LogFAQs > #897033057

ParanoidObsessive posted...

As for being universal, it kind of makes sense in a setting where you're explicitly saying that "Common" exists as a language and has spread to nearly every civilized land the players will ever reach, because in turn traders would almost certainly refer to months and other units of time in conversations, which would then culturally spread over time. So while you might still have various regions referring to a given month by its original regional name, those people would also fully recognize the more common usage - and in time, the common usage would likely grow to replace the regional (which is what happened in our world).

Well, I'm not sure that any consistency today so much results from interactions with traders over time as much as it's been the product of government, the education system, and television (because you need a central influence for homogeny, otherwise you just get consistent regional practices). And, really, until the rise of dictionaries there was still a greater range of variation. That said, to this day the actual world doesn't really have a "common" although we have a handful of largely consistent languages.

Plus, I guess other than your ancient civilization (and Rome) examples, fantasy can always explain it away as a language which came directly from the gods or something.

And, in general, I've always accepted "common" as a contrivance to help the reader and to make things easier for the author who might otherwise have to reinvent the wheel. Granted, it would be kinda neat to have a work of fiction where all of the narrative was in plain English but then every single bit of dialogue was in the author's created language. I imagine that would sell terribly, of course, but the novelty would be amusing.

shadowsword87 posted...

lolcanon

Canon is what separates man from animal!
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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.