on the inside of this exclusionary tactic. To put it bluntly, the more languages you know, the more roleplay you are privy to.
This isn't a "bad" thing, I don't think. In many situations, I've found it elevated a scene, bringing a stronger sense of anticipation and immersion. But of course, the consequence is that it makes languages and the methods of learning them highly sought-after. It creates a feeling of frustration, when you see words spoken that you can't understand. The natural response to this is to yearn for a way to bridge that gap, and get yourself in the know. Although, when that's impossible, it's easy to slip into a sense of resentment towards the exclusionary group.
Language & Race
There are three "tiers," shall we say, of racial language: Basic, Uncommon, and Exotic. Depending on the race, you can start with up to 3 additional languages just from heritage alone.
- Basic racial languages are (generally speaking) common, learnable, and spoken by the base races. They are Dwarven, Elvish, Gnomish, Halfling, and Undercommon.
- Uncommon racial languages are technically spoken by a base race and can be found in phrasebooks (with one exception), but the race is a bit more rare. They are Draconic, Goblin, Xanalress, and Sign Language. Notably, Sign Language is granted exclusively to Drow, and cannot be learned via phrasebook.
- Exotic racial languages are spoken by races that one must spend an award for. Some can be learned with a phrasebook, while others can't. They are Abyssal, Animal Language, Celestial, Giant, Gnoll, Infernal, Loross, Roushoum, and Sylvan.
I only really have one complaint on this list: I think it's silly that you can learn Roushoum, the language of the alien and secretive Deep Imaskari, whose existence went unknown to the world until their recent reemergence... but Drow Sign Language, a rudimentary code of hand signals and gestures intended for simple combat instructions, is beyond anyone's ability to teach and learn.
Moreover, it bothers me that humans don't get to know any additional languages. I think it would be great if regional dialects were an option you could choose on character creation, like "Kara-Turan" or "Zakharan" or "Maztican" - you don't even really need to get specific, just some shared continental root would do. Or, maybe on character creation, if your Intelligence stat meets a certain threshold, anyone can select an additional "common" language to start with! If something like that were in place, I'd also love if Sign Language were taken off the default Drow language list and simply tucked in as a selectable language, because it doesn't make sense to me that EVERY Drow knows the raiders' secret handshake kill signal. But maybe Sign Language matters too much to me and I should stop talking about it.
Language & Class
Here's a breakdown of which languages you can learn by taking which classes:
Abyssal - Blackguard, Cleric, Hexblade, Warlock
Animal Language - Druid, Ranger, Shaman
Celestial - Cleric, Harper
Deep Speech - Warlock
Draconic - RDD, Warlock, Wizard
Druidic - Druid
Infernal - Blackguard, Cleric, Warlock
Sylvan - Druid, Shaman, Warlock
Thieves' Cant - Rogue
Oftentimes a class's bonus language is granted on the very first level, granting fluency overnight. The only exceptions to that are Ranger, which grants Animal Language at level 6, and Rogue, which grants Thieves' Cant at level 7.
Generally speaking, I dislike how you can suddenly become fluent in a language the minute you take a class level. Mostly because it's such a stark contrast to the arduous process of language learning that everyone else must undertake. I would prefer if the free languages granted by these classes were more like an open language slot and a hefty amount of progress in learning the language, or maybe every level they take in the class grants them something like +10-20% towards learning the language - something that makes the process a gradual slope, rather than a sudden epiphany.
And then there's Loremaster.
Loremaster
Every level of Loremaster grants you an additional language. At your 5th Loremaster level, you can learn a language that's unteachable via phrasebooks, one which you would typically only be able to learn by investing in a class or being born a certain race.
I hate this.
Not only does this needle at my aforementioned disdain for epiphanic fluency, it also cements Loremaster, among all its other myriad goodies, as The Roleplay Class. Like I stated prior, linguistic fluency opens you up to more avenues of roleplay. By sharing a language, you are better able to meaningfully interact with more people by having access to their "in-group." Conversely, the ability to cross the barriers someone else is trying to put up thwarts their ability to create an "in-group" - a concept which I do genuinely believe has value in a roleplay server. Intrigue cannot exist without secrecy and privacy. When everyone speaks Xanalress, no one does.
