Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33428
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33428
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There are several ways to have more than one language in your world. Here are some ideas:

- Your characters might be conversant in more than one language. If your characters are high-born or a hereditary merchants, it makes perfect sense for foreign languages to be part of their education. You can even mention they have an accent, or have trouble understanding expressions.
- There might be a [lingua franca](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca) - a language that people learn as a second language for the explicit purpose of communicating with other people whose language they don't share.
- People might actually not understand each other, communicate through hand gestures, seek a translator, etc.
- There is the option of magic/translator microbes/babel fish - a fantasy tool fitted to the setting, that just lets people understand each other. But that, in my opinion, is the least interesting solution. (Not that it's always bad. Sometimes it's boring but practical - handwaves the problem, and lets you get on with telling the story.)

Some books in the fantasy genre make use of these tools. Look, for example, at the "Lord of the Rings": "Common Speech" (a.k.a English) is a language all characters are at least conversant in, it is the lingua franca of western Middle Earth, as well as the MCs' mother tongue. However, the hobbits have their unique dialect of "Common", with some unique words. Frodo, the MC, knows enough Quenya (one of the languages of the elves) for a polite greeting, but not much more than that (basically "please" and "thank you"). While elven nobility are fluent in Quenya, Sindarin and Common, we also encounter elves who do not speak Common, and Legolas, an elf, serves as translator.The Rohirrim (a human nation) have their own language, which the hobbits recognise as being somewhat related to where their unique words come from. When the Rohirrim choose not to address visitors in Common, it is considered lack of courtesy, but they certainly talk and sing in their own language among themselves (Aragorn is the one to translate this time). There's also the language of the Dwarves, which they keep secret from strangers so we only get glimpses of it in place names, Dark Speech (with multiple dialects), whatever languages the Southorns and Easterlings speak (we know nothing of those save that they are not the Common), and so on.

Original score: 26