Languages?

[TheokinsJ]

In my fantasy world, there are several kingdoms, all of which are ruled by humans (There are no races in my story, only humans). I take inspiration and ideas mainly from history and tips from other fantasy writers and from what I gather there is no such thing as a 'common language'. For example, in reality in different countries there are different languages, and within those countries there are different dialects of languages.
I'm just out for an opinion as to how plausible it is for five different languages to exist within my kingdoms, considering that the land mass is roughly 1000 miles across?

Note: The land has very few natural barriers separating the kingdoms, there is a river that divides the land in half and there are several forests and a few mountain ranges, however nothing isolates the kingdoms or makes passing between them difficult- will this affect the variety of languages that would exist?

 

[Addison]

Barriers, or lack thereof, shouldn't effect language. And it is very plausible for five languages to exist in one world. One example is ...oh what was his name. E Knight or something. He wrote a series with dragons as the protagonists, which was awesome, and the dragons had their own language and learned all the other languages easily, almost like they were born with the knowledge. There was the dragons tongue, dwarf, a language for animals, a language for some tribe-like people and a common tongue I think. So it's very possible.

 

[TyGee]

I think it's a great idea to have different languages, it helps to create character amongst the peoples of your world. As for it being plausible, I think it certainly is. Much of Europe is sperated only by invisible lines in the sand and each of these countries have their own languages.

Hope this helps.

 

[Saigonnus]

Well, I would think if there is trade or communication between the different cultures, there is bound to be a few among the traders or foreign ministers who speak more than one language. Therefore, it stands to reason that the more people that flow through the different kingdoms (i.e. migrate, trade with, visit, take vacation etc.) the more people are going to be capable to understand and speak with the various denizens of the kingdoms. You don't have to have a common tongue as long as the characters have some way of communicating with the various people they meet during the story.

I have a Kobold character in a short story who speaks very little "common", but his two companions understand elvish, kobold and common between them, so Gn'vek (the kobold) speaks through them when addressing anyone.

 

[Zero Angel]

In my fantasy world, there are several kingdoms, all of which are ruled by humans (There are no races in my story, only humans). I take inspiration and ideas mainly from history and tips from other fantasy writers and from what I gather there is no such thing as a 'common language'. For example, in reality in different countries there are different languages, and within those countries there are different dialects of languages.
I'm just out for an opinion as to how plausible it is for five different languages to exist within my kingdoms, considering that the land mass is roughly 1000 miles across?

Note: The land has very few natural barriers separating the kingdoms, there is a river that divides the land in half and there are several forests and a few mountain ranges, however nothing isolates the kingdoms or makes passing between them difficult- will this affect the variety of languages that would exist?

I would say it's VERY plausible, as this sort of thing regularly happens. It's not necessary geography that causes different languages to develop, it's the background of the peoples. If travel is easy, then it is likely that loanwords may be shared between cultures and many of your characters/people will know multiple languages. It can come to pass that one culture dominates others, and their culture becomes a "common language" that everyone knows, although they still keep their original language as well. Also, consider different dialects within one or a few parent languages.

 

[TheokinsJ]

Thanks for all the feeback guys, much appreciated

 

[Jessquoi]

It's very plausible! I originally come from Bern, Switzerland. Where I grew up, it was possible to drive half an hour down the road and suddenly instead of speaking German, people were speaking French. Even Swiss German varies from town to town. In Bern we speak Bernese German, in Zurich (about an hour away) they speak Zurichian German. And it all sounds very different.

The way languages spread isn't just influenced by country boarder, otherwise you wouldn't have French speaking Swiss. Switzerland was founded through a group of regions who decided to give protection to one another if there was an invasion. So the formation was had more to do with politics and the military than geographical reasons. As they grew stronger, more cantons joined the legion which over a hundreds of years made up the Switzerland that is today. That's how within one country there are four official languages: Swiss German, French, Italian and Romansh.

In the history for your story, the way languages develop may have more to do with alliances or political movement, not just the division of one country from another by a river or mountain range.