Learning Languages
Aside from genetics and profession, you can learn many languages in-game via phrasebooks. Well, not exactly the phrasebooks themselves, but by having a phrasebook in your inventory and listening to other people speak in that language. Your Intelligence stat determines how many languages you can learn, and also how quickly you learn them. Lore plays a related role in the process by identifying the languages you hear, and helping you translate phrases despite your lack of fluency.
I don't know what calculation is used to determine how quickly you learn a language, but I can say with absolute certainty that it is too god damn slow.
I have never learned a language naturally in-game. I've gotten very close with my high-INT, high-Lore Wizard who spent unhealthy amounts of time around Drow, but even then I only got to 98%. I think I played that character for close to two years. I'm not saying it should be a lightning-quick process, but as someone who is actually tri-lingual, the amount of time it takes is completely absurd.
The Real World
Learning a language in real life is deceptively easy.
Yes, there's all kinds of factors that go into how well you learn a language - age and brain elasticity, environmental influences, prior exposure to languages, et cetera - but generally speaking, if you put your mind to it and really try, you can get to a conversational level in just about any language in as quickly as a couple months. Your pronunciation might be cringe-inducing and you might not be so good at reading, but you can have a pleasant conversation with a native speaker where you can express your thoughts with limited restrictions in about 3 months of study - and once you have a grasp on that, the rest of the pieces fall into place pretty quickly.
Additionally, languages in real life all have a certain degree of overlap. English bears a strong resemblance to German, and the romance languages are notoriously similar to one another. With fluency in one language in a given group, you can pretty easily navigate the difficulties of its related languages, even if you've never spent a minute studying them.
Anecdotally, I'm fluent in English, Japanese, and Portuguese. My fluency in Portuguese helps me converse with Spanish, Italian, and even French-speakers that come to me at work, provided we both talk very slowly and point at the things we're talking about. My fluency in Japanese doesn't help me understand spoken Mandarin literally at all, but I can read and recognize some of the written language well enough to navigate a menu or find directions. Also, I taught Japanese to myself. I didn't touch a lesson guide and didn't meet a native speaker of the language until I was four years into my studies. According to that native speaker, I was already close to fluent at that stage. My studies consisted of making flash cards to study key words from the dictionary, and watching way too much anime.
To relate both these points back to Arelith - I think the current language learning system has a few flaws in its dynamic, especially when comparing it to reality. My first thought is that it takes too long to learn a language in-game. Sitting in a language lesson for hours might net you as little as 3% progress. I could literally learn a language in real life faster than I learn a language in Arelith.
Furthermore, Arelith doesn't recognize related languages in a group when accounting for fluency. I remember RedRopes said something towards this end while he was working on languages, suggesting the intention for some crossover fluency. I think that's a great idea, and I hope it gets implemented sometime.
Although perhaps most egregious of all - the uselessness of phrasebooks. If you have a phrasebook in your inventory 24 hours a day, why can't you simply learn by reading it? It doesn't make sense that you are wholly dependent on listening to other people talk in order to learn a language. Likewise, it doesn't make sense that you can't learn the language WITHOUT a phrasebook. So much of language learning is done simply by listening and connecting what you hear with what you see. My husband spent two weeks with me in Brazil recently and went in not knowing a single word in Portuguese, and just by listening to conversation he came out of it able to understand a surprising amount of simple words and phrases.
Rather than speaking and reading being dependent on one another for any progress at all, I think it would be great if phrasebooks and lessons could represent two different ways of learning which, when combined, accelerate the process tremendously.
Closing Thoughts
Languages are a great way to give a character or group a sense of shared identity. It's difficult to balance the human drive for knowledge and inclusion against the value provided in the distinct identity engendered by a language's inherent exclusivity. I feel as though the implementation of languages on Arelith suffers from a weird yo-yo effect, where they're too easy to learn for some people, and too difficult for others. Not only is there that inconsistency in experience, but the language learning process overall doesn't reflect reality, which only adds to the frustration of the system.
It would be amazing if every character had some kind of 8-hour cool down ability that you could use on a phrasebook to pick up +1-3% fluency, maybe dependant on INT. Maybe increase the rate of language learning from other people, or keep it the same, I'm not sure.
