History Main / CommonTongue

* In past centuries, French was the language of choice for international communication. We don't call an international language a ''lingua Franca'' for nothing.
** In even earlier centuries, Latin was the perferred language for scholarly discourse. Latin is ''still'' in use by the Roman Catholic Church as its perferred language for edicts and internal documents.

** It is somewhat explained in that all the languages are based on a common ancestor, known, quite originally as the Old Tongue. Also, many there are many, many accents, and some places, notably Illian, even use different syntax. As for the Seanchan, remember they were invaded and taken over by people from the main continent, who may have forced their language closer to that of other places. Still, having Common is probably just for the sake of convenience, given how there are characters from just about every country in the cast.

* There have been attempts to "reconstruct" the original Sioux language, before the splitting into five dialects. This results in things like a sound not unlike the Japanese r instead of the /l/, /d/, and /n/ that are so famous, though no r-like sound exists in modern-day Sioux languages.

* English is the most universal example of this trope InRealLife, due mostly to the very expansive English speaking British Empire and later the global dominance of the United States in the latter half of the 20th century. Although it is not the most natively spoken language, it is the most often taught as a second language, and thus the most widely spoken. This is confirmed by international treaty, which stipulates English as the official language of aerial and maritime communications, and is considered a working requirement for various scientific fields. They don't call it "The world language" for nothing.

* Today, English is significant throughout the so-called "West," thanks to a combination of the UK owning 25% of the world in the 1800's and USA being the superpower of the capitalist bloc in the 1900's.

* India is in the same boat as China: there are ''thousands'' of languages, but almost everybody there speaks Hindu or English.

* In the ''Spacemaster'' setting ''Privateers'', the language Species Standard is spoken by all of the known intelligent races.

* Common in ''{{Warcraft}}'' games. It is primarily the language of humans, but nearly everybody can speak either it or Low Common, which sounds like a HulkSpeak version of Common. Now, it makes sense that races allied with humans would learn their language, and the orcs could've picked up how to speak it during the war or while in internment camps, but it makes less sense when tauren in Warcraft 3 can communicate with humans and orcs despite never meeting eighter one. In WorldOfWarcraft Common is the Alliance universe language (the Horde has Orcish) and is not understood by Horde races. However this is because of game mechanics (blood elves and undead should definitely be able to speak it, as well as many orcs and goblins) and there are still [=NPCs=] in game that can be understood by all factions.

* Russian, conversely, enjoyed this status in the Communist bloc; learning Russian there was like learning English in Europe. It still works that way in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

* Russian, conversely, enjoyed this status in the Communist bloc; learning Russian there was like learning English in Europe.

* ''MassEffect'' makes heavy use of TranslatorMicrobes, but at one point Sheppard can respond to a bit of {{Technobabble}} with " Can you repeat that in Galactic?", insinuating some form of common language.

* The Basalt City Chronicles averts this; in the Empire of Smilodons, it's said that there's a language for every island and a dialect for every village. Some cultures even have more than one language, for example the Deltharians (most of whom are deaf) have a spoken language used by the few who can hear.

* {{Animorphs}} has Galard, a Yeerk language briefly mentioned a couple of times. The Yeerks designed it to be spoken by all kinds of different host bodies with unusual vocal chords.

* ''{{Discworld}}'' (specifically, said by Lord Vetinari, in ''{{Discworld/Jingo}}'':

* Commonly [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] in BuffyTheVampireSlayer and {{Angel}}. Almost every demon speaks English, even ones in alternate dimensions, until it's more dramatic for one not to.
* BabylonFive had Interlac, which I think was math-based. (As it went, most races seemed to learn English easily enough, though admittedly most examples were diplomats and traders.)
* There was also a situation in StargateSG1 where four ancient races used holographic displays of various periodic elements as some kind of universal language, though the intended effect was a little vague.
* StarTrek: The Federation had Federation Standard and the Klingon and Romulan empires had the racial languages of the Klingons and Romulans.

