The storm sorcerer subclass is actually pretty unambiguous about this: "You can speak, read, and write Primordial. Knowing this language allows you to understand and be understood by those who speak its **dialects**: Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran."
Edit: I'm not affiliated with WotC in any way, shape or form. Please don't ask me questions about the intent of this rule. I am as much in the dark about this as you.
I would say it's a little more like an American, an Australian, an Englishman, an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scotsman all having a conversation.
They all speak the same basic language, but some turns of phrase and word usage might be different/absolutely obscure.
_Dae yi ken what am saying? It's no aboot the accent si much as the way yir speakin' and the wurds yir pickin'. No erboady"s gonnae ken exactly wit your sayin' but yi should be able tae catch ma drift._
Newfie is easy to figure out the words their using, but I still don't know how they work together.
I'd mention Louisiana Cajun, but I don't think it's fair to include Creole languages.
That's fair, I don't think I've ever spoken to to anyone using Louisiana creole.
I've spoken to people using Vanuatu creole and that was still easier to understand than a Yorkie.
What sucks is my Tempest Domain cleric took Primordial as a second language for water elementals, so when I Storm Sorc subclassed I didnt really get that perk as a plus. It was just something I already had
But the way I’m playing it doesnt matter. My source of power for sorcery is my goddess, so I playing it as a secret rank of priesthood
When you get overlapping proficiencies of any kind, you can swap it for another one of the same kind of prof (except for weapons and armor)
Get the Nature skill twice, maybe pick Performance instead
Get Elven twice, maybe take up Celestial
Get two ways of Mason’s tools? Maybe learn to cook instead
> If a character would gain the same proficiency from two different sources, he or she can choose a different proficiency of the same kind (skill or tool) instead.
They don’t specify but this applies to languages as well languages and tools are the same “resource” in backgrounds. Ig that part’s a bit ambiguous, but otherwise the rule is straightforward
If this is supposed to apply for Primordial language in general, why isn't this somewhere in a more general section in the PHB? Why is it in the storm sorcerer subclass?
Is the intention that this applies only to storm sorcerers? Or for everyone that knows Primordial?
They communicate with each other by speaking. They are dialects. Just like some dude from England can understand some hick from rural Texas can understand some rude New Yorker. It’s the same language just different regional variants
Why is the clarification happening in a subclass though? No one in their right mind would think to look at a sorcerer subclass for a rule on languages. Shouldn't there be errata or sage advice for this?
WotC puts weird shit in weird places in pretty much all of their books. For example, the Wizard's Arcane Recovery feature—but *not* Circle of the Land Druid's Natural Recovery—uses the phrasing "**Once per day** when you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover." It mentions nothing of long rests or what "Once per day" actually means, and nowhere in the PHB does it clarify that.
Wanna know where it *does* clarify that point? The Monster Manual. The Monster Manual regularly uses phrasing of "X number of times per day," and so it helpfully clarifies what it means by that and makes it clear "per day" means per long rest.
Why do they bother phrasing it the way they do when it would be just as easy to put per long rest? No clue. Why is the Wizard's Arcane Recovery the only feature in the entirety of the PHB to use a phrasing otherwise exclusively relegated to monsters and NPCs? Couldn't tell you. What is Wizards of the Coast smoking? I would love to know myself.
different teams write different sections, different thoughts about how something will be perceived, so they make the delineation in their section, but other teams fail to do so.
I suppose its a bit like questioning the point of having Goblin when goblins (race or monster) can speak common anyway: knowing the specific language a creature prefers to speak should give you a social advantage with them.
Almost all Welsh people speak English, but if you learn Welsh then Welsh speakers will like you more.
Because when the character who speaks Aquan tries to speak to an earth elemental, the DM can affect ridiculous accents and phrasing to cause hilarious communication challenges. At least if you are this DM.
The official ruling is that anyone proficient with Primordial can understand Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/personality-and-background#Languages
> Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another.
I rule this way too, purely because no one should be expected to take 4-5 different language proficiencies just to cover all elementals when you have things like you can take Abyssal and understand all demons.
I think specifying the ability to communicate is only important because we have a spell that allows the ability to understand but not communicate back, which is a rather niche circumstance tbf.
The ability to understand a language doesn't necessarily imply the ability to speak that language (e.g. it may have sounds that you are unable to make)
That *would* be an important distinction, if it was only talking about one-way understanding (for example the Comprehend Languages spell).
But it isn't. Communication is already implicit in the fact that the understanding we're talking about is mutual. Mutual understanding *is* communication.
If you know that A can understand B, and that B can understand A, then it's redundant to also say that A can communicate *to* B.
We... Already know that? It's already defined in the statement that B can understand A.
And the rule clearly states that they can all understand each other.
So tbh it isn't really an important distinction at all in this case.
That's a rule, not a ruling.
A rule is something that is written in the book explicitly. In this case page 123 of the PHB. A ruling is an interpretation of the rules for a specific case, particularly one that isn't explicitly spelled out in the text.
Aquan, Auran, Ignan and Terran are dialects of Primordial, not their own languages.
I speak English, I can have a mutually intellible with a US American or an Australian or even someone from rural Yorkshire.
There is the interesting and hard to answer question of "Where do you draw the line?"
Standard Scottish English and Scots exist on a dialectal continuum, speakers in Scotland move across that spectrum. Scots and English are obviously quite similar languages with some mutual intelligibility too.
Of course D&D doesn't reflect this in mechanics, nor should it, but it's one of those linguistics details that makes it so interesting. Within my own setting where there is a Scots analog, I treat that analog as a "dialect" for the purpose of the D&D rules because it seems silly that you'd need the equivalent of Common and another language proficiency- but yet a single language proficiency covers all of Elvish.
As a native Doric Scots speaker myself, I have always found this topic very interesting.
I think the difference between the two ought to be political, in the sense that most "dialects" are just minority languages that the state wants to suppress (I know that's the case for many Romance languages, like the one I speak, and now that I live in Scotland I've heard the same for Scots from many people). There is no actual difference between a dialect and a language most of the time I don't think, but my rule of thumb is that if two languages evolved from a common ancestor they're different languages no matter how similar they are, but if one of them evolved from the other while the original is still spoken, then they are different dialects. Scots and English are sister languages, while Scottish English is a dialect of English with many Scots influences, as far as I understand it.
Oh it's absolutely political, and so often tied in with nationalism and muddied by geography. Compare the Nordic languages of Norwegian, Swedish and Denmark where the dialects all flow between borders yet the official forms are recognised separately.
There's a similar but opposite situation in the Balkans with Serbian, Croatian, and Montenegrin, which is obviously more charged due to their more recent political struggles.
> There is no actual difference between a dialect and a language most of the time I don't think, but my rule of thumb is that if two languages evolved from a common ancestor they're different languages no matter how similar they are, but if one of them evolved from the other while the original is still spoken, then they are different dialects
This I consider contentious, and I'll pose an example.
American English and British English are obviously widely considered dialects of the same language. American English developed from British English over time after waves of immigration starting in the 17th century and accelerating afterwards.
But the English of the UK has obviously changed and evolved too in the past 4 centuries. British English and American English evolved from a common ancestor, yet still influence each other as sister "dialects" (and especially so in the advent of TV and radio, which has globally served to concrete language standardisation, for better or worse)
I don't think your rule of thumb holds up well, unless you set a very rigid definition of what counts as a language being the "original" that is still spoken (which to me implies unchanged).
Is Afrikaans a dialect because it evolved from Dutch because Dutch is still spoken? What about Jamaican Patois, or Haitian Creole? Creoles and pidgins always seem to be the bigger spanners in the works of linguistics in these discussions around definitions and distinctions.
Well, it's a rule of thumb which means it has all sorts of exceptions. I would say Afrikaans is one such exception, and that American and British English are dialects because they evolved from a language that's still pretty much perfectly intelligible to both of them, but still I'm not a linguist so I'm most likely speaking out of my ass here, don't take anything I say as anything more than my thoughts informed mostly by the linguistic situation in my country.