I would also love to see feats that cater to aspiring linguists. Maybe a feat could eliminate the need for phrasebooks and let you learn any language, including those that ordinarily can't be learned due to the absence of phrasebooks. Maybe instead of awards granting different tiers of language, there could be general feats that grant a common, uncommon, and exotic language in ascending tiers. Maybe some feats could increase the amount of languages you're able to know, or accelerate the process.
I also want Loremaster to be less awesome. Seriously, I feel so cheesy for putting it in every single one of my builds. It also seems like every third person I run into has Loremaster levels, which is even more evidence in my eyes that Loremaster has had it too good for too long.
But maybe I'm crazy and wrong and my opinions are bad! These are all my thoughts (or at least most of them and I am too tired to type anything more) - now I'm interested in hearing what the community has to say. I'm especially interested in hearing from the people who agree with me! Everyone else can feel free to withhold commentary.
Available Languages
As categorized by the game, there are 15 "common" languages which can be learned by phrasebooks and are starting languages for various races or given freely by different classes. They are Abyssal, Celestial, Draconic, Dwarven, Elvish, Giant, Gnoll, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling, Infernal, Orcish, Sylvan, Undercommon, and Xanalress.
There are also 7 "exotic" languages, which are learned exclusively by classes or by very rare races. These cannot be learned via phrasebooks, and one must spend a number of levels in a class, or a Normal award, to know the language. They are Animal Language, Deep Speech, Druidic, Loross, Roushoum, (Drow) Sign Language, and Thieves' Cant.
I think our categorizations here are missing a step in between "common" and "exotic," where a lot of the more uncommon planar languages could fit. To see Elvish on par in commonality with conversational Celestial seems strange to me. Likewise, it's odd that Drow Sign Language is technically even more difficult to learn than the Eldritch tongue.
Furthermore, there are languages included and excluded in our system that seems rather odd. The gnolls get their own language, but Primordial is excluded. Sign Language exists, yet Drow maintain an exclusive monopoly on it. We get Roushoum and Loross for the hyper-evolved pseudo-humans, but no regional dialects for the Mazticans and Kara-Turans. I don't mean this as an admonishment, I should clarify - I understand that implementing additional languages would undoubtedly be a huge PITA, and I'm sure a lot of what exists is just built off of work done in the past which no one really has the emotional fortitude to endure the process of enacting changes upon. Frankly, it's amazing that we have so many options to choose from in the first place. I do feel compelled to lay everything out, however, because the implementation as it stands leads to some... odd impressions.
Language Usage
What's the point of a language? Well, let's look at how they're used in-game.
Of mechanical relevance, they're used in runic dweomercrafting, where the person enchanting a piece of equipment must know the language inscribed in order to utilize the rune.
But, speaking towards the broader experience - they're used to exclude The Others.
Almost every race gets a free language, solidifying their identity. Oftentimes this racial language will slip into conversation, even among others outside of that racial group, to make private comments intended only for the fluent - those members of the race who are in the in-group, or those who bothered to learn. Very rarely is a special language used with the purpose of "including" others. By its nature, a language limits the amount of people who can engage with what you're saying. Knowing a group's language gives you access to these private conversations, and puts you on the inside of this exclusionary tactic. To put it bluntly, the more languages you know, the more roleplay you are privy to.
This isn't a "bad" thing, I don't think. In many situations, I've found it elevated a scene, bringing a stronger sense of anticipation and immersion. But of course, the consequence is that it makes languages and the methods of learning them highly sought-after. It creates a feeling of frustration, when you see words spoken that you can't understand. The natural response to this is to yearn for a way to bridge that gap, and get yourself in the know. Although, when that's impossible, it's easy to slip into a sense of resentment towards the exclusionary group.
Language & Race
There are three "tiers," shall we say, of racial language: Basic, Uncommon, and Exotic. Depending on the race, you can start with up to 3 additional languages just from heritage alone.
- Basic racial languages are (generally speaking) common, learnable, and spoken by the base races. They are Dwarven, Elvish, Gnomish, Halfling, and Undercommon.