* DungeonsAndDragons, being heavily based on ''TheLordOfTheRings'', uses this extensively. But tries to not give in ''completely'' as it has language-related magic. Specific settings are likely to have a "Lingua Franca" and a handful of specific languages.

* Common in {{Warcraft}} games. It is primarily the language of humans, but nearly everybody can speak either it or Low Common, which sounds like a HulkSpeak version of Common. Now, it makes sense that races allied with humans would learn their language, and the orcs could've picked up how to speak it during the war or while in internment camps, but it makes less sense when tauren in Warcraft 3 can communicate with humans and orcs despite never meeting eighter one. In WorldOfWarcraft Common is the Alliance universe language (the Horde has Orcish) and is not understood by Horde races. However this is because of game mechanics (blood elves and undead should definitely be able to speak it, as well as many orcs and goblins) and there are still [=NPCs=] in game that can be understood by all factions.

* [[HeMan He-Man/She-Ra]]: Pretty much all of the countless species and races on Eternia speak or at least understand English. Furthermore the same applies to Etheria, Trolla, Primus... pretty much any planet or dimension the characters encounter, including Earth making this also a case of AliensSpeakingEnglish.

** Although there were at least two elven languages.
** Tolkien's work may be the trope namer, but Tolkien's handling of languages was subtle enough that later fantasy works seem like {{Flanderization}}s in comparison. The CommonTongue in the time of the novels is Westron, which evolved from Adûnaic, the language of one of the tribes of men who joined the Eldar in Beleriand in their fight against Morgoth during the First Age; Adûnaic later became the language of Númenor, who later became the major imperial power in Middle-Earth, and then the language of the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor, where it changed quickly and evolved into Westron under influence from Elvish languages. Most races and human nations in the story have their own languages (e.g., the Rohirrim, who speak a more archaic version of Westron, represented by Old English in the actual book), but a substantial number of these people can speak Westron as a ''lingua franca'', in the case of dwarves, they actually refuse to speak their language to nearly anybody who's not a dwarf (in all of history, they only taught it to some of Celebrimbor's people). The two big exceptions are the orcs, who don't have any language of their own because they are AlwaysChaoticEvil, and the hobbits, who always spoke the languages of their human neighbors. Hobbits are recorded to have spoken three different languages through their history: the northern hobbit races originally spoke a language closely related to that of Rohan, while the southern ones spoke a language related to that of Dunland. When they settled in Arnor, they all came to speak Westron.

* Further examples of Lingua Franca: French and English.

* Chinese is actually a family of languages sufficiently dissimilar that knowing one doesn't help in understanding another. Which is why their writing system isn't based on any of them, it started as a glyphic representation of concepts.
* Greek used to be pervasive throughout the old Eastern Roman Empire, to the point where even TheBible was translated into it so that it could be understood by Hellenized Israel
* Today, English is significant throughout the so-called "West," thanks to a combination of British power in the 1800's and USA power in the 1900's

** Tolkien's work may be the trope namer, but Tolkien's handling of languages was subtle enough that later fantasy works seem like {{Flanderization}}s in comparison. The CommonTongue in the time of the novels is Westron, which evolved from Adûnaic, the language of one of the tribes of men who joined the Eldar in Beleriand in their fight against Morgoth during the First Age; this later become the language of Númenor, who later became the major imperial power in Middle-Earth, and then the language of the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Most races and human nations in the story have their own languages (e.g., the Rohirrim, who speak a more archaic version of Westron, represented by Old English in the actual book), but a substantial number of these people can speak Westron as a ''lingua franca'', in the case of dwarves, they actually refuse to speak their language to nearly anybody who's not a dwarf (in all of history, they only taught it to some of Celebrimbor's people). The two big exceptions are the orcs, who don't have any language of their own because they are AlwaysChaoticEvil, and the hobbits, who always spoke the languages of their human neighbors. Hobbits are recorded to have spoken three different languages through their history: the northern hobbit races originally spoke a language closely related to that of Rohan, while the southern ones spoke a language related to that of Dunland. When they settled in Arnor, they all came to speak Westron.

