Quote Originally Posted by Naanomi View Post
,....Common using almost unrecognizably degraded draconic phenomena; etc.
You know, "Common" is probably my biggest pet peeve in the whole of D&D. It's such a minor thing but it is infinitely irritating. I know it sounds petty, but here in real life we have so many languages. Just us plain and simple puny humans. We have in fact had so many languages that some of them are lost forever. We have languages that rely entirely on sound, with no written component at all. We have languages with written components ranging from the extremely simple to the absurdly complex.

Why is common considered so...basic? I understand the reasoning behind not saying "english" or "french" or "mandarin" or any other real-world language. But why the assumption that because it is "common" it is "simple", or "degraded" or any other sort of simplistic. D&D repeatedly mentions humans are some of the most "versatile" humanoids, so why is it their language doesn't reflect that?

Sorry, minor rant. "Language" in D&D really bothers me in part for this reason. I wouldn't mind handing out a half-dozen language proficiencies if the world was suggested to be populated with a dozen or so languages per species.