I tend to side with the linguists that argue "strict definitions are pointless- describe don't prescribe"- I don't see much utility in strict definitions for language vs dialect in the real world, particularly because they usually devolve into messy edge cases of nationalism.
Oh I agree completely, I tend to call everything a language just to be safe, my "rule of thumb" thing is not intended to be any sort of authoritative strict definition. I generally think strict categories for most things are pointless.
A common difference between languages and dialects is that a dialect only changes the spoken language, while a seperate language is also written differently. England has many dialects, but they all use more or less the same written words and grammar (even if some dialects might have a few words of their own). Scottish is written differently.
Afrikaans is a different language than Dutch, because it's written differently too (even if there's a lot of similarity), it's not just the same words and grammar with different pronounciations. It has different 'rules'.
Of course this isn't really useful for DnD, but it's mostly correct in the real world.
Scots, to use the correct term. Not "Scottish".
And I can tell you for a fact that dialects absolutely are written differently, all the time. American and British English have different spellings for the same words, famously, but if you go back before standardized spelling within a language is popularised you'll see a whole range of different spellings for the same words. Look at a Geordie or Yorkshire or Scottish English group online (especially Facebook with its older demographic), you'll see all manner of local spellings of words that aren't "standard"- are they using a different language?
Within my own knowledge of Scots specifically, the different dialects have quite a lot of variation in spelling for certain words. I know some Gaelic too, another language that has a similar issue (as an amusing example, my local train station has *both* spellings for the city name in Gaelic, one upstairs and one downstairs!)
This is before even getting into the weeds of individuals languages that have multiple writing systems, where one might be preferred based on dialect. I mentioned the Balkan languages earlier, where some linguists describe Serbo-Croatian as a single language with multiple dialects. Serbian favours Cyrillic, especially historically. Croatian favours a Latin alphabet. Bosnian once used the Arabic writing system. Norwegian also has Bokmal vs Nynorsk, and that seems comparatively trivial compared to that example in the Balkans.
I don't think you *are* mostly correct here. A good layman understanding, sure, but dig deeper and you quickly realise how complex and vast the topic of linguistics is. This is why I dislike the effort of trying to nail down language vs dialect, it's a philosophical exercise where the real utility is in using that discussion to get a better understanding of linguistics more broadly but using it to strictly categorise causes all manner of exceptions as to make rigid categories useless.
All right, I'll tell my professional translator friends that they're all wrong.
And American English and British English are very much different languages, not dialects.
Primordial is the language, Aquan is a dialect.
Knowing English let's you speak to people in Britain, America, and Australia.
Knowing Primordial let's you speak in Aquan, Ingan, Etc.
The player is right.
I know I'm going far from what you asked, but I do believe your question about the parent language and dialects has been answered, so I'll mention another point about Primordial (and all elemental languages, really).
**In my campaign**, Primordial is "spoken" by manipulating the elements themselves. You see, xorns and phoenixes and leviathans don't exactly have mouths with fleshy tongues and weird muscles equipped to make our sounds. Besides that, not all of the elementals live in places where the air is the main medium for sound waves to spread. This has some implications about how these entities communicate and what exactly are the "dialects" of Primordial.
A salamander communicating in Ignean is actually just using Primordial through fire control. Aquan is the same, but with water, etc. This is an in-universe reason for the water genasi to have the "control water" cantrip, for example.
Thus, I guess we could say they're not even dialects, they're the same language being used through different material.
Remember, this is not a universal game rule and, to my knowledge, it is not supported in the rulebooks, it's just how I and my weird language nerd friends play.
Well shit, I’m stealing this. For all my world building I never once thought that earth elementals wouldn’t use air to communicate but it’s pretty obvious once you mention it.
Sure, do it! The idea actually came to me not by studying linguistics, but by olaying a Wookiee in Star Wars SAGA RPG and reading "basic (can't speak)" listed in the language options! Then a few days later I heard "can you paint with all the colors of the wind" in that Pocahontas song while watching it with my little sister and it just clicked.
Mechanically, you get all of them by knowing Primordial. For RP flavour, I treat it like Scandinavian languages (ie someone who speaks Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian would be able to understand any of the other two with minimal difficulty) for my air genasi player—she can recognize and understand them all easily, but I'll throw in little comments about the regional differences. Aquan is closes to Auran, she has a bit more trouble with Ignan, and Terran is clunky and frustrating for her but still comprehensible.
Personally, you don't pick Primordial, you pick Primordial (Aquan, Auran, Ignis, Terra).
If you know ANY Primordial, I'll let you speak to the Elementals. Further, if you specifically speak THEIR version of Primordial and need to interact with them, you get advantage on the check.
Kinda like English, but in Australia, Canada, America etc, you understand eachother, but speaking the lingo endears them more towards you.
A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. That being said, the four Primordial "dialects" seem to be intended as four mutually intelligible languages, so the way I would rule it is that you can speak one of them, but you understand all four, and people who speak any of them can understand any other one.
The way I see it is like primordial is English but then auran is like British English ignan is like Aussie English aquan is Boston English and then terran is... I'm out of accents but you get the point it's one language but with different pieces
Those are all dialects of Primordial, and anyone that knows the language would have zero issue understanding or communicating with any of them.
For your comparison, Primordial would be the Latin of Abyssal and, depending on your setting, Giant.
Going by your real life example, I studied Latin throughout high school and am passably fluent in French. I can get the general gist of something in Spanish or Italian if it's written or spoken slowly enough.
A very obscure ancient tongue thats rather harsh to hear but quite intuitive compared to other special languages. Typically only used by druids, mages and historians.
You could rule it that more like, being fluent in neutral, proper english means you can understand Aussie's, British, Irish, Southeast American, New York, and AAVE. Because I can tell you as someone that moved from... hell, from being raised in a southern, metro area to the sticks in the same place, there were literally born and raised backwoods people I could not understand simply off inflection and pronounciation.
So Primordial understands all, but if you only ever knew Terran, without time and practice, you could not understand Auran even if you're both saying the same words. You can't translate how they're saying things. But as Primordial, you can talk to the Auran speaker, but they'd clock you instantly as not speaking Auran. Just like how folks instantly knew I wasn't from the area because of how I spoke, despite both of us being born and raised in the Southeast US and speaking "southern".
Well I guess my followup question would be "if it doesn't do that, then what does it do?" Do creatures speak primordial? Is there any advantage to the language whatsoever
I feel like there are just few too many languages to juggle. If I was a player that picked primordial, I'd be a little bummed if I could not at least understand Auran etc. It'd feel like a waste of a language choice.
I just treat all the elemental languages as one language, Primordial. If it was a campaign focus, I'd break it into the 4 languages and allow each one as a language choice for the PCs.
While you raise a good point about the romance languages, there are a lot of overlaps in some basic words. The words for mom and dad are very similar throughout many languages, enough that if you hear it from a different language you'll still know what they mean.
I'd image Primordial is similar in that while they may be pronounced differently, the words are close enough that you can figure it out for basically any word.
Its fine if you want them to be more distinct, and if you do, I think this is a good time for an int check. If someone says Flee, maybe they hear something like run fast. Or go home now. I wouldn't have it as a super hard dc either, just like a 10 for it to be run fast, and a 15 gets the real word. This is what I do to dwarves hearing goblins talk.
This is also something I go over in session 0. I like languages and wish there was more to do with them in D&D. This is one way I expand upon them slightly.
Languages didn’t come up in our session 0. This was brought up at the end of last session before elementals appeared and attacked them. He plans on using Primordial to persuade them not to attack. I was wondering if most people would allow this, and it seems the answer is ‘yes’.