- Uncommon racial languages are technically spoken by a base race and can be found in phrasebooks (with one exception), but the race is a bit more rare. They are Draconic, Goblin, Xanalress, and Sign Language. Notably, Sign Language is granted exclusively to Drow, and cannot be learned via phrasebook.
- Exotic racial languages are spoken by races that one must spend an award for. Some can be learned with a phrasebook, while others can't. They are Abyssal, Animal Language, Celestial, Giant, Gnoll, Infernal, Loross, Roushoum, and Sylvan.
I only really have one complaint on this list: I think it's silly that you can learn Roushoum, the language of the alien and secretive Deep Imaskari, whose existence went unknown to the world until their recent reemergence... but Drow Sign Language, a rudimentary code of hand signals and gestures intended for simple combat instructions, is beyond anyone's ability to teach and learn.
Moreover, it bothers me that humans don't get to know any additional languages. I think it would be great if regional dialects were an option you could choose on character creation, like "Kara-Turan" or "Zakharan" or "Maztican" - you don't even really need to get specific, just some shared continental root would do. Or, maybe on character creation, if your Intelligence stat meets a certain threshold, anyone can select an additional "common" language to start with! If something like that were in place, I'd also love if Sign Language were taken off the default Drow language list and simply tucked in as a selectable language, because it doesn't make sense to me that EVERY Drow knows the raiders' secret handshake kill signal. But maybe Sign Language matters too much to me and I should stop talking about it.
Language & Class
Here's a breakdown of which languages you can learn by taking which classes:
Abyssal - Blackguard, Cleric, Hexblade, Warlock
Animal Language - Druid, Ranger, Shaman
Celestial - Cleric, Harper
Deep Speech - Warlock
Draconic - RDD, Warlock, Wizard
Druidic - Druid
Infernal - Blackguard, Cleric, Warlock
Sylvan - Druid, Shaman, Warlock
Thieves' Cant - Rogue
Oftentimes a class's bonus language is granted on the very first level, granting fluency overnight. The only exceptions to that are Ranger, which grants Animal Language at level 6, and Rogue, which grants Thieves' Cant at level 7.
Generally speaking, I dislike how you can suddenly become fluent in a language the minute you take a class level. Mostly because it's such a stark contrast to the arduous process of language learning that everyone else must undertake. I would prefer if the free languages granted by these classes were more like an open language slot and a hefty amount of progress in learning the language, or maybe every level they take in the class grants them something like +10-20% towards learning the language - something that makes the process a gradual slope, rather than a sudden epiphany.
And then there's Loremaster.
Loremaster
Every level of Loremaster grants you an additional language. At your 5th Loremaster level, you can learn a language that's unteachable via phrasebooks, one which you would typically only be able to learn by investing in a class or being born a certain race.
I hate this.
Not only does this needle at my aforementioned disdain for epiphanic fluency, it also cements Loremaster, among all its other myriad goodies, as The Roleplay Class. Like I stated prior, linguistic fluency opens you up to more avenues of roleplay. By sharing a language, you are better able to meaningfully interact with more people by having access to their "in-group." Conversely, the ability to cross the barriers someone else is trying to put up thwarts their ability to create an "in-group" - a concept which I do genuinely believe has value in a roleplay server. Intrigue cannot exist without secrecy and privacy. When everyone speaks Xanalress, no one does.
Learning Languages
Aside from genetics and profession, you can learn many languages in-game via phrasebooks. Well, not exactly the phrasebooks themselves, but by having a phrasebook in your inventory and listening to other people speak in that language. Your Intelligence stat determines how many languages you can learn, and also how quickly you learn them. Lore plays a related role in the process by identifying the languages you hear, and helping you translate phrases despite your lack of fluency.
I don't know what calculation is used to determine how quickly you learn a language, but I can say with absolute certainty that it is too god damn slow.
I have never learned a language naturally in-game. I've gotten very close with my high-INT, high-Lore Wizard who spent unhealthy amounts of time around Drow, but even then I only got to 98%. I think I played that character for close to two years. I'm not saying it should be a lightning-quick process, but as someone who is actually tri-lingual, the amount of time it takes is completely absurd.
The Real World
Learning a language in real life is deceptively easy.
