How Literate are your D&D Worlds?

[Catullus64]

This is a broad question aimed at DMs, or people who have created game worlds in the past, all falling under the head of how pervasive literacy is in your fantasy worlds, and how you treat communication and transmission of knowledge.

I tend to prefer making low-literacy worlds, because I enjoy the implications of highly oral societies, the power of spoken word, and literacy as in of itself a kind of magic. I like it for the same reason I like worlds with few roads and fewer maps: it conjures feelings of an imagined past, a mythical time that may never have existed in real history, but exists in human memory. The base, rules, of course, assume that every player character is literate, so I have to tweak things a little to make it believable. When playing with friends and not strangers, I usually require a language proficiency to be spent to be able to read and write, though that one proficiency is good for all of the languages that you can speak.

Since most D&D worlds will have Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings, I tend to imagine the spread of literacy according to those races. Dwarves are the most strongly literate, and also the most strongly numerate; theirs is a culture that prospers by trade and craft, so accurate record-keeping is a must. They appreciate permanence, and the transmission of knowledge from one generation to a next. Plus, if you're like me, most Dwarf clans have a Warhammer-style Book of Grudges, and you've gotta know how to read that.

Humans are the next most literate; they have the same practical needs for trade and commerce as Dwarves, and shorter lifespans that demand knowledge and tales be accumulated from generation to generation. But the human tendancy towards specialization and stratification is strong. Even though humans produce just as much literature and record as Dwarves, such literacy is far more concentrated in the hands of aristocrats and the (small) urban commercial classes.

Halflings appreciate a slow pace in life, and are content with a very particular set of knowledge and skills related to a pastoral life. They adore storytelling as an art, and are offput by the idea of consigning a tale to dry and silent parchment. They have more of a superstitious dread of writing as some kind of magic, which has the power to deceive and warp reality.

Elves have time in abundance, the time to learn and discover. The need for knowledge to transmitted from one generation to the next doesn't press nearly as heavily on them. They have strong memories, and tend to think that it's only through infirmity of mind that the other folk rely so much on written records. They share Halflings' love of songs and tales, and believe it's somehow metaphysically harmful to take a living thing like a poem or a story and nail it to paper like a dead insect.

[Ralanr]

This is something I actually find myself ignoring. While in 3.5 (a game I did not play) it made a point that barbarians were illiterate and needed to learn how to read (so I've heard), since all player races know how to speak at least two languages, I just assume that they are literate in those languages as well.

Does this make sense? No, not really. And it's not because you speaking the language and you reading the languages are different but compatible skills. Rather, there are certainly races with heavy oral traditions, but I never really think on it because if I go too heavy into worldbuilding I end up creating too much. And creating too much is akin to creating nothing.

When it gets to the point where I'm trying to factor how the shape of the land encourages their food supply (which in turn can affect overall mood of the people), weather (which is heavily based around geography), and how that affects their socioeconomic standing of the world at whole, I forget that I'm making a world for players/me to go in and stomp around to go kill stuff (I like combat).

So it's not something I consider. I just assume everyone can read or write, but some languages are more 'lost' or 'rare' than others. Like how Draconic is rare and probably used heavily in academia to weed out commoners, but on the flipside makes dragonborn and kobolds able to read magical documents with ease.

[SleepyShadow]

Generally speaking, my NPCs are literate in their native tongue (gnomish, elven, etc.) and mostly illiterate in other languages they are able to speak. They might be able to read a few commonly used words in another language if it uses the same alphabet (like dwarven and orcish), but if a language uses a different alphabet entirely, they're not able to read or write in it.

[KorvinStarmast]

Low literacy in general, but since the 5e game presumes that all PCs 'can read and write in X language(s)' the PCs are already exceptional. That's how I prefer to DM.

Have also played in "everyone can read and write" games and it's also fun.

I had a DM who ran an AD&D 1e world where people had what he called "Frontier Bible Literacy" - wherever we went, the people had been more or less educated in their craft (farmer, barrel maker, carpenter) and at their local shrine by whomever the local (non PC) priest/cleric. The book all of them knew, or read, had to do with whatever the local religion/cult/faith held as holy scripture or sacred writings.

He pulled it off beautifully, I am not sure that I could have. Actually, I am sure that I could not have.

As we traveled to new areas, he was able to weave some cultural assumptions (based on their faith based local cultures) into our interactions. Of course, we the PCS committed any number of taboo violations that we could find out about as it happened. It gave his game world some depth.