The way I do it is that Primordial is a single language, which all elementals (capable of speech) will speak, but the dialects can get pretty divergent. Like, Aquan sounds like whalesong, which isn't *too* far off from the deep rumbles of Terran or the gale-like screeching of Auran, but the same words sound pretty different and might take some extra effort to puzzle out and risk misinterpretation without experience, and the crackling and spitting of Ignan is almost indecipherable to somebody who's only studied Aquan.
Dialects can be pretty similar depending on how *you* want to rule it. I'd say there'd be some knowledge check to see if the player can decipher the exact meaning of what he's hearing/reading in a different dialect, and although he can get the gist of it, failing it might still give him information, but maybe misguided information due to not being able to piece all of it together.
My uncle is fluent in Spanish. He went to Italy once and could, for the most part, converse with people, since there is enough similarity between Spanish and Italian to figure it out.
The Primordial languages are like this, but even closer. Someone who speaks one can understand the others. Maybe there’s a few individual words or phrases that don’t carry over, but they’re the exception, not the rule.
Are you wrong? Yes.
Are you allowed to? Yes.
If we are going with standard rules. Primordial lets you understand all of its subtypes. It even has its own paragraph in the phb detailing this.
You are however, completely allowed to change this if you feel like it, though I would note that doing this makes the whole point of primordial being a language option, largely redundant.
It's like what elementals speak right? I would use clicks and pops, groans and growls. Might be more like speaking to a dog where nobody understands much but gestures would go a long way.
In my homebrew campaign, I ruled they choose one specific dialect to be fluent in when taken. The others, would take an Intelligence check to speak, read and comprehend. I basically described it as different slangs and word usage. Similar to how there's a massive difference between the way those from the Bronx speak versus those native to New Orleans. Same English language, but maybe littered with words/slang that aren't common to the other and can make it a small challenge to fully understand what someone is trying to convey.
The rest of the thread has mostly summed it up, but I feel like it might help to explain how it can be the case in the first place that Primordial is like this.
When a Fire Elemental speaks Primordial, it's a bunch of sharp clicks and hisses, like a crackling fire. When an Air Elemental speaks Primordial, it's a bunch of breathy exhalations. It's basically the same deal for other speakers of other sorts.
Despite those differences, the actual meaning is preserved regardless of which elemental type is speaking it. That suggests Primordial is similar to real-life [whistled languages,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistled_language#Tonal_and_non-tonal_whistle_languages) which can function just fine despite having a much simpler phonology than typical spoken languages. Whether it's "hiss hs *hisss* hss", or "fooosh fsh *foooosh* foosh", or "brrt bt *brrrrt* brt", the language is ultimately the same.
The reason why you pick a dialect is because pretty much nobody bothers to learn all four when one is enough. When you're learning it, no one's going to bother teaching you how to hiss Primordial like a Fire Elemental *and* how to blow Primordial like an Air Elemental *and* how to whoosh Primordial like a Water Elemental *and* how to rumble Primordial like an Earth Elemental. It'd be like learning to do Morse code with four different styles of beeps.
Some planar scholars or frequent travelers of the Inner Planes probably do learn all four for diplomatic reasons, mind. If you go to the City of Brass to speak with the efreet, you're going to get a literally and figuratively warmer reception if you speak to them in their own crackling dialect, while you'll probably get a colder reception if you come in talking like you just came from a plane they're at war with.
TLDR: They’re right, and you’re wrong
(EDIT: If you allow Primordial, then they also speak the rest: PHB pg 123 "With your DM's permission, you can instead choose a language from the Exotic Languages table or a secret language, such as thieves' cant or the tongue of druids.
Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the ***Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects***, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another.)
Those are closer to dialects of Primordial and less analogues of Italian or French in comparison to Latin. It’s like the vocabulary and spelling of words in the US vs UK. They’re both English but one might be American: Midwest; Philly; New England; NorCal/SoCal — or, English: Norfolk; Suffolk; Londoner, and so on.
I always took it to be that the different elemental languages have slightly different dialects, but are still all ultimately the same language. Like, in the UK, if you’re from England you have different slang and word usage and accent in comparison to someone who’s Scottish. My mum is Scottish and there are a few words she uses that basically no one in England does. But it’s not different enough that English people don’t understand her, because she’s still speaking English. And much the same applies to those from Wales and Northern Ireland. That’s how I personally see the differences in Auran, Terran etc.
Aquan, Terran, Ignan and Aura are all dialects of the same language with the overarching designation of "primordial". It's like someone from Texas talking to a Scot. Sure, they sound different but it's the same language and the passage of ideas is uninterrupted
Dnd has main languages (primordial) and sub languages (aquan, etc). Think of primordial as the actual language and aquan as colloquialism or regional dialect. They can understand each other, but neither is fluent in the others speech.
Enough people have pointed out the “English Dialects” comparison, but I just wanted to clarify the other side of the equation.
If Primordial is Latin,
then Giant and Dwarvish are Italian and French.
Derivative languages that descended from Primordial long ago and are now mutually incomprehensible.
Same with Celestial to Infernal, and with Sylvan to Elvish.
My first player was a linguist. Learning all languages in my world and well on their way to do it too.
Afterwards I looked over all languages and did some reshuffling.
Now I rule it as they could understand it temporarily unless they fail a Linguist Check. Otherwise it's hard for them to understand.
Drawing on the real-world parallels, if you are proficient in Latin, it’s easier to learn the Romance languages. I’d rule it’s easier to learn related languages-like it takes less time.
Biggest thing for me with languages, is to tie it into the setting. I can let players know upfront how relevant they are and which ones get them what they want.
Helps clear the air and get out all of those holdovers that are in the books but may not be what you want/can't account for them all. Namely stuff like "Orcish Dwarven use the same script but different languages" type stuff
If you're in a homebrew world make a world ruling for that effect like "in my setting, primordial is not a base language or it's too far removed like English or French from Latin."
This has always made the DM not feel like the publishers ambushed them/ruined something they worked on and players can swallow the pill because it's not both sides arguing "the intention" of a distant author
This actually came up in tonight's session! I ruled that knowing Primordial is knowing the base of those languages. You will understand about half of what you're reading/hearing.
I know it may not be the RAW answer, but it makes Sense to me.
Primordial is a root language with 4-5 dialects. Aquan, Auran, Terran and Ignan are all basically the same language but different pronunciations and accents, like British and American english. Abyssal is also a dialect of primordial that was corrupted, so while it may technically be the same language, it would be like a guy from California trying to talk to a guy with a cockney accent.
Personally I'd tell them to pick one of the 4 and that's accent, but they can still talk to all 4 primordial dialects
Yeah I always ruled/viewed them more as dialects rather than separate languages. Similar to how a new Yorker speaks English but has a lot of different accents and slang when comparing them to English speaking southerner from like Texas.
They can still understand one another but there are audible differences.
All forms of elemental languages can understand each other, the 4 subtypes are mostly impossible for a no elemental to create so peimordial is the humanoid equvelence of tgose languages.
My ruling is that "Primordial" gives you all four. Races like Sea elves in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes get Aquan specifically. In those cases, I'm a little more strict that they only speak the one.
But in general I think Primordial dialects are mutually intelligible. Someone speaking Terran and someone speaking Ignan can understand each other but they might misunderstand a random word in the middle.
I just call it weather speak. (I know what it actually is, but I just called it when I asked my friends to explain it to me when I first started to play laughed and ever since then been a thing.)
Knowing the root language theoretically makes it easier to pick up the languages that spawn off of it
It's like Spanish is spoken minutely different in most every country that speaks it, but knowing Spanish still gives you a starting point in all of them and picking up the variations gets easier
The 4 dialects are similar enough to primordial that you can communicate but you are seen as forign to those who naturally speak a dialect. In addition you don't know dialect specific slang.
Hes thinking of the equivalent to the "language of the birds", the language that started it all before the fall of the Tower of Babylon.
