I just use different American accents, mostly because I'm American.
Also, because hillbilly gnomes are funny
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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As a native speaker I will use the very specific Baltimore MD accent on certain NPCs
One of my PCs is a ghoul, and I am incapable of speaking that rough without sounding like Fran Fine (if she smoked for 50 years)
Y'all be got by 'time you realizin' I been here
Undercommon is just really thick Australian accent.
I would also accept Scots, since it's barely recognizable as English
I think you mean "Pikey" as depicted by Brad Pitt in Snatch.
Or, is that simply the way Duergar speak it?
I played a furry porn game where otters spoke Tagalog and honestly, yeah that's fine
I am curious.
I have my own language mappings in my homebrew. Most of them only appear as names since most people speak Common, but I did include some people in my game who don't. (I make sure that they are some who speak a language that I speak too.) So the mappings are:
- Common - English. We're playing in English, duh. (Before contact with Elves, humans spoke "proto-Common" which would be mapped to German if I had to use it. Many humans still have German names.)
- (High) Elvish - French. Yes, in-universe the Common language has plenty of Elvish influence. (Classical Elvish is Latin.)
- (Wood) Elvish - Greek. Most Wood Elves speak High Elvish, but their names are Greek and many of them still speak their own language as well. The continents and seas are often named in Ancient Wood-Elvish (i.e., classical Greek) because they used to be the primary explorers before the rise of the High Elves.
- Dwarvish - modern Dwarvish is Norwegian, old Dwarvish is Icelandic.
- Halfling - Frisian. (Fortunately I haven't had to say anything in Halfling so far.)
- Gnomish - Welsh. (Again, fortunately I haven't had to say anything in Gnomish yet.)
- Orc - Russian.
- Goblin - Mongolian.
- Tellurian (not a species, but an influential country) - Spanish. Many people alongside the Bay of Luria speak Tellurian as their native language instead of Common or their racial language.
- Sylvan - Finnish. (My go-to for weirder names as well. Many Fey-related creatures have Finnish names, as well as those who live near Fey portals.)
- Giant - Hungarian. (They feature a lot in Hungarian folk tales.)
- Draconic - Hindi.
- Hashiman (not a species, but a group of eight islands - though they are also the Kenku homeland so most Kenku speak this as their native language) - Japanese-ish. The language comes in two dialects, Hanego which is used primarily by Kenku but also Aaracokra, Owlin, Tortles, and other creatures with hard beaks that have difficulty pronouncing M and N, and Hadago which is used by the rest. They are identical in writing, differ mostly in pronouncing those sounds.
Orc - Russian.
Haha holy shit.
Draconic - Hindi
"The dragon rears back and bellows 'DO NOT REDEEM! WHAT ARE YOU DOING??'"
"No, Mr. Sorcadin. A Snickers is not a sprinkle."
Tolkien was primarily a linguist, so the languages he made were actually based on real languages. Tolkien elvish is based on Finnish.
Why not just you Elvish for Elvish?
Because I don't speak Quenya. (I wrote the signature of an Elvish character in Tengwar, but that's about it.)
I thought Kenku couldn't speak
That was pre-MotM, and also Forgotten Realms lore which holds no water in a homebrew setting.
Oh cool. I'm only really familiar with them from the 5e Monster Manual and Volo's Guide to Monsters, I'll have to check out Monsters of the Multiverse. Also this is probably a stupid question but what is Forgotten Realms lore?
The Forgotten Realms setting is the "default" D&D setting. Most published adventures take place in it, specifically a small part of it (planet: Toril, continent: Faerun, region: Sword Coast, the west coast of Faerun; this region has a number of famous cities like Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate, Candlekeep, Neverwinter, etc...). The vast majority of lore that you can find in books like the Monster Manual specifically relate to this setting (Volo, Mordenkainen, Tasha, Xanathar, etc... all live there anyway). It also has many famous characters and deities (e.g. Corellon, Gruumsh, Moradin...), countries, cultures, even some languages. And it also includes things like the Kenku curse.
But of course if you're running a homebrew setting like I do, you can feel free to cherry-pick it or just straight-up ignore it.
IMO - Racial/Ethnic/National Coding isn't inherently wrong. But using that coding to push Stereotypes and oppressive mindsets is.
Rule of thumb, if you're worried you will in some way cross that line, don't do coding.
Not oppressive mindset, but i'm ok with stereotypes too.
Because it can be funny, in comedy racial jokes are always set in some stereotypes for a reason. I think RP is mostly that, fun and joking around.
Esperanto is gnomish
Just want to point out that draconic has quite a lot of words already defined, as well as a few grammar rules. 1. Draconic, 2. Draconic Primer, and 3. Lonely Planet Vayemniri (vayemniri being the endonym for dragonborn in the Realms—a race that absolutely despises dragons wouldn’t exactly be happy about a name that says "dragon").
I’m not sure what real-world language would be the best analogue. Maybe something Germanic?
You can't be racist against the French. Same way you can't be racist against dogs.
You can. And by the way, check how French are doing accent in their series. Spoiler: they don't. It's seen as racist. Yes, the way other people are cherry picking other accents is seen as racist. Roger Murtaugh has no accent for example.
Of course, it's for fun you do it. Of course we still do funny things with accents. But in little groups where the context is clear (for fun or a group of racist shitbags). To quote a dead man (Desproges): "you can laugh about everything but not with everyone". Thus not on a broadcasted channel.
Just remember that there are other cultures.
Hey, you see. I haven't been offensive. It's because I think that some times, it's good to explain things in a detached way. Now, I can say that discussions about racism is just a joke in (current, let's see if something better comes next) DnD. Not sure that accent is the problem: even when Darth Vador has a German accent to put a biiig clue of how the empire looks like the Nazis people are able to miss it.
I think you're getting downvotes for a couple reasons, the least of which is not the fact that you seem to be hinting at the Empire being subtle with IRL fascist adjacency... The faction was literally designed from the start with Nazis at the top of the inspiration list, and this is pretty common knowledge.
Secondly, James Earl Jones does not have a German accent, and its "Vader". I'd go on, but there's just so much to unpack. 😶
Latin is Primordial
I use portuguese for common, english for elvish, japanese for abyssal and i'm learning dovahzul to use as draconic, i'm thinking on learning german too but i don't know what it will be yet
Goblinoids are German, with various tribes having dialectual differences (my personal fave is the Heßisch goblins of the wooded riverlands, famed for their spider silk surfing), but the most insidious in both regards is the hobgoblin Sweiß-Deutsch.
Thank you, i will go with that
Heßisch goblins are not unlike SoCal coasties, though landlocked; in stark contrast to the assumed harshness of the German language, this dialect reflects its cultural roots in a laid-back and oft syncopated meter with a healthy seasoning of slang, my groms. I guder vie, oder? 🤙🏼
Works at larps too. One I go to (in NL) has Dutch as common, and we use English as Elvish and, depending on with whom I talk, I express Dwarvish with either Scottish English, Northern English or German. If I really want to commit to the bit, I should learn High German or an Austrian dialect for Dwarvish.
I ditched racial accents in place of regional accents.