Not sure if I could pull it off now, but having seen him do it maybe I could.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I've played with the ideas of literacy levels in a few languages instead of the D&D way of many many languages. In the setting, there are only three languages: common, fey, and goblin. And common is, well, the common language. The results have been more than satisfactory.

Literacy levels determine how literate you are in a given language. The levels are exponential in growth to reflect the investment in a very limited resource (languages known). You have a number of levels equal to the languages known IAW race, background, and class per RAW. The academic language levels referred to are based on midcentury American, certainly not modern American.

Level 1 spoken
Level 2 written equivalent to an 8th grade education
Level 3 college graduate
Level 4 doctorate level

So if your character that knows 3 languages can speak three languages but write in none, or can write in one and speak another, or writes in formal and informal language (legalese, etc) in one.

The purpose of all these fantasy languages IMO is to gate off certain information. But you don't need a separate language to gate information. With this system, you can have something written by a level 4 that is as incomprehensible to a level 2 as an academic paper or legal documentation is to an 8th grader.

[greenstone]

Most people are functionally literate, able to read road signs and shop signs.

Merchants, farm overseers, caravan leaders, and so on are literate (they have to be to do business).

More than just a few people are illiterate. A caravan guard or farm worker or street rat will only know a few words (common words like "ale", "store", "temple").

For PCs, I get the players to tell me whether their character is literate or not (arcane casters are, of course, required to be literate, and several backgrounds will require literacy).

[Dark.Revenant]

It's rarely relevant, in my experience. Going out of your way to make it relevant can be more frustrating than enlightening. I once had a DM who insisted that 10 INT is the prerequisite for becoming literate (it doesn't make you automatically literate—it's the first step). We rolled 3d6 for stats, so my 8-INT character couldn't read anything. Not even common words; it's pictures or nothing. Navigating an unfamiliar city is virtually impossible. You can't read about laws or news. You can't read prices, look up basic information, check the hours of a store, etc. Let alone reading the contracts you're assigned, reading your own religion's holy texts, reading letters addressed to you (or send them, naturally) without the aid of a scribe, and so forth.

You can't really have a functioning medieval-level society without the ubiquitous ability to read at least something. Even in novels like the Stormlight Archive series, where most men are illiterate, they still know a simpler writing form that allows the conveyance of numbers and common meanings, names, etc. The story (and society) just wouldn't work, otherwise.

[SociopathFriend]

Welllll I kinda deliberately made a wonky world.

A King had three wishes:
1. A perfect body and mind beyond that of any man
2. A perfect people that would do as he said
3. A perfect kingdom that had no troubles

The thing is, as the adventurers figure out, there's a problem with this kingdom.
1. The King's body was powerful enough that it one day left his perfect head behind- it's missing. (Yes, the Head of State joke was quite literally the entire point of the campaign)
2. Because the people did as the king said- over the years they developed such a reliance on it that they almost entirely abandoned independent thought. Almost robotic in that they cannot respond to new challenges and problems.
3. No troubles start in the kingdom. That doesn't mean trouble cannot start from outside the kingdom and find its way in.

Literacy wasn't a concern because nobody reads. The king sends out orders via messenger and the orders are obeyed as though they're from the king's own mouth. I dunno whether they could or not as I never considered it.

[SpanielBear]

So I’m interested in this from almost the other end of the scale, from a homebrew campaign I’m running.

The central premise of the world here being “The Curse of Pages”, where any and all writing can lead to horrific magical accident- explosions, curses, gribbly monsters. It can’t be controlled, it happens in all languages, and it has lead to the collapse of society in the distant past.

But alongside that, the other aspect of the curse is that every sentient individual, from the moment of birth or creation, knows how to read and write. Instinctively.

And it’s been this way for at least 2,000 years.

So a lot of world building is around how societies (with magic) have developed and regrown with new ways of storing information. Recorded voices on crystal, communal and curated dreams, the use of mnemonics in chants- it’s been a fun exercise trying to work out ways that society could solve the problem! And of course, quite an important element in those societies is making sure that in a world with 100% literacy, writing *does not happen*.

[Dienekes]

Low literacy, players are the exceptions for me.

It makes the world more interesting to me, to show a struggle people have to face and how the society at large is different to accommodate illiteracy.