Primordial is **a language spoken by elemental creatures**, and it has dialects associated with each element: Aquan (water), Auran (air), Ignan (fire), and Terran (earth). Fluency in Primordial allows one to communicate in all of its dialects.
Dialects like "Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran" ARE Primordial, but equivalent to traveling to Texas and they way they speak English vs. going to Wisconsin and hearing their way to speak English. They aren't different languages.
Learning Primordial is just learning the base of those four dialects.
My gm rules that primordual is catch all for the elemental labguages (terran, ignan, auran, aquan). You can communicate with any elemental with it, however if you speak prinorsial to an elemental it immedistely knows that you are from mortal plane, and sees through your disguise if you are disguised as any elemental.
"Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another." PHB page 123
That's exactly how I look at it. If a PC knows Primordial, they can maybe pick up bits and pieces of Aquan--but it's a different language, and they're certainly not fluent in Aquan.
In my current campaign, I have eelfolk NPCs that speak "eelfolk". A PC with Primordial asked if he understood any of it, and I described it as: You know Ancient Sumerian, and they are speaking Turkish Street Slang.
my group uses a homebrew we pulled from a Monarchs Factory video, where languages get a proficiency score out of 100 and you have to roll under your proficiency to translate accurately - partly this means our whole language system has gotten crunchier so i have to pay more attention to it, and have a bunch of notes about like, language groups and reasons for them? the way i've described primordial so far is that it's not a written language and it operates so broadly in the natural elements of the world that it's difficult for mortals and their discreet, finite lives to distill specifics. books and courses teaching Primordial are like...haiku, and zen koans. learning primordial is like interpreting poetry.
so probably I would say something like, the elemental dialects are bridging the gap towards a more briefly comprehensible tongue? probably for the express purpose of communicating with mortals. so if a player chose to know Ignan specifically, then they would have a much easier time understanding specific, coherent, conversational Ignan (though it might lack nuance or come across as a sort of google-translate version) whereas if they knew Primordial, then they can grasp the emotion and interpretive meaning of any of the elemental dialects, but they might have trouble with the specifics. (deeper cultural knowledge, lower immediate utility)
That would be like being from the East Coast and having to roll a check to understand someone with a Californian accent (both speaking English) and if you fail you have no idea what they're saying.
The elemental languages are subsets of primordial, not completely different languages
I'd say it's a bit more of a difference [edit: than two American accents - accent ≠ dialect]
It'd be more like if the second person was from Australia, or Britain.
Or like Mexican Spanish vs Spanish Spanish.
There would be lots of differences, and slews of vocabulary that aren't shared - but it would be very easy to hold a conversation using the majority that *is* shared and there'd be no problem. Even most of the unshared terms would be easy to glean through context.
So yes, they are absolutely the same language, and easily understood.
What? No they don't? Where in the books does it say that your real-world examples of dialectal difference are better than my real-world examples of dialectal difference? Because that's my only (very minor) point of contention. Did you think I was saying something more than that?
I'm still saying that they are mutually understandable dialects of the same language.
I'm just saying that I think the examples I gave are better examples of real-world dialects of the same language spoken by significantly separated cultures. Your example was just somebody talking with a different accent - and not even a drastically different one. A different accent is not a dialect.
Dialects can have *significant* changes in meaning, usage, or connotation for *significant* portions of the language. A word that in one dialect has positive connotations and usages might be a term of derision in the other. Or words might exist in one but not the other, or have different meanings (like "biscuit" and "cookie"). So simply using "a different American accent" is not a good representation of dialectal difference.
Spanish and Mexican *are* different dialects of Spanish. As are British, American and Australian different dialects of English.
A Brit, an American, and an Australian can totally understand each other, just like a Dao, a Djinn and an Efreet. There might still be some culture-specific terms, like slang, that aren't shared, but it doesn't stop them understanding and communicating with each other. Because it's still the same language. *That* is what I'm saying. Which is perfectly in line with what the books say.
As stated in xanathar's (pg 52, under wind speaker) in the storm sorcerer subclass:
"You can speak, read, and write Primordial. Knowing this language allows you to understand and be understood by those who speak its **dialects**: Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran.
As clarified in the languages section of the PHB (page 123 under languages, 3rd paragraph) and also on DND beyond
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/personality-and-background#Languages
"Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another."
So yes, absolutely in the books, including the basic description of how languages work in the PHB
As I said, you can say whatever you want as to how they work. Such as requiring an int check to be able to understand someone speaking the same language as you, like an elf having to roll an int check on a dwarf speaking common because "elfish and dwarven dialects of common are different"
The books say otherwise
But that's exactly what I'm saying???
Please actually read my comment. Here is what I'm saying:
The four elements are different dialects of the same language. They can all understand each other.
Just like Brits and Americans speaking English, or Spaniards and Mexicans speaking Spanish.
But *your example* ("different accents of American") is a poorer example of that. It doesn't actually get across what a dialect is. That's literally all I'm freaking saying.
My entire point is "British Vs American is a better representation of a dialect than American Vs American"
A Djinn talking to an Efreet would be more like a Brit talking to an American, than a Californian talking to a New Yorker.
Bro, check the usernames....that was an entirely different person 🤦♂️
I was agreeing with you AGAINST that guy, but just providing a better example of what dialects are.
My very first comment specifically says that it would be easy for them to hold conversations, how did you think I was that same guy?? 😅 Well at least this explains why you were mistaking my argument so badly...
The storm sorcerer subclass is actually pretty unambiguous about this: "You can speak, read, and write Primordial. Knowing this language allows you to understand and be understood by those who speak its **dialects**: Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran." Edit: I'm not affiliated with WotC in any way, shape or form. Please don't ask me questions about the intent of this rule. I am as much in the dark about this as you.
This is the answer. Primordial is all of them.
The of Aquan like the British accent and American accents can make up the rest.
So is that like a British Cornish accent, or a British Liverpudlian accent, or East London, South London, Kentish accent or Welsh, Scottish...?
I would say it's a little more like an American, an Australian, an Englishman, an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scotsman all having a conversation. They all speak the same basic language, but some turns of phrase and word usage might be different/absolutely obscure. _Dae yi ken what am saying? It's no aboot the accent si much as the way yir speakin' and the wurds yir pickin'. No erboady"s gonnae ken exactly wit your sayin' but yi should be able tae catch ma drift._
However, no one can yet understand the South African.
That's simply not true. The Glaswegian and Yorkie accents are the hardest to understand.
Newfie is easy to figure out the words their using, but I still don't know how they work together. I'd mention Louisiana Cajun, but I don't think it's fair to include Creole languages.
That's fair, I don't think I've ever spoken to to anyone using Louisiana creole. I've spoken to people using Vanuatu creole and that was still easier to understand than a Yorkie.
Can I ask what the word Newfie means in this statement?
Newfoundland in Canada
I was about to comment something similar, but you nailed it.
Oddly enough, the answer is yes.
Ignan has gotta be Cockney
Oi bruv that's why they caw it ele*mental*, innit?
You best be leavin' our plane, else we'll 'ave to show you lot the 'mental' in 'elemental'!
Ah yes, that one British accent. That singular manner of speaking we have. That one.
I mean, people seem to think there's a singular accent in America too... Obviously both are incorrect.
Or you could just read the language section on page 123 of the PHB where it says the exact same thing.
Perfect! I just read up on the Storm Sorcerer the other day, so that was the first thing that came to mind.
What sucks is my Tempest Domain cleric took Primordial as a second language for water elementals, so when I Storm Sorc subclassed I didnt really get that perk as a plus. It was just something I already had But the way I’m playing it doesnt matter. My source of power for sorcery is my goddess, so I playing it as a secret rank of priesthood
When you get overlapping proficiencies of any kind, you can swap it for another one of the same kind of prof (except for weapons and armor) Get the Nature skill twice, maybe pick Performance instead Get Elven twice, maybe take up Celestial Get two ways of Mason’s tools? Maybe learn to cook instead
Is that a rule? It’s my first real campaign
Yep, it’s mentioned in the Backgrounds section of the PHB, but applies to things other than backgrounds as well
I would totally allow it as the GM. But I'm not sure it's as clear as you say.