Yes, there's all kinds of factors that go into how well you learn a language - age and brain elasticity, environmental influences, prior exposure to languages, et cetera - but generally speaking, if you put your mind to it and really try, you can get to a conversational level in just about any language in as quickly as a couple months. Your pronunciation might be cringe-inducing and you might not be so good at reading, but you can have a pleasant conversation with a native speaker where you can express your thoughts with limited restrictions in about 3 months of study - and once you have a grasp on that, the rest of the pieces fall into place pretty quickly.
Additionally, languages in real life all have a certain degree of overlap. English bears a strong resemblance to German, and the romance languages are notoriously similar to one another. With fluency in one language in a given group, you can pretty easily navigate the difficulties of its related languages, even if you've never spent a minute studying them.
Anecdotally, I'm fluent in English, Japanese, and Portuguese. My fluency in Portuguese helps me converse with Spanish, Italian, and even French-speakers that come to me at work, provided we both talk very slowly and point at the things we're talking about. My fluency in Japanese doesn't help me understand spoken Mandarin literally at all, but I can read and recognize some of the written language well enough to navigate a menu or find directions. Also, I taught Japanese to myself. I didn't touch a lesson guide and didn't meet a native speaker of the language until I was four years into my studies. According to that native speaker, I was already close to fluent at that stage. My studies consisted of making flash cards to study key words from the dictionary, and watching way too much anime.
To relate both these points back to Arelith - I think the current language learning system has a few flaws in its dynamic, especially when comparing it to reality. My first thought is that it takes too long to learn a language in-game. Sitting in a language lesson for hours might net you as little as 3% progress. I could literally learn a language in real life faster than I learn a language in Arelith.
Furthermore, Arelith doesn't recognize related languages in a group when accounting for fluency. I remember RedRopes said something towards this end while he was working on languages, suggesting the intention for some crossover fluency. I think that's a great idea, and I hope it gets implemented sometime.
Although perhaps most egregious of all - the uselessness of phrasebooks. If you have a phrasebook in your inventory 24 hours a day, why can't you simply learn by reading it? It doesn't make sense that you are wholly dependent on listening to other people talk in order to learn a language. Likewise, it doesn't make sense that you can't learn the language WITHOUT a phrasebook. So much of language learning is done simply by listening and connecting what you hear with what you see. My husband spent two weeks with me in Brazil recently and went in not knowing a single word in Portuguese, and just by listening to conversation he came out of it able to understand a surprising amount of simple words and phrases.
Rather than speaking and reading being dependent on one another for any progress at all, I think it would be great if phrasebooks and lessons could represent two different ways of learning which, when combined, accelerate the process tremendously.
Closing Thoughts
Languages are a great way to give a character or group a sense of shared identity. It's difficult to balance the human drive for knowledge and inclusion against the value provided in the distinct identity engendered by a language's inherent exclusivity. I feel as though the implementation of languages on Arelith suffers from a weird yo-yo effect, where they're too easy to learn for some people, and too difficult for others. Not only is there that inconsistency in experience, but the language learning process overall doesn't reflect reality, which only adds to the frustration of the system.
It would be amazing if every character had some kind of 8-hour cool down ability that you could use on a phrasebook to pick up +1-3% fluency, maybe dependant on INT. Maybe increase the rate of language learning from other people, or keep it the same, I'm not sure.
I would also love to see feats that cater to aspiring linguists. Maybe a feat could eliminate the need for phrasebooks and let you learn any language, including those that ordinarily can't be learned due to the absence of phrasebooks. Maybe instead of awards granting different tiers of language, there could be general feats that grant a common, uncommon, and exotic language in ascending tiers. Maybe some feats could increase the amount of languages you're able to know, or accelerate the process.
I also want Loremaster to be less awesome. Seriously, I feel so cheesy for putting it in every single one of my builds. It also seems like every third person I run into has Loremaster levels, which is even more evidence in my eyes that Loremaster has had it too good for too long.
But maybe I'm crazy and wrong and my opinions are bad! These are all my thoughts (or at least most of them and I am too tired to type anything more) - now I'm interested in hearing what the community has to say. I'm especially interested in hearing from the people who agree with me! Everyone else can feel free to withhold commentary.