Throwing my two cents in, as others have posted, on all my worlds (Udava, Hakreun, and Onaviu), there was always an ancient FIRST language that developed from the "vinyari" (vin = to come before all others, yari = folk/people).
This language influenced all following languages. However, this FIRST language usually ended up being lost in the antiquities of time due to the wars of dominion that invariably occur.
As others have posted, when this language is discovered, it is found to be father of all languages.
However, unlike others, this Father Language is as easily understood as a newly discovered "lost" language here on Earth, such as Ancient Mayan (which took decades for us to transliterate). It literally has to be translated into the current language(s) spoken in the modern times. I kind of used the
Rosetta Stone as a basis. Since this Father Language has been lost, without any kind of reference, it makes deciphering it problematic at best, to virtually impossible at worst. If no living peoples of this Father language exists, just as with Ancient Mayan, it could take decades, perhaps centuries, to transliterate.
Thus, depending upon how "lost" this Father Language is, most often, none could read it. Or, they think they can read it due to similar words, such as krok and krok. However, then comes the problem of the words actually meaning two completely different things. Krok in the modern language = cooking pot, where krok in the Father Language = the verb "to discover."
As for other peoples trying to communicate to each other with greatly differing languages (Marik vs. Tarmorin), I actually make the players "play" out how they get their "ideas" across. A good example would be a cooking pot. Players were forced to point to a cooking pot, say its word in their language ("krok"), then perhaps the others would finally get the idea.
For languages with vastly different dialects, I would have the players use their ranks in a language as normal skill bonuses to get their "idea" across. A good example was my usage of using the term "horse hoowhee" up in the northern Midwest (extreme northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin) about 40 years ago. Most people up there had no idea what I meant by "horse hoowhee" until I described it as:
Ever walk into a horse stables that have not been cleaned in quite some time on very hot AND very humid day in July? When I did, I said, "Hoowhee! What a smell."
Ever since then, horse hoowhee has been a nice way of saying horse s___.
It can also be applied to Bull Hoowhee, or just, "That is a big pile of hoowhee."
An example of vastly different dialects would be a PC having 8 ranks in a language, thus having a +40 skill rank bonus for communicating an idea. Then add the stat bonus and other modifiers.
In our current campaign one of the players decided she wanted to play a language expert (a Priest of Valris in Shadow World). So I ruled that spells that give automatic understanding of written texts and conversations would not be used in the campaign, to highlight the language skills and the importance of buying lots of ranks in lots of languages.
The character currently has more than 10 different languages from many continents, and I have started giving hints about recognizing the origin of one from another, or understanding basic expressions just on sounds because of the great variety of sounds and grammar structures in her head, like a "language lore".
That is an excellent approach. I like that you rewarded her globally i.e.: no others were allowed to use spells to help, they had to invest DP just as she did to reap the benefits. It makes her investment carry more weight to her and to the party, rather then just give her a bonus, or something that only impacted her PC.
I have to agree with this. I have done the same thing in my worlds. It also led to the "Universal Translator" special ability. This was to account for those persons who have this uncanny knack of understanding a language just by listening to it for some time (usually several days).
rmfr