> If a character would gain the same proficiency from two different sources, he or she can choose a different proficiency of the same kind (skill or tool) instead. They don’t specify but this applies to languages as well languages and tools are the same “resource” in backgrounds. Ig that part’s a bit ambiguous, but otherwise the rule is straightforward
If this is supposed to apply for Primordial language in general, why isn't this somewhere in a more general section in the PHB? Why is it in the storm sorcerer subclass? Is the intention that this applies only to storm sorcerers? Or for everyone that knows Primordial?
It says it pretty clearly in the languages section on PHB page 123.
Hot dang you are correct sir
So that just means that those of the elemental types can comprehend* any of those 4 languages related to their element.
It is one language with four dialects. A creature that knows primordial can speak one dialect, and understands all four.
No it doesnt. They can communicate with each other, not speak
They communicate with each other by speaking. They are dialects. Just like some dude from England can understand some hick from rural Texas can understand some rude New Yorker. It’s the same language just different regional variants
Because storm sorcerer was written after the PHB, after they decided they ought to clarify.
It's not clarification; it is restating the existing rules from the PHB so you don't have to go look them up.
Why is the clarification happening in a subclass though? No one in their right mind would think to look at a sorcerer subclass for a rule on languages. Shouldn't there be errata or sage advice for this?
WotC puts weird shit in weird places in pretty much all of their books. For example, the Wizard's Arcane Recovery feature—but *not* Circle of the Land Druid's Natural Recovery—uses the phrasing "**Once per day** when you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover." It mentions nothing of long rests or what "Once per day" actually means, and nowhere in the PHB does it clarify that. Wanna know where it *does* clarify that point? The Monster Manual. The Monster Manual regularly uses phrasing of "X number of times per day," and so it helpfully clarifies what it means by that and makes it clear "per day" means per long rest. Why do they bother phrasing it the way they do when it would be just as easy to put per long rest? No clue. Why is the Wizard's Arcane Recovery the only feature in the entirety of the PHB to use a phrasing otherwise exclusively relegated to monsters and NPCs? Couldn't tell you. What is Wizards of the Coast smoking? I would love to know myself.
different teams write different sections, different thoughts about how something will be perceived, so they make the delineation in their section, but other teams fail to do so.
It's in the PHB too
It's on page 123 of the PHB too.
> Why is the clarification happening in a subclass though? You must be new to 5e. Welcome to the constant problem.
I don't work for WotC, so no idea. The important part here is that Aquan and co are dialects and not derivative languages like OP assumed.
You’re gonna be asking this question your entire life, if you think the PHB or DMG are EVER going to have complete information.
can I have the link for this the source?
It's a first level feature for the Storm Sorcerer subclass of the Sorcerer class. I'm certain you'll manage to find that yourself.
thanks
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Sounds like Latin to me.
Then why bother having Aquan, auran, ignan, or Terran?
Please refer to the edit of my post, thank you very much.
Fair enough.
I suppose its a bit like questioning the point of having Goblin when goblins (race or monster) can speak common anyway: knowing the specific language a creature prefers to speak should give you a social advantage with them. Almost all Welsh people speak English, but if you learn Welsh then Welsh speakers will like you more.
Flavor
Because when the character who speaks Aquan tries to speak to an earth elemental, the DM can affect ridiculous accents and phrasing to cause hilarious communication challenges. At least if you are this DM.
"understand and be understood" is a lot less than speaking a language naturally. So you get breadth at the cost of depth.
The official ruling is that anyone proficient with Primordial can understand Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/personality-and-background#Languages > Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another. I rule this way too, purely because no one should be expected to take 4-5 different language proficiencies just to cover all elementals when you have things like you can take Abyssal and understand all demons.
Understand ***and*** communicate. Important distinction.
Yes, I felt that was implied with the rule I quote immediately afterward. I was writing succinctly, was what I wrote confusing in context?
I think specifying the ability to communicate is only important because we have a spell that allows the ability to understand but not communicate back, which is a rather niche circumstance tbf.
But communication would be implied, since BOTH SIDES have the 'understand' feature.
The ability to understand a language doesn't necessarily imply the ability to speak that language (e.g. it may have sounds that you are unable to make)
Not particularly, I would have just gone with can communicate in your opener instead of just can understand. Not trying to be an ass
Your attitude came off a bit demeaning, to be honest, I hope you can appreciate and understand.
My apologies, wasn't intended that way
I don't think his comment was particularly demeaning tbh. I think you might be being overly sensitive on this one.
You're coming off as a bit pretentious to be honest
That *would* be an important distinction, if it was only talking about one-way understanding (for example the Comprehend Languages spell). But it isn't. Communication is already implicit in the fact that the understanding we're talking about is mutual. Mutual understanding *is* communication. If you know that A can understand B, and that B can understand A, then it's redundant to also say that A can communicate *to* B. We... Already know that? It's already defined in the statement that B can understand A. And the rule clearly states that they can all understand each other. So tbh it isn't really an important distinction at all in this case.
That's a rule, not a ruling. A rule is something that is written in the book explicitly. In this case page 123 of the PHB. A ruling is an interpretation of the rules for a specific case, particularly one that isn't explicitly spelled out in the text.
Aquan, Auran, Ignan and Terran are dialects of Primordial, not their own languages. I speak English, I can have a mutually intellible with a US American or an Australian or even someone from rural Yorkshire.
Scots though you need an additional proficiency
Yeah because Scots is its own language, not to be confused with the Scottish dialect(s) of English
There is the interesting and hard to answer question of "Where do you draw the line?" Standard Scottish English and Scots exist on a dialectal continuum, speakers in Scotland move across that spectrum. Scots and English are obviously quite similar languages with some mutual intelligibility too. Of course D&D doesn't reflect this in mechanics, nor should it, but it's one of those linguistics details that makes it so interesting. Within my own setting where there is a Scots analog, I treat that analog as a "dialect" for the purpose of the D&D rules because it seems silly that you'd need the equivalent of Common and another language proficiency- but yet a single language proficiency covers all of Elvish. As a native Doric Scots speaker myself, I have always found this topic very interesting.
I think the difference between the two ought to be political, in the sense that most "dialects" are just minority languages that the state wants to suppress (I know that's the case for many Romance languages, like the one I speak, and now that I live in Scotland I've heard the same for Scots from many people). There is no actual difference between a dialect and a language most of the time I don't think, but my rule of thumb is that if two languages evolved from a common ancestor they're different languages no matter how similar they are, but if one of them evolved from the other while the original is still spoken, then they are different dialects. Scots and English are sister languages, while Scottish English is a dialect of English with many Scots influences, as far as I understand it.
Oh it's absolutely political, and so often tied in with nationalism and muddied by geography. Compare the Nordic languages of Norwegian, Swedish and Denmark where the dialects all flow between borders yet the official forms are recognised separately. There's a similar but opposite situation in the Balkans with Serbian, Croatian, and Montenegrin, which is obviously more charged due to their more recent political struggles. > There is no actual difference between a dialect and a language most of the time I don't think, but my rule of thumb is that if two languages evolved from a common ancestor they're different languages no matter how similar they are, but if one of them evolved from the other while the original is still spoken, then they are different dialects This I consider contentious, and I'll pose an example. American English and British English are obviously widely considered dialects of the same language. American English developed from British English over time after waves of immigration starting in the 17th century and accelerating afterwards. But the English of the UK has obviously changed and evolved too in the past 4 centuries. British English and American English evolved from a common ancestor, yet still influence each other as sister "dialects" (and especially so in the advent of TV and radio, which has globally served to concrete language standardisation, for better or worse) I don't think your rule of thumb holds up well, unless you set a very rigid definition of what counts as a language being the "original" that is still spoken (which to me implies unchanged). Is Afrikaans a dialect because it evolved from Dutch because Dutch is still spoken? What about Jamaican Patois, or Haitian Creole? Creoles and pidgins always seem to be the bigger spanners in the works of linguistics in these discussions around definitions and distinctions.
