Languages

Language is a powerful magical force, tied to blood itself. All sentient creatures can speak the language of their birth, regardless of where they were raised. For example, a dwarf raised among men will still speak dwarvish through an innate, instinctive knowledge of the language. Their vocabulary would be smaller than a dwarven scholar, but they would still understand what was said when spoken to. Accents do not carry this way—they are picked up by surroundings, not by nature.

The languages of the world. Many are related to one another in some way, and often adopt words and phrases from one another. They are listed roughly in order of most spoken to least spoken, but this order is far from exact.

Human
More often referred to as Common, the language of men is spoken bey nearly everyone in the world. The spread of the Kingdoms of Man in the 2nd Era and their dominance of geography ever since has led to its status as a ''lingua franca. ''All humans speak at least one dialect of this language, as their bloodline language. It uses a script of 28 characters and several punctuation marks, which use a set of thin lines and curves.

Human Accents
Western humans speak in one of three accents depending on their state in society. Most commoners speak in a west country or cockneyaccent, while most urban individuals—such as merchants, tradesmen, and craftsmen outside the country—end up using received pronunciation. The upper-class nobility, royalty, and highly educated peoples use upper RP, representing their status as the top of society.

Dwarvish
One of the most common second languages as well as the one spoken by all dwarves. It is a language spoken by all mountain and hill dwarves, as well as many humans and halflings. Dwarven is written in runes that represent common phonemes and can be combined together into more complex sounds. The combined sound-runes form words. The runes themselves are written with straight, angled lines designed to be carved into a rocky surface.

Dwarvish is a harsh, grating language, full of rough consonants and has been likened to stone scraping against stone. Despite that, its base percussion is powerful, and dwarvish war chants are famous across the world.

Dwarf-Common Accents
Hill dwarves have long resided within the human kingdoms, and their accents reflect it—they carry strong Scottish accents.

Mountain dwarves are proud bearers of their own independent, frigid culture high in the mountains of their Empire, and so carry deep Russianaccents.

Elvish
One of the most commonly-spoken languages after Common, Elvish is spoken by all three types of elves, as well as all half-elves. While medium and calligraphy differ among cultures, the language's lilting style of speech is highly similar between groups. High and Wood Elves both speak incredibly quickly with the words flowing together, but High elf speech is very high while Wood is far lower. Dark Elves share the pitch of High Elves, but speak far slower.

Elvish writing is pictographic, with individual words being written as symbolic characters. While learning the language can be difficult for many, the similiarity of related words make it far easier. Speech among native speakers is very quick, and words tend to flow together.

Elf-Common Accents
Half-elves speak the Common accent of the area in which they were born. High elves use a form of upper RP, likely copied by humans and eventually adapted into their own speech. Dark elves use a strong Eastern European lilt, and Wood elves an unaccented, low voice.

Orcish
The language instinctively spoken by Orcs and half-orcs. It is even harsher and more grating than Dwarvish, and punctuated by their much deeper vocals and powerful bellows thanks to a sizeable lung capacity. Orcish is often accompanied by grunts, changes in tone, and altered body language to indicate mood and intention.

Orcish uses simplified dwarven runes, with many of the more complex sounds truncated or removed entirely. Instead of being carved in stone, the orcish variants are scratched into animal bones, sticthed into cloth, or even scarred into orcish skin. Written works in orcish are rare, but their rich oral tradition more than compensates for it.

Orc-Common Accents
Orcs speak in a subtle Texan drawl accented by a deep, deep voice.

Giant
One of the oldest languages, after draconic. Like the giants themselves, words in giant are large, slow, and difficult to work with, but contain a rich cultural heritage if one is patient enough. Also spoken by goliaths, whose stone giant ancestry provides them with a full knowledge of the language.

Giant-Common Accents
Even the more intelligent goliaths and giants tend to use slow, deep voices. See: Grog from Critical Role

Goblin
Characterized by clashing consonants and shrieking vowels, Goblins is by far the most animalistic language. New speakers find it difficult to keep up with its rapid pace, not at all helped by goblins' natural tendency to get the words out as quickly as possible.

Goblin-Common Accents
Described as "shrill," goblins use a variant of a non-accent that is much, much higher-pitched than any medium-sized humanoid.

Halfling
Halflings are an insular people who are slow to welcome change and have great opposition to concepts that go against their community, and their language is no exception. Combining the slow pace of Dwarvish with the dynamic tones of Common, Halfling is a bastard language much like the people who speak it.

Halfing-Common Accents
Halflings use a deep southern accent.

Gnomish
Gnomes, being a nomadic culture, have picked up more expressions and intonations from their language than any other. Despite that, their language remains as unique and prosperous as ever. Provided, of course, that they exist at all.

Like elves, they speak very quickly. Unlike elves, their language flows poorly from one word to the next, and they compensate by slurring words together and creating new portmanteaus and slang almost constant. Few gnomish dictionaries exist, as the language adapts too quickly for publishers to keep pace.

Gnomish runes are letters are intricate and fanciful, full of flourish and style. There are 18 characters, each representing the sounds unique to Gnomish. Over time, the group has adopted at least a dozen other recognizable characters from dwarvish and elvish, each altered to fit the style of Gnomish calligraphy.

Gnome-Common Accents
Gnomes speak with a Norwich accent.

