Sometimes i think about the idea of Common as a language in fantasy settings.
On the one hand, it’s a nice convenient narrative device that doesn’t necessarily need to be explored, but if you do take a moment to think about where it came from or what it might look like, you find that there’s really only 2 possible origins.
In settings where humans speak common and only Common, while every other race has its own language and also speaks Common, the implication is rather clear: at some point in the setting’s history, humans did the imperialism thing, and while their empire has crumbled, the only reason everyone speaks Human is that way back when, they had to, and since everyone speaks it, the humans rebranded their language as Common and painted themselves as the default race in a not-so-subtle parallel of real-world whiteness.
In settings where Human and Common are separate languages, though (and I haven’t seen nearly as many of these as I’d like), Common would have developed communally between at least three or four races who needed to communicate all together. With only two races trying to communicate, no one would need to learn more than one new language, but if, say, a marketplace became a trading hub for humans, dwarves, orcs, and elves, then either any given trader would need to learn three new languages to be sure that they could talk to every potential customer, OR a pidgin could spring up around that marketplace that eventually spreads as the traders travel the world.
Drop your concept of Common meaning “english, but in middle earth” for a moment and imagine a language where everyone uses human words for produce, farming, and carpentry; dwarven words for gemstones, masonry, and construction; elven words for textiles, magic, and music; and orcish words for smithing weaponry/armor, and livestock. Imagine that it’s all tied together with a mishmash of grammatical structures where some words conjugate and others don’t, some adjectives go before the noun and some go after, and plurals and tenses vary wildly based on what you’re talking about.
Now try to tell me that’s not infinitely more interesting.
YOUR IDEAS INTRIGUE ME AND I WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR NEWSLETTER
What you have described IS English, from a linguistic point of view. Consider, for example, that many of our animal words are different from their meat words: pig/pork, cow/beef, sheep/mutton. Likewise, look at many of our words for fancier foods: filet, merengue, au jus, au gratin. Noticing a pattern?
It’s because the native Angles and Saxons raised the animals, but the Norman invasion of 1066 brought in French-speaking royals and nobles. The words to describe the dishes made for them became the names for the dishes in English, while native English words were retained for the parts that didn’t involve the ruling class. Likewise consider the words used in royal settings: regent, court, crown, scepter, count/countess, duke/duchess. They’re all adapted from Old French (and so is the language of the justice system). In America, words like chipmunk and raccoon come directly from Native tribes near the places these animals were discovered, while words like alligator and mesa were added to our language via Spanish colonizers in the new world.
So if the idea of “Common, but as a mishmash language rather than modern-English-but-Middle-Earth” is intriguing to you, absolutely pick up a book called History of the English Language and read it. It’s interesting and dives into a lot of this stuff and will help you construct your version of Common in a way that makes sense for your map and confluence of races.