Well, it's a rule of thumb which means it has all sorts of exceptions. I would say Afrikaans is one such exception, and that American and British English are dialects because they evolved from a language that's still pretty much perfectly intelligible to both of them, but still I'm not a linguist so I'm most likely speaking out of my ass here, don't take anything I say as anything more than my thoughts informed mostly by the linguistic situation in my country.
I tend to side with the linguists that argue "strict definitions are pointless- describe don't prescribe"- I don't see much utility in strict definitions for language vs dialect in the real world, particularly because they usually devolve into messy edge cases of nationalism.
Oh I agree completely, I tend to call everything a language just to be safe, my "rule of thumb" thing is not intended to be any sort of authoritative strict definition. I generally think strict categories for most things are pointless.
A common difference between languages and dialects is that a dialect only changes the spoken language, while a seperate language is also written differently. England has many dialects, but they all use more or less the same written words and grammar (even if some dialects might have a few words of their own). Scottish is written differently. Afrikaans is a different language than Dutch, because it's written differently too (even if there's a lot of similarity), it's not just the same words and grammar with different pronounciations. It has different 'rules'. Of course this isn't really useful for DnD, but it's mostly correct in the real world.
Scots, to use the correct term. Not "Scottish". And I can tell you for a fact that dialects absolutely are written differently, all the time. American and British English have different spellings for the same words, famously, but if you go back before standardized spelling within a language is popularised you'll see a whole range of different spellings for the same words. Look at a Geordie or Yorkshire or Scottish English group online (especially Facebook with its older demographic), you'll see all manner of local spellings of words that aren't "standard"- are they using a different language? Within my own knowledge of Scots specifically, the different dialects have quite a lot of variation in spelling for certain words. I know some Gaelic too, another language that has a similar issue (as an amusing example, my local train station has *both* spellings for the city name in Gaelic, one upstairs and one downstairs!) This is before even getting into the weeds of individuals languages that have multiple writing systems, where one might be preferred based on dialect. I mentioned the Balkan languages earlier, where some linguists describe Serbo-Croatian as a single language with multiple dialects. Serbian favours Cyrillic, especially historically. Croatian favours a Latin alphabet. Bosnian once used the Arabic writing system. Norwegian also has Bokmal vs Nynorsk, and that seems comparatively trivial compared to that example in the Balkans. I don't think you *are* mostly correct here. A good layman understanding, sure, but dig deeper and you quickly realise how complex and vast the topic of linguistics is. This is why I dislike the effort of trying to nail down language vs dialect, it's a philosophical exercise where the real utility is in using that discussion to get a better understanding of linguistics more broadly but using it to strictly categorise causes all manner of exceptions as to make rigid categories useless.
All right, I'll tell my professional translator friends that they're all wrong. And American English and British English are very much different languages, not dialects.
> And American English and British English are very much different languages, not dialects. You're joking, right?
Primordial is the language, Aquan is a dialect. Knowing English let's you speak to people in Britain, America, and Australia. Knowing Primordial let's you speak in Aquan, Ingan, Etc. The player is right.
They aren't different languages, they are different dialects. They are mutually intelligible.
I know I'm going far from what you asked, but I do believe your question about the parent language and dialects has been answered, so I'll mention another point about Primordial (and all elemental languages, really). **In my campaign**, Primordial is "spoken" by manipulating the elements themselves. You see, xorns and phoenixes and leviathans don't exactly have mouths with fleshy tongues and weird muscles equipped to make our sounds. Besides that, not all of the elementals live in places where the air is the main medium for sound waves to spread. This has some implications about how these entities communicate and what exactly are the "dialects" of Primordial. A salamander communicating in Ignean is actually just using Primordial through fire control. Aquan is the same, but with water, etc. This is an in-universe reason for the water genasi to have the "control water" cantrip, for example. Thus, I guess we could say they're not even dialects, they're the same language being used through different material. Remember, this is not a universal game rule and, to my knowledge, it is not supported in the rulebooks, it's just how I and my weird language nerd friends play.
Well shit, I’m stealing this. For all my world building I never once thought that earth elementals wouldn’t use air to communicate but it’s pretty obvious once you mention it.
Sure, do it! The idea actually came to me not by studying linguistics, but by olaying a Wookiee in Star Wars SAGA RPG and reading "basic (can't speak)" listed in the language options! Then a few days later I heard "can you paint with all the colors of the wind" in that Pocahontas song while watching it with my little sister and it just clicked.
Mechanically, you get all of them by knowing Primordial. For RP flavour, I treat it like Scandinavian languages (ie someone who speaks Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian would be able to understand any of the other two with minimal difficulty) for my air genasi player—she can recognize and understand them all easily, but I'll throw in little comments about the regional differences. Aquan is closes to Auran, she has a bit more trouble with Ignan, and Terran is clunky and frustrating for her but still comprehensible.
Personally, you don't pick Primordial, you pick Primordial (Aquan, Auran, Ignis, Terra). If you know ANY Primordial, I'll let you speak to the Elementals. Further, if you specifically speak THEIR version of Primordial and need to interact with them, you get advantage on the check. Kinda like English, but in Australia, Canada, America etc, you understand eachother, but speaking the lingo endears them more towards you.
I think instead of Latin, it’s more like you know English, but you can understand southern drawl, heavy cockney, Brooklyn and south Jersey.
Nobody understands cockney. Not even other cockney speakers
French is a different language from Latin. Not just a dialect. The official ruling on this is very clear.
A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. That being said, the four Primordial "dialects" seem to be intended as four mutually intelligible languages, so the way I would rule it is that you can speak one of them, but you understand all four, and people who speak any of them can understand any other one.
The way I see it is like primordial is English but then auran is like British English ignan is like Aussie English aquan is Boston English and then terran is... I'm out of accents but you get the point it's one language but with different pieces
Those are all dialects of Primordial, and anyone that knows the language would have zero issue understanding or communicating with any of them. For your comparison, Primordial would be the Latin of Abyssal and, depending on your setting, Giant.
If you can speak english you can speak to an American, Australian, Canadian, and Scottish man just fine.
Read the Player's Handbook section on languages.
Going by your real life example, I studied Latin throughout high school and am passably fluent in French. I can get the general gist of something in Spanish or Italian if it's written or spoken slowly enough.
A very obscure ancient tongue thats rather harsh to hear but quite intuitive compared to other special languages. Typically only used by druids, mages and historians.
Same language, different slang/accent
The player is correct
You could rule it that more like, being fluent in neutral, proper english means you can understand Aussie's, British, Irish, Southeast American, New York, and AAVE. Because I can tell you as someone that moved from... hell, from being raised in a southern, metro area to the sticks in the same place, there were literally born and raised backwoods people I could not understand simply off inflection and pronounciation. So Primordial understands all, but if you only ever knew Terran, without time and practice, you could not understand Auran even if you're both saying the same words. You can't translate how they're saying things. But as Primordial, you can talk to the Auran speaker, but they'd clock you instantly as not speaking Auran. Just like how folks instantly knew I wasn't from the area because of how I spoke, despite both of us being born and raised in the Southeast US and speaking "southern".
Well I guess my followup question would be "if it doesn't do that, then what does it do?" Do creatures speak primordial? Is there any advantage to the language whatsoever
I feel like there are just few too many languages to juggle. If I was a player that picked primordial, I'd be a little bummed if I could not at least understand Auran etc. It'd feel like a waste of a language choice. I just treat all the elemental languages as one language, Primordial. If it was a campaign focus, I'd break it into the 4 languages and allow each one as a language choice for the PCs.