That said there are bastions of literacy in my world. The dwarves place a very high premium on being able to record instructions and keep records so their cities tend to have a much higher literacy rate than basically anywhere else. The hobgoblins as well make certain every hobgoblin in the empire goes to school to learn basic reading and writing. Which would bring their literacy rate quite high, provided you don’t count their slaves and subjugated peoples. And well, they don’t but we probably should.

[Telonius]

Widespread literacy (as in, book-learning stuff) implies widespread schooling. If it makes sense for the setting (or a location within the setting) to have schooling, they'll have widespread literacy. People will be able to generally get along in whatever situation they're in, so being able to recognize store signs and negotiate prices would be something that's just standard. Social class, plus whether or not a place is urban or rural, would have an impact too. In 3.5 terms, Experts, Adepts, and Aristocrats would more likely be literate. Warriors and Commoners, less so.

Long-lived races (Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes) would have more of an opportunity to randomly pick it up somewhere along the way, so it makes sense that those societies would be generally a bit more literate than short-lived ones like humans. Any special cases like Illumians (where the entire race is based on written words) would be different too.

[Naanomi]

One has to consider that some people may literally be born knowing how to read and write certain languages (planetouched, dragon/tempest sorcerers, etc)... Literacy means something different when some languages are not constructed but are instead baked into the universe

[deljzc]

My greyhawk campaign setting is fairly literate.

Despite the medieval setting, D&D is not the middle ages. Just having long-lived races around changes the whole dynamic. I don't think D&D worlds are as poor as traditional middle ages as well. And prosperity = free time = more literacy.

It's very complex to think about really. So many things are interconnected with literacy. Classes, prosperity, production, sanitation, disease, birth/death rates, lifespans, racial equality, sexual equality, etc.

In many ways, you can't talk about one thing without having a ripple effect on everything else.

My campaign is described as an agrarian/service/consumption economy with technological advancements (within reason) of 14th/15th century Europe with growing merchant/bourgeois class similar to 17th/18th century Europe. Wealth is more evening distributed. People has greater freedoms, land ownership, access to education, and opportunities for class mobility than traditional 14th/15th century Europe (although not as much as say 20th century America). Although this can vary based on country/governance/ruler.

This is countered by the fact traditional progress is virtually stagnant (to logically fit in lifespans of dwarves/elves). This type of economy/lifestyle has pretty much existed similar to now for over 500 years+ with very little change.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Depends strongly on the culture (not even the race).

Goblins? Often not literate at all, because Ngyon Toi (goblin) has no native written form. In fact, most of it's in the shared memory space (with words acting as pointers to bits of that), so even non-goblins (or goblins of different tribes) have to use extremely verbose workarounds to describe things. This trait carries over into goblins speaking Common as odd word choice and often cryptic (in the "that's missing context" form) utterances. But the Wyrmhold goblins almost all read and write fluent Common, Ard-teang (western-Noefran orcish), and Draconic (the official language of the nation).

Wall-builders (humans and halflings from one area, mostly) are all fully literate in Common. They pride themselves in having a full education system.

Fang-kin (humans and half-elves from a different area) commoners generally have enough literacy to decypher signs and publicly-posted material, but not much more than that. Nobles and lai (skilled craftsmen/traders) are generally fluent in Common and at least one other language (which one depends).

Gwerin (high elves) from the Crisial Kingdom are all fully literate in both Yonwach (high elven), often in at least two of the modes (usually Low and High, with only scholars and higher nobles learning Court) as well as Common. Writing is commonplace, and hiding multiple meanings in a piece of text (usually with the surface one being the most pleasant and the least true) is an art form. Reading between the lines is an important skill...quite literally. The spacing and interconnections in the text hold massive quantities of information.

Dwarves from the Uulan Confederacy generally are split--literacy in Tuumni (the local dwarven dialect) is religiously important but most never do any significant writing in that language. Because lying or even inadvertent false statements in Tuumni are extremely taboo, as is destroying any writing in that language[1]. The more surface-oriented ones do most of their normal record keeping in Common, while the more deep dwelling ones (who prefer not to be "contaminated" by surface thoughts) don't write things down at all unless they're necessary, preferring strongly oral histories.

Ihmisi (wood elves) either adopt the local culture in places where they're heavily tied into it (such as in Byssia) or only learn Metsae (wood elven). Which has a bunch of written forms of various verbosities, ranging from trail signs to long epics. They don't write very much, though. At least the tribal ones.

