So is "common" actually "human" or do we

>>54128041
It's more of a trade tongue that's been developed by smacking every language in the world into each other on a semi-regular basis for generations.

In more meta terms, it's whatever you're speaking at the table for convenience's sake.

>>54128041
*muffled depends on the setting in the distance*

>>54128041
Pretty sure the first use of this was Tolkien's "Westron" which was spoken by most everyone north and west of Gondor. Most civilized people spoke it, even if it wasn't their native tongue. So something like Latin in the Roman Empire.

>>54128041

If humans are the most commonly encountered race, on friendly terms anyway, with each and every race then it makes sense that whatever the human Lingua Franca is, it's also the most useful second language for nonhumans to learn.

In most standard D&D settings, I think that humans would have local languages, but it's like speaking Welsh or Basque or Navajo. A point of pride, a connection to your people, and so on. But basically everyone is going to speak the trade tongue and a growing number of people as you get into big cities are going to speak nothing else, even if they're not human, because everyone they speak to uses common.

If they're a literate culture it also matters what languages things are written in. If common is what the newspapers are generally printed in, if most books that are translated into anything other than the original are translated into common first, then it's still useful to know other languages but it has stopped being *necessary*.

>>54129253
Damn goblins, coming here and forcing us to speak goblinese..

>>54130099
I believe its called "Gobbely" sir!

>>54130113
Shut up private, I know how to handle this.

Comprende estabba un adventuros para mad dolleerinos?

>>54130118
G'bleck! C'Bleck! Confa! Confa un too too! Stabba Stabba (gobbely laughter) haha, una cinco gold peices! (Gobbely laughter)

Generally common comes down to 'we don't know what setting you're using but insert the local trade language'. An example would be in Golarion you use Taldan in place of common as it's the most common international trade language. However if you're gonna be adventuring in the Mwangi expanse you're gonna replace it with Polyglot because it's the local common.

>>54130128
"Uh, i don't think we heer have gold peices we can give ya, cept maybe..." (Whistles) Hey kyle, we still got them brass confederate coins made up to look like golden eagles?

Here you go little feller, no just go stab that guy over there and-

(Goblins slit throat, take gold peices, starts counting as he flips them one by one) Una, Dos, Trinco, Stabaa! (Gobbely laughter)

>>54130157
Futa noota! (makes motion to slit throat)
Nooo! (grabs balls) Futa NOOTA! (Gobbely laughter)

>>54128041

Both, depending on whether you're using SCAG or not. If you aren't, Humans just get Common + 1. If you are, there's an optional rule on page 112 that gives each Human racial group a separate bonus language for that group in addition to Common and 1 bonus.

A stickier wicket is whether, say, Chondathan is meant to be an individual language of a dialect of Human. If the first, then for a conversation to happen in Chondathan then both participants would have to speak Chondathan. If the second, all speakers of any human language can understand and make themselves understood by speakers of any human language although they will most likely divulge their cultural origin unless they spent their extra language learning a separate dialect so as not to.

My personal reading is that it's meant to be unique languages because it uses the word language not the world 'dialect' in the rules, but YMMV.