Quote from: vytzka;563319I can't quite wrap my head around the concept, I'm afraid.

Quote from: Gary GygaxAlignment language is a handy game tool which is not unjustifiable in game terms.  Thieves did employ a special cant.  Secret organizations and societies did and do have certain recognition signs, signals and recognition phrases - possibly special languages (of limited extent) as well.  Consider also the medieval Catholic Church which used Latin as a common recognition and communication base to cut across national boundaries.  In AD&D, alignment languages are the special set of signs, signals, gestures and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos.  Alignment languages are NEVER flaunted in public.  They are not used as salutations or interrogatives if the speaker is uncertain of the alignment of those addressed.  Furthermore, alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues.

Each alignment language is constructed to allow recognition of like-aligned creatures and to discuss the precepts of the alignment in detail.  Otherwise, the tongue will permit only the most rudimentary communication with a vocabulary of limited to a few score words.  The speaker could inquire of the listener's state of health, ask about hunger, thirst, or degree of tiredness.  A few other basic conditions and opinions could be expressed, but no more.  The specialty tongues of Druidic and the Thieves' Cant are designed to handle conversations pertaining to things druidical on the one hand and thievery, robbery and the disposal of stolen goods on the other.  Druids could discuss at length and in detail the state of the crops, weather, animal husbandry and foresting; but warfare, politics, adventuring, and like matter would be impossible to detail with the language.

Any character foolish enough to announce his or her alignment by publicly crying out in that alignment tongue will incur considerable social sanctions.  At best he or she will be thought unmannerly, rude, boorish, and stupid.  Those of the same alignment will be inclined to totally ignore the character, not wishing to embarrass themselves by admitting any familiarity with the offender.  Those of other alignment will likewise regard the speaker with distaste when overhearing such an outburst.  At worst, the character will marked by those hostile to the alignment in which he or she spoke.

Alignment language is used to establish credentials only after initial communications have been established by other means.  Only in the most desperate of situations would any creature utter something in the alignment tongue otherwise.  It must be also noted that alignment does NOT necessarily empower a creature to actually speak or understand the alignment language which is general in the ethos.  Thus, blink dogs are intelligent, lawful good creatures ho have a language of their own. A lawful good human, dwarf or brownie will be absolutely at a loss to communicate with blink dogs, however, except in the most limited of ways (non-aggression, non-fear, etc.) without knowledge of the creatures language or some magical means.  This is because blink dogs do not intellectually embrace the ethos of lawful good but are of that alignment instinctually; therefore, they do not speak the tongue used by lawful good.  This is not true of gold dragons, let us say, or red dragons with respect to their alignment, who do speak their respective alignment languages.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;563325Back when we used them at all it was never as a full language, more like codewords and gestures that identified your alignment 'fraternity' and slipped into conversation in another language.

Kind of like thieves cant actually.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;563359I always thought that was fairly cut and dried myself.

It's not a conversational language, it's a series of body cues, gestures, obscure phrases, etc. to establish who or what ones ethos are.  It's like the masonic handshake or what-have-you.

Quote from: Bill;563383I never liked the concept of an alignment language as something regular people would ever use.

But, in the context of Dnd planar cosmology, there is an argument that alignment languages are not completely crazy.


The Nine Hells having a Lawful Evil devil language, or the Modrons speaking Binary, or Slaad having a language of pure chaos (is that possible?) kind of makes sense. Those languages might trickle down to the material plane.


What I don't like is the concept of an assasin learning 'lawful good' as a language to fool Paladins!

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563388I thini this is key. A lot of stuff like this in D&D makes more sense if your setting is closer to the cosmological assumptions of the game. I found alignment languages (and even racial languages frankly) became a problem when I tried to make settings that broke away from many D&D conventions.

For example I made a game that just had heaven, hell and earth. The races were also culturally and linguistically fragmented. So you might have one area where elves would speak the same language as ogres or halflings and humans tended to share a cluster of languages. On top of that, the much more limited cosmologyy introduced all kinds of issues (especially in the 3E system, which is what I was using at the time).

Quote from: flyerfan1991;563392Racial languages make more sense than alignment languages do.  Historically speaking, different tribes had different languages, so the racial languages reflect that.  Of course, if you have an Elf raise among Humans, that Elf isn't going to know Elvish at all.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;563392Racial languages make more sense than alignment languages do.  Historically speaking, different tribes had different languages, so the racial languages reflect that.  Of course, if you have an Elf raise among Humans, that Elf isn't going to know Elvish at all.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;563404Sure they make a certain kind of sense, but as groups interact and change over time you expect to see less uniformity on those lines. I would expect there to be multiple elven tongues, and languages that cross racial boundaries.