[1] yes, strong inspiration from Terry Pratchet here, except my dwarves are mongolian.

[dafrca]

Depends strongly on the culture (not even the race).

I agree, culture and area of my world makes a difference. Some areas are much more organized and include education for a larger part of their population where others are almost in a post apocalyptic level of ruin and thus educational opportunities are almost non-existent.

[Amechra]

In my current game, the world is semi-literate — that means no Wizards and that people have to pick up literacy in a language as one of their "languages known". This isn't as punitive as it sounds, thanks to how I set up the campaign:

• There were only twelve "languages" on offer at the start of the game.
• I highlighted the languages that are probably going to come up — plus, like, some of those languages are stuff like "a creole between two of the other languages" or "a written language that's mostly used for religious texts and old books".
• I modified character creation a little bit so that everyone starts off 2-3 languages before they pick a background. The three groups that get three languages are all fully literate, so they get their culture's primary written language for "free".
• My version of humans get two backgrounds, so if you want to it's entirely possible to start as, say, a Noble Sage and speak 5-6 languages, which is enough to cover pretty much everything.

[False God]

I typically run more high-magic settings, so literacy is fairly common. Since magic is fairly wide-spread and anyone could wake up one day from praying real hard to the gods or speaking with the trees or discover their great-great-great-great-great-great grandpa was a dragon and have magical powers, it behooves most kingdoms to ensure even their peasantry have at least a basic education.

Where I crack down is on multiple languages. The average adventure being a ployglot is more jarring to me than the average peasant having basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills. Learning languages is something anyone can do, but it's time consuming and requires appropriate resources, teachers, books, exposure, money, etc... It is not something players can simply buy with a feat or drop a skill point into (in older editions).
It's something you gotta learn. Unless some special feature calls it out that you gain more, everyone starts out with their racial language (For this I've also added "Human", though in some settings I go further and have a much higher language diversity) and one other.

NPCs who can translate are typically in positions of great value as advisors, diplomats, traders, unless there is a very strong connection between two or more different-language-cultures, it is unlikely for bilingualism (or more) to be widespread.

To an extent, the prevalence of magic also reduces the need for multi-lingualism. Though the "universal translator" of magic sometimes misses out on cultural connotation, so there is still value in learning languages, but the casual conversationalist can usually get away with a spell.

[Naanomi]

I think some people (Americans especially) underestimate how many languages most people were at least familiar with historically (and still are in many... Most?... parts of the world)

[Amechra]

I can actually buy people being polyglots, given that the average person in the EU apparently speaks anywhere between 1.5 and 3.6 languages. And PCs would definitely be the kind of people that'd increase that average, since they travel around a bunch and talk to and/or stab a lot of interesting people.

That being said, the fact that D&D makes you fluent in every language you can speak is a little bit much...

[dafrca]

I think some people (Americans especially) underestimate how many languages most people were at least familiar with historically (and still are in many... Most?... parts of the world)

I suspect the underestimation is less about being American or what ever and more about your personal life experience. I am American and in my house there are 3 languages spoken and my son is also learning ASL (and in helping him, I am being exposed to it as well). The idea of a person being able to at least communicate basic ideas in several languages does not seem too odd to me.

I found in D&D though the lack of gradations in language fluency did cause me to laugh at times. Every character is 100% fluent in every language on their list. Everyone I know who knows multiple languages has different levels of fluency in all of them. Some RPG systems offer levels of skills and thus could reflect a more accurate feel to the character's knowledge. I might have Common at level 5, Orcish at level 5, Dwarven at level 3, Draconic at level 3, and Elvish at level 1 for example.

[False God]

I think some people (Americans especially) underestimate how many languages most people were at least familiar with historically (and still are in many... Most?... parts of the world)

I think more to the point is that D&D dramatically lacks languages. There should be a dozen or more languages per race. Speaking "human" grants one the ability to communicate with any human in D&D. Speaking elvish lets you speak to any elf. Even drow.

So knowing "Human" and "Elven" in D&D is like knowing every European and every Asian language.

Further, sure, I buy that interaction between two cultures on a regular basis will increase language familiarity.....but the alternative languages available in D&D beyond the standard "Common/Human", Elvish, Dwarvish and ostensible "bad guy language" Orcish are things like Giantish, Gnoll, Infernal, Celestial. Languages of culture groups that do not regularly interact with the standard "Core 4 races". Unless a setting specifically calls out that material-plane denizens are regularly interacting with demons and angels and air elementals and giants; in which case sure.