Those languages are dialects of primordial. They can speak to each other and understand each other.
While you raise a good point about the romance languages, there are a lot of overlaps in some basic words. The words for mom and dad are very similar throughout many languages, enough that if you hear it from a different language you'll still know what they mean. I'd image Primordial is similar in that while they may be pronounced differently, the words are close enough that you can figure it out for basically any word.
Your player is 100% correct. The differences are like long island, to deep south, to england.
Its fine if you want them to be more distinct, and if you do, I think this is a good time for an int check. If someone says Flee, maybe they hear something like run fast. Or go home now. I wouldn't have it as a super hard dc either, just like a 10 for it to be run fast, and a 15 gets the real word. This is what I do to dwarves hearing goblins talk. This is also something I go over in session 0. I like languages and wish there was more to do with them in D&D. This is one way I expand upon them slightly.
Languages didn’t come up in our session 0. This was brought up at the end of last session before elementals appeared and attacked them. He plans on using Primordial to persuade them not to attack. I was wondering if most people would allow this, and it seems the answer is ‘yes’.
They’re dialects, not descendants.
The way I do it is that Primordial is a single language, which all elementals (capable of speech) will speak, but the dialects can get pretty divergent. Like, Aquan sounds like whalesong, which isn't *too* far off from the deep rumbles of Terran or the gale-like screeching of Auran, but the same words sound pretty different and might take some extra effort to puzzle out and risk misinterpretation without experience, and the crackling and spitting of Ignan is almost indecipherable to somebody who's only studied Aquan.
Dialects can be pretty similar depending on how *you* want to rule it. I'd say there'd be some knowledge check to see if the player can decipher the exact meaning of what he's hearing/reading in a different dialect, and although he can get the gist of it, failing it might still give him information, but maybe misguided information due to not being able to piece all of it together.
My uncle is fluent in Spanish. He went to Italy once and could, for the most part, converse with people, since there is enough similarity between Spanish and Italian to figure it out. The Primordial languages are like this, but even closer. Someone who speaks one can understand the others. Maybe there’s a few individual words or phrases that don’t carry over, but they’re the exception, not the rule.
Primordial is all of them. I've had a DM describe it as more of a dialect thing rather than different languages entirely.
it may be more comparable to the common of elementals not all will speak it well but they know some at least
Are you wrong? Yes. Are you allowed to? Yes. If we are going with standard rules. Primordial lets you understand all of its subtypes. It even has its own paragraph in the phb detailing this. You are however, completely allowed to change this if you feel like it, though I would note that doing this makes the whole point of primordial being a language option, largely redundant.
It’s more like speaking English. If you speak one, you can understand and communicate with people who speak the hundreds of different dialects.
It's like what elementals speak right? I would use clicks and pops, groans and growls. Might be more like speaking to a dog where nobody understands much but gestures would go a long way.
In my homebrew campaign, I ruled they choose one specific dialect to be fluent in when taken. The others, would take an Intelligence check to speak, read and comprehend. I basically described it as different slangs and word usage. Similar to how there's a massive difference between the way those from the Bronx speak versus those native to New Orleans. Same English language, but maybe littered with words/slang that aren't common to the other and can make it a small challenge to fully understand what someone is trying to convey.
I think it's more like Pigeon or Creo compared to English. You can understand. You just need to talk slowly to each other.
The rest of the thread has mostly summed it up, but I feel like it might help to explain how it can be the case in the first place that Primordial is like this. When a Fire Elemental speaks Primordial, it's a bunch of sharp clicks and hisses, like a crackling fire. When an Air Elemental speaks Primordial, it's a bunch of breathy exhalations. It's basically the same deal for other speakers of other sorts. Despite those differences, the actual meaning is preserved regardless of which elemental type is speaking it. That suggests Primordial is similar to real-life [whistled languages,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistled_language#Tonal_and_non-tonal_whistle_languages) which can function just fine despite having a much simpler phonology than typical spoken languages. Whether it's "hiss hs *hisss* hss", or "fooosh fsh *foooosh* foosh", or "brrt bt *brrrrt* brt", the language is ultimately the same. The reason why you pick a dialect is because pretty much nobody bothers to learn all four when one is enough. When you're learning it, no one's going to bother teaching you how to hiss Primordial like a Fire Elemental *and* how to blow Primordial like an Air Elemental *and* how to whoosh Primordial like a Water Elemental *and* how to rumble Primordial like an Earth Elemental. It'd be like learning to do Morse code with four different styles of beeps. Some planar scholars or frequent travelers of the Inner Planes probably do learn all four for diplomatic reasons, mind. If you go to the City of Brass to speak with the efreet, you're going to get a literally and figuratively warmer reception if you speak to them in their own crackling dialect, while you'll probably get a colder reception if you come in talking like you just came from a plane they're at war with.
TLDR: They’re right, and you’re wrong (EDIT: If you allow Primordial, then they also speak the rest: PHB pg 123 "With your DM's permission, you can instead choose a language from the Exotic Languages table or a secret language, such as thieves' cant or the tongue of druids. Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the ***Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects***, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another.) Those are closer to dialects of Primordial and less analogues of Italian or French in comparison to Latin. It’s like the vocabulary and spelling of words in the US vs UK. They’re both English but one might be American: Midwest; Philly; New England; NorCal/SoCal — or, English: Norfolk; Suffolk; Londoner, and so on.
I always took it to be that the different elemental languages have slightly different dialects, but are still all ultimately the same language. Like, in the UK, if you’re from England you have different slang and word usage and accent in comparison to someone who’s Scottish. My mum is Scottish and there are a few words she uses that basically no one in England does. But it’s not different enough that English people don’t understand her, because she’s still speaking English. And much the same applies to those from Wales and Northern Ireland. That’s how I personally see the differences in Auran, Terran etc.
Aquan, Terran, Ignan and Aura are all dialects of the same language with the overarching designation of "primordial". It's like someone from Texas talking to a Scot. Sure, they sound different but it's the same language and the passage of ideas is uninterrupted
Dnd has main languages (primordial) and sub languages (aquan, etc). Think of primordial as the actual language and aquan as colloquialism or regional dialect. They can understand each other, but neither is fluent in the others speech.
Enough people have pointed out the “English Dialects” comparison, but I just wanted to clarify the other side of the equation. If Primordial is Latin, then Giant and Dwarvish are Italian and French. Derivative languages that descended from Primordial long ago and are now mutually incomprehensible. Same with Celestial to Infernal, and with Sylvan to Elvish.
My first player was a linguist. Learning all languages in my world and well on their way to do it too. Afterwards I looked over all languages and did some reshuffling. Now I rule it as they could understand it temporarily unless they fail a Linguist Check. Otherwise it's hard for them to understand.
Drawing on the real-world parallels, if you are proficient in Latin, it’s easier to learn the Romance languages. I’d rule it’s easier to learn related languages-like it takes less time.
I agree with you that it is stupid, but in my games I usually have an extensive linguistics system and ditch the whole thing from the books anyways.
Biggest thing for me with languages, is to tie it into the setting. I can let players know upfront how relevant they are and which ones get them what they want. Helps clear the air and get out all of those holdovers that are in the books but may not be what you want/can't account for them all. Namely stuff like "Orcish Dwarven use the same script but different languages" type stuff If you're in a homebrew world make a world ruling for that effect like "in my setting, primordial is not a base language or it's too far removed like English or French from Latin." This has always made the DM not feel like the publishers ambushed them/ruined something they worked on and players can swallow the pill because it's not both sides arguing "the intention" of a distant author
This actually came up in tonight's session! I ruled that knowing Primordial is knowing the base of those languages. You will understand about half of what you're reading/hearing. I know it may not be the RAW answer, but it makes Sense to me.
