Trained Only
The Speak Language skill doesn’t work like a standard skill.
- A character automatically knows how to speak his or her native language; the character does not need ranks to do so.
- Each additional language costs 1 rank. When a character adds a rank to Speak Language, he or she chooses a new language that he or she can speak.
- A character never makes Speak Language checks. A character either knows how to speak and understand a specific language or doesn’t.
- To be able to read and write a language that the character can speak, he or she must take the Read/Write Language skill for the appropriate language.
- A character can choose any language, modern or ancient. (See the list below for suggestions.) The GM might determine that a character can’t learn a specific language due to the circumstances of the campaign.
Language Groups
There are thousands of languages to choose from when you buy ranks in Speak Language or Read/Write Language. A few are listed here, sorted into their general language groups.
A language’s group doesn’t matter when you’re buying ranks in Speak Language or Read/Write Language. Language groups are provided because they pertain to the Smart hero’s Linguist talent.
This list is by no means exhaustive – there are many more language groups, and most groups contain more languages than those listed here.
Algic: Algonkin, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Shawnee.
Armenian: Armenian.
Athabascan: Apache, Chipewyan, Navaho.
Attic: Ancient Greek*, Greek.
Baltic: Latvian, Lithuanian.
Celtic: Gaelic (Irish), Gaelic (Scots), Welsh.
Chinese: Cantonese, Mandarin.
Finno-Lappic: Estonian, Finnish, Lapp.
Germanic: Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Flemish, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish.
Hamo-Semitic: Coptic*, Middle Egyptian*.
Indic: Hindi, Punjabi, Sanskrit*, Urdu.
Iranian: Farsi, Pashto.
Japanese: Japanese.
Korean: Korean.
Romance: French, Italian, Latin*, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish.
Semitic: Akkadian (aka Babylonian*), Ancient Hebrew*, Arabic, Aramaic*, Hebrew.
Slavic: Belorussian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Ukrainian.
Tibeto-Burman: Burmese, Sherpa, Tibetan.
Turkic: Azerbaijani, Turkish, Uzbek.
Ugric: Hungarian (aka Magyar).
* This is an ancient language. In the modern world it is spoken only by scholars, or in some cases by small populations in isolated corners of the world.