But otherwise in D&D, knowing "human" is comparable to being versed in multiple IRL human languages, since it will provide you linguistic access to almost every group of humans in any given setting, unless the DM specifically calls out that Humans A and Humans B speak different languages.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think more to the point is that D&D dramatically lacks languages. There should be a dozen or more languages per race. Speaking "human" grants one the ability to communicate with any human in D&D. Speaking elvish lets you speak to any elf. Even drow.

So knowing "Human" and "Elven" in D&D is like knowing every European and every Asian language.

Further, sure, I buy that interaction between two cultures on a regular basis will increase language familiarity.....but the alternative languages available in D&D beyond the standard "Common/Human", Elvish, Dwarvish and ostensible "bad guy language" Orcish are things like Giantish, Gnoll, Infernal, Celestial. Languages of culture groups that do not regularly interact with the standard "Core 4 races". Unless a setting specifically calls out that material-plane denizens are regularly interacting with demons and angels and air elementals and giants; in which case sure.

But otherwise in D&D, knowing "human" is comparable to being versed in multiple IRL human languages, since it will provide you linguistic access to almost every group of humans in any given setting, unless the DM specifically calls out that Humans A and Humans B speak different languages.

It's part and parcel of the mono-racial mono-cultures. Generally, every single hill dwarf in the entire multiverse is (by default) exactly the same in terms of culture, language, history, etc. Same with every single high elf in existence. And most cultures (and nations) are basically DOMINANT race (plus strangers of other races). At least except humans, who are allowed to have multiple cultures. But each one of those cultures is about as different as...different brands of granulated refined sugar.

I strongly prefer the model where every nation (with a few exceptions for highly reclusive cultures) is made of multiple races and each race is part of multiple cultures. And multiple cultures can coexist within one nation.

I've got Common as a trade tongue, the remnants of a half-continent-sized empire a long time ago. But that only covers that half of a continent (and not even everyone there). I've got different wood elf and high elf languages...and really those are local as well. Although there's effort made by those people to preserve the "ancient" forms, so two high elves from different areas can, in principle, communicate. But it's going to be a lossy communication. Orcish differs, and not all orc cultures speak Ard-teang (the orc language of the forests of the NW part of the continent where most of the orcs of the area live). Tumni (dwarvish) is fairly well conserved...at least the written form. The spoken is quite different in many areas where dwarves are. Ngyon Toi (goblin) is genetic--goblins are born knowing how to speak it. But goblins are goblins, so different tribes speak fairly different Ngyon Toi, to the point where many of the more civilized Noefran[1] tribes use Common to communicate.

Then there are several extinct languages, of which one is heavily important, because it's basically like Latin was--the language of scholars and sages. Draconic exists, but people only speak kiddie draconic. Because it's kinda hard to do the whole thing due to lacking the long body, wings, and tail. Plus, people don't deal with words averaging dozens+ of syllables where slight changes in emphasis make completely different words and the grammar makes Finnish look trivial. Too-til, the main Noefran giant language, is also the language of the goliaths (because giants are transformed goliaths). It's related to tumni, but pronounced differently and with relatively different grammatical structures.

Celestial (High Lucian) and Infernal (Low Lucian) are dialects of the same language--one is magic-infused (when spoken by those on divine missions) so as to make lying and miscommunication extremely difficult. Mortals can speak it, but the structure makes lying or deception difficult. There are as few implications as possible--it's basically all explicitly stated. Infernal is the working tongue of the astral, and basically like the inverse. Everything's structured to make ambiguity, deception, and shades of meaning as easy as possible.

But there are lots of other languages. The southern continent (heck, and even the eastern side of Noefra) have different trade tongues from western Noefra, as do the other continents (which have diversity among themselves. And this has come up in game--I do pay attention to what languages people speak.

[1] the main continent where most of my games happen, and the closest thing to "European fantasy" that I get. Which isn't all that close.

[Amechra]

And this is where I'm thankful that I decided that the game I'm running takes place in a kingdom roughly the size of Rhode Island, so I can get away with going "all [blanks] are part of [culture]".

[PhoenixPhyre]

And this is where I'm thankful that I decided that the game I'm running takes place in a kingdom roughly the size of Rhode Island, so I can get away with going "all [blanks] are part of [culture]".