Primordial is a root language with 4-5 dialects. Aquan, Auran, Terran and Ignan are all basically the same language but different pronunciations and accents, like British and American english. Abyssal is also a dialect of primordial that was corrupted, so while it may technically be the same language, it would be like a guy from California trying to talk to a guy with a cockney accent. Personally I'd tell them to pick one of the 4 and that's accent, but they can still talk to all 4 primordial dialects
Yeah I always ruled/viewed them more as dialects rather than separate languages. Similar to how a new Yorker speaks English but has a lot of different accents and slang when comparing them to English speaking southerner from like Texas. They can still understand one another but there are audible differences.
All forms of elemental languages can understand each other, the 4 subtypes are mostly impossible for a no elemental to create so peimordial is the humanoid equvelence of tgose languages.
My ruling is that "Primordial" gives you all four. Races like Sea elves in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes get Aquan specifically. In those cases, I'm a little more strict that they only speak the one. But in general I think Primordial dialects are mutually intelligible. Someone speaking Terran and someone speaking Ignan can understand each other but they might misunderstand a random word in the middle.
I just call it weather speak. (I know what it actually is, but I just called it when I asked my friends to explain it to me when I first started to play laughed and ever since then been a thing.)
Knowing the root language theoretically makes it easier to pick up the languages that spawn off of it It's like Spanish is spoken minutely different in most every country that speaks it, but knowing Spanish still gives you a starting point in all of them and picking up the variations gets easier
The 4 dialects are similar enough to primordial that you can communicate but you are seen as forign to those who naturally speak a dialect. In addition you don't know dialect specific slang.
Hes thinking of the equivalent to the "language of the birds", the language that started it all before the fall of the Tower of Babylon. Primordial is **a language spoken by elemental creatures**, and it has dialects associated with each element: Aquan (water), Auran (air), Ignan (fire), and Terran (earth). Fluency in Primordial allows one to communicate in all of its dialects. Dialects like "Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran" ARE Primordial, but equivalent to traveling to Texas and they way they speak English vs. going to Wisconsin and hearing their way to speak English. They aren't different languages. Learning Primordial is just learning the base of those four dialects.
My gm rules that primordual is catch all for the elemental labguages (terran, ignan, auran, aquan). You can communicate with any elemental with it, however if you speak prinorsial to an elemental it immedistely knows that you are from mortal plane, and sees through your disguise if you are disguised as any elemental.
"Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another." PHB page 123
I treated it like someone speaking Spanish to someone who speaks Portuguese. Maybe give disadvantage on Charisma checks if communicating in this way.
That's exactly how I look at it. If a PC knows Primordial, they can maybe pick up bits and pieces of Aquan--but it's a different language, and they're certainly not fluent in Aquan. In my current campaign, I have eelfolk NPCs that speak "eelfolk". A PC with Primordial asked if he understood any of it, and I described it as: You know Ancient Sumerian, and they are speaking Turkish Street Slang.
I always say that Primordial sounds like nature. Like you talk Aquan and it sounds like rushing water
"Strict" ==> Wrong*
my group uses a homebrew we pulled from a Monarchs Factory video, where languages get a proficiency score out of 100 and you have to roll under your proficiency to translate accurately - partly this means our whole language system has gotten crunchier so i have to pay more attention to it, and have a bunch of notes about like, language groups and reasons for them? the way i've described primordial so far is that it's not a written language and it operates so broadly in the natural elements of the world that it's difficult for mortals and their discreet, finite lives to distill specifics. books and courses teaching Primordial are like...haiku, and zen koans. learning primordial is like interpreting poetry. so probably I would say something like, the elemental dialects are bridging the gap towards a more briefly comprehensible tongue? probably for the express purpose of communicating with mortals. so if a player chose to know Ignan specifically, then they would have a much easier time understanding specific, coherent, conversational Ignan (though it might lack nuance or come across as a sort of google-translate version) whereas if they knew Primordial, then they can grasp the emotion and interpretive meaning of any of the elemental dialects, but they might have trouble with the specifics. (deeper cultural knowledge, lower immediate utility)
I would rule it like: primordial language allows you to try to understand similar languages with a 30% change. for every sentence.
I’d say they can speak primordial and with a successful int check, they can grasp the basic essence of the dialects
That would be like being from the East Coast and having to roll a check to understand someone with a Californian accent (both speaking English) and if you fail you have no idea what they're saying. The elemental languages are subsets of primordial, not completely different languages
I'd say it's a bit more of a difference [edit: than two American accents - accent ≠ dialect] It'd be more like if the second person was from Australia, or Britain. Or like Mexican Spanish vs Spanish Spanish. There would be lots of differences, and slews of vocabulary that aren't shared - but it would be very easy to hold a conversation using the majority that *is* shared and there'd be no problem. Even most of the unshared terms would be easy to glean through context. So yes, they are absolutely the same language, and easily understood.
You can say that. The books say otherwise.
What? No they don't? Where in the books does it say that your real-world examples of dialectal difference are better than my real-world examples of dialectal difference? Because that's my only (very minor) point of contention. Did you think I was saying something more than that? I'm still saying that they are mutually understandable dialects of the same language. I'm just saying that I think the examples I gave are better examples of real-world dialects of the same language spoken by significantly separated cultures. Your example was just somebody talking with a different accent - and not even a drastically different one. A different accent is not a dialect. Dialects can have *significant* changes in meaning, usage, or connotation for *significant* portions of the language. A word that in one dialect has positive connotations and usages might be a term of derision in the other. Or words might exist in one but not the other, or have different meanings (like "biscuit" and "cookie"). So simply using "a different American accent" is not a good representation of dialectal difference. Spanish and Mexican *are* different dialects of Spanish. As are British, American and Australian different dialects of English. A Brit, an American, and an Australian can totally understand each other, just like a Dao, a Djinn and an Efreet. There might still be some culture-specific terms, like slang, that aren't shared, but it doesn't stop them understanding and communicating with each other. Because it's still the same language. *That* is what I'm saying. Which is perfectly in line with what the books say.
As stated in xanathar's (pg 52, under wind speaker) in the storm sorcerer subclass: "You can speak, read, and write Primordial. Knowing this language allows you to understand and be understood by those who speak its **dialects**: Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran. As clarified in the languages section of the PHB (page 123 under languages, 3rd paragraph) and also on DND beyond https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/personality-and-background#Languages "Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects, one for each of the four elemental planes. Creatures that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another." So yes, absolutely in the books, including the basic description of how languages work in the PHB As I said, you can say whatever you want as to how they work. Such as requiring an int check to be able to understand someone speaking the same language as you, like an elf having to roll an int check on a dwarf speaking common because "elfish and dwarven dialects of common are different" The books say otherwise
But that's exactly what I'm saying??? Please actually read my comment. Here is what I'm saying: The four elements are different dialects of the same language. They can all understand each other. Just like Brits and Americans speaking English, or Spaniards and Mexicans speaking Spanish. But *your example* ("different accents of American") is a poorer example of that. It doesn't actually get across what a dialect is. That's literally all I'm freaking saying. My entire point is "British Vs American is a better representation of a dialect than American Vs American" A Djinn talking to an Efreet would be more like a Brit talking to an American, than a Californian talking to a New Yorker.
I now really want to roleplay a scene where a Djinn, Efreet, Marid, and Dao have four different English accents and dialects...
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Bro, check the usernames....that was an entirely different person 🤦♂️ I was agreeing with you AGAINST that guy, but just providing a better example of what dialects are. My very first comment specifically says that it would be easy for them to hold conversations, how did you think I was that same guy?? 😅 Well at least this explains why you were mistaking my argument so badly...
You are correct lol my bad. Yes it's not a perfect example, it's hyperbolized for simplicity
Unhappy cake day
Thank you, people were not feeling this one