The fantasy trope that everyone of a given species shares the same language always seemed a bit funny to me.

Co-author credit on this comic to my daughter, who came up with the concept. (She makes a lot of comics about dragons, but she’s too young to share them publicly.)

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 hours ago

    Meanwhile over in North America there was a full sign language primarily used for communicating internationally.

    As you say, people find ways to communicate and while polyglots are present everywhere, the people who can easily learn 10+ languages are too rare and valuable to be the entirety of the merchant classes. It’s a lot easier for a large portion of the population to learn the regional language of international trade.

    A lack of a common language of some form for a region indicates isolated societies with little trade or communication with each other. This is more akin to the lower classes of the early middle ages in Europe. Most fantasy settings use medieval aesthetics, but have extensive trade and war networks.