I tried that. And the first thing every group did was say "what's over those hills?" And point outside the little sandbox I'd built. So I shrugged and rolled with it and, well, 7 years later I've touched all but one continent and one of the other planets, as well as several planar locations. And my next campaign with my current group is going to take place in an area that existed as a single name and a vague circle thing on a map.

And I couldn't be happier. I love seeing new parts of my setting and figuring out what's there.

[Amechra]

I tried that. And the first thing every group did was say "what's over those hills?" And point outside the little sandbox I'd built. So I shrugged and rolled with it and, well, 7 years later I've touched all but one continent and one of the other planets, as well as several planar locations. And my next campaign with my current group is going to take place in an area that existed as a single name and a vague circle thing on a map.

And I couldn't be happier. I love seeing new parts of my setting and figuring out what's there.

I'm jealous that your group is far, far more curious than mine.

[f5anor]

I can actually buy people being polyglots, given that the average person in the EU apparently speaks anywhere between 1.5 and 3.6 languages. And PCs would definitely be the kind of people that'd increase that average, since they travel around a bunch and talk to and/or stab a lot of interesting people.

Nothing drives better the point home, that you are a foreigner, than being faced with writing in a language you don't speak, especially when no-one is around that can read said language, extra points for a language with an alphabet with which you are not familiar.

Its not only the number/kind of people you meet, but also the different kinds of script you encounter.

I like to spread out texts, books, inscriptions, notes in all kinds of languages in order to drive home the point that its useful to read/write more than common.

After all, why would anyone bother to take notes in another race's language, if they are not meant to be widely shared. Common, is for most races after all a foreign language.

So given the wide spread of all kinds of races in DnD, the piece of paper with the notes that contain the clues you need is most likely written in someone else's native language, i.e. not common.

[KorvinStarmast]

Common as the lingua franca, or trade language, is a thing I've seen DM's use. This makes it, as I saw it put into play in some old school era games, limited in terms of complex expression. Things like religious texts/scrolls/magical books, are almost never written in that language but in a non-fused "original tongue." (The parallels between a lingua franca like "English/Common" and Latin or Koine Greek was used as examples to get us to get a handle on how that fit into the game world).

This all works if the table, as a group, is cool with having now and again difficult conversations happen on important matters, but like to deal with mundane matters - how much to stay at the tavern? How much to repair this suit of plate aromr? - expeditiously and quickly. I've seen the appeal vary greatly among groups.

lingua franca: a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different.

Spoiler: the origins of the term

Show

HISTORICAL: a mixture of Italian with French, Greek, Arabic, and Spanish, formerly used in the Levant.

PS: alignment languages, while interesting theoretically, did not catch on with most of the groups that I've played with. I don't miss them.

[deljzc]

The "fluency" issue is something I would love to home-brew out of.

It makes more sense to me that PC's and populations at large would know (in the D&D universe) a wide variety of catch phrases and simple sentences in many racial languages. The overlap of cultures would almost demand that.

Of course, every campaign is also different. How much international travel is there (and by international, I mean even travelling from one racially dominant area to another). How much to different races live with each other? How totalitarian/strict are the governments? Are there religious reasons or edicts against speaking other languages?

I mean, again, you can go ANYWHERE with this based on how you want your campaign to feel.

It would be interested to me as a homebrew to maybe give languages PC's know a "score", maybe 1-5. With 1 being barely able to use catch phrases and simple sentences to communicate. 3-4 is high school level literacy in your most common used language. And 5 being reserved or tied to intelligence score somehow.

It would be interesting if characters got "points to spend" on languages according both to background and/or intelligence score. Just thinking out loud.

[dafrca]

The "fluency" issue is something I would love to home-brew out of.
[snip]
It would be interested to me as a homebrew to maybe give languages PC's know a "score", maybe 1-5. With 1 being barely able to use catch phrases and simple sentences to communicate. 3-4 is high school level literacy in your most common used language. And 5 being reserved or tied to intelligence score somehow.

It would be interesting if characters got "points to spend" on languages according both to background and/or intelligence score. Just thinking out loud.

Maybe look at how Traveller RPG did it, they ranked languages using their skill levels as well. Lowest levels were just knowing some phrases etcetra on one end to the highest levels being the highly educated legal/government document level stuff.

[Naanomi]

The problem with 'points for increasing fluency' models I've seen in many games is how expensive it is. In Hero system and nWoD it takes as many points to have the same basic language familiarity in real life as it would to have doctorate-level mastery of some other field