Draconic
Spoken by dragons and Dragonborn as well as many ancient and beast races, Draconic is a language characterized by bursts of air and rapid hisses and clicks. A difficult language for mammalian races to master, their vocabulary is often limited by the shape of their mouths.

As the oldest known language, Draconic's 26-character alphabet forms the basis for most others. The runes are simple, but relatively easy to learn.

Draconic-Common Accents
Draconic is typically unaccented, but accompanied by deep throat rasps. Actual dragons speaking common lack the rasp, and instead have voices full of majesty and deadly power.

Undercommon
A dialect unrelated to Common, the lingua franca of the Underdark. Spoken by duergar, svirfneblin, derro, and kuo-toa. Speakers not from the Underdark claim it's a painful language to listen to, though this is unverified. It has no written language, and is merely used as a common language between inhabitants of the Underdark.

Undercommon-Common Accents
Accents vary heavily based upon the speaker. Duergar are scottish, svirfneblin are london, derro are deep and growling, and kuo-toa are deep, slow, and bubbly in their speech, often rounding vowel sounds.

Celestial
The language of gods and angels. Implicitly understood by aasimar, it is studied routinely by scholars and clergy the world over. Considered by many to the be the language of the educated, many laws and scholarly works are written in this tongue. While not used as an everyday language by any of the material plane, its status among the educated earns it a niche status among commonly spoken languages of the world.

Celestial-Accents
Many powerful celestials have the power to be explicitly understood, regardless of the listener, and many weaker ones simply speak Common. Unaccented, their voices instead echo in a heavenly chorus, reflecting their true nature as beings of the upper plans.

Sylvan
The language of fey and all inhabitants of the pockets of Feywild, Sylvan is a beautiful, ethereal language spoken with the eyes and face as well as the body. Native speakers tend to be proud and haughty, or sociopathically mischievous, and its grammar—highly complex and rigid in some areas, with occasional wild exceptions that utterly butcher the meaning of sentences—reflects that.

Sylvan-Common Accents
Sylvans speaking common are typically fey, and as fey are nearly as diverse as humanoids, their accents will differ greatly. Nymphs are a sultry French, satyrs/fauns are an over-the-top italian, and higher fey such as seelie are ethereal and powerful—reflected by a voice like Galadriel's.

Abyssal
The language spoken by all creatures of the Abyss, the bottom planes and great drain of the cosmos. Abyssal lacks almost any structures resembling complex grammar rules. It is a language of roars and posturing, and of magical telepathy as much as it is spoken word. Many demons cannot speak it, merely comprehend it. On the opposite end of the spectrum there are demons powerful enough to be considered deities, and they often speak the language of their chosen peoples.

Abyssal-Common Accents
Snarls, growls, and bestial roars are common among the less-civilized speakers of this language. The far more intelligent ones can affect any accent they choose based on their form.

Infernal
The language of devils, the more civilized fiends. Written in a script without lowercase letters, it relies heavily on intonation and accent marks in order to make its ideas known. Its alphabet of 15 letters and 2 dozen accent marks makes mistaking one word for another incredibly easy. This is often exploited in infernal contracts, where misreading a word can change the meaning of an entire document.

Infernal-Common Accents
Devils' speech matches no named accent, for their true voices are the sounds of growls, snarls, hisses, and rattles of their diverse bodies.

Terran
The language of earth elementals both high and low. Terran resembles the sound of falling mud or cracking rocks, and is entirely unintelligible to human ears—though it can be read and spoken with sufficient practice.

Aquan
The language of water elementals both high and low. Aquan resembles the sound of falling water or crashing waves, and is entirely unintelligible to human ears—though it can be read and spoken with sufficient practice.

Ignan
The language of water elementals both high and low. Ignan resembles the sound of a roaring bonfire or crackling smoke, and is entirely unintelligible to human ears—though it can be read and spoken with sufficient practice.

Auran
The language of water elementals both high and low. Aquan resembles the sound of falling water or crashing waves, and is entirely unintelligible to human ears—though it can be read and spoken with sufficient practice.

Deep Speech
The droning, breathy language of the aberrations. Beholders, aboleths, illithid, slaad, neogi, and great old ones all speak this terrible tongue. Characterized by its heavy use of extended vowel-Ls, SH, and hard G sounds, as well as its tendency to assail the minds of those that comprehend it.

Deep Speech's text is terrible and alien, each rune (of which there are dozens) a whirling mass of points and swells of ink. Studying this language takes time and devotion, but it is possible with time and practice

Deep Speech-Common Accents
The voices of speakers from the Aberrant Threads varies based on physiology. Some are burbling, others whispered or rasped. Their mangled mouthparts prevent them from forming words the same way we do, and so they will often chew on or process their words before spitting them out.

Druidic
One of the only languages that isn't inherited and can only be taught. It is shared by the circles of druids and cannot, even through heavy magic, be taught outside druidic circles. Nigh-impossible to understand or even spot for outsiders, Druidic is easily hidden within nature's rocks, trees, and rivers.

Thieves' Cant
A "secret mix of dialect, jargon, and code that allows you to hide messages in seemingly normal conversation. Only another creature that knows thieves' cant understands such messages." 4x slower than normal communication, it is incredibly valuable for hidden messages.