** Tolkien's work may be the trope namer, but Tolkien's handling of languages was subtle enough that later fantasy works seem like {{Flanderization}}s in comparison. The CommonTongue in the time of the novels is Westron, which evolved from Adûnaic, the language of one of the tribes of men who joined the Eldar in Beleriand in their fight against Morgoth during the First Age; this later become the language of Numenor, who later became the major imperial power in Middle-Earth, and then the language of the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Most races and human nations in the story have their own languages (e.g., the Rohirrim, who speak a more archaic version of Westron, represented by Old English in the actual book), but a substantial number of these people can speak Westron as a ''lingua franca'', in the case of dwarves, they actually refuse to speak their language to nearly anybody who's not a dwarf (in all of history, they only taught it to some of Celebrimbor's people). The two big exceptions are the orcs, who don't have any language of their own because they are AlwaysChaoticEvil, and the hobbits, who always spoke the languages of their human neighbors. Hobbits are recorded to have spoken three different languages through their history: the northern hobbit races originally spoke a language closely related to that of Rohan, while the southern ones spoke a language related to that of Dunland. When they settled in Arnor, they all came to speak Westron.

** Tolkien's work may be the trope namer, but Tolkien's handling of languages was subtle enough that later fantasy works seem like {{Flanderization}}s in comparison. The CommonTongue in the time of the novels is Adûnaic, the language of one of the tribes of men who joined the Eldar in Beleriand in their fight against Morgoth during the First Age; this later become the language of Numenor, who later became the major imperial power in Middle-Earth, and then the language of the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Most races and human nations in the story have their own languages (e.g., the Rohirrim), but a substantial number of these people can speak Adûnaic as a ''lingua franca'', in the case of dwarves, they actually refuse to speak their language to nearly anybody who's not a dwarf (in all of history, they only taught it to some of Celebrimbor's people). The two big exceptions are the orcs, who don't have any language of their own because they are AlwaysChaoticEvil, and the hobbits, who always spoke the languages of their human neighbors. Hobbits are recorded to have spoken three different languages through their history: the northern hobbit races originally spoke a language closely related to that of Rohan, while the southern ones spoke a language related to that of Dunland. When they settled in Arnor, they all came to speak Adûnaic.

** Tolkien's work may be the trope namer, but Tolkien's handling of languages was subtle enough that later fantasy works seem like {{Flanderizations}} in comparison. The CommonTongue in the time of the novels is Adûnaic, the language of one of the tribes of men who joined the Eldar in Beleriand in their fight against Morgoth during the First Age; this later become the language of Numenor, who later became the major imperial power in Middle-Earth, and then the language of the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Most races and human nations in the story have their own languages (e.g., the Rohirrim), but a substantial number of these people can speak Adûnaic as a ''lingua franca'', in the case of dwarves, they actually refuse to speak their language to nearly anybody who's not a dwarf (in all of history, they only taught it to some of Celebrimbor's people). The two big exceptions are the orcs, who don't have any language of their own because they are AlwaysChaoticEvil, and the hobbits, who always spoke the languages of their human neighbors. Hobbits are recorded to have spoken three different languages through their history: the northern hobbit races originally spoke a language closely related to that of Rohan, while the southern ones spoke a language related to that of Dunland. When they settled in Arnor, they all came to speak Adûnaic.

* {{Animorphs}} has one, Gallard is briefly mentioned a couple of times. The Yeerks spoke it when they were using horse bodies in one of the earlier books because its designed so that nearly anyone can speak it.

*** Simplified in 4th edition, (no surprise there) for the most part there are only ten languages, with common being the trade languages. There are however 7 other languages for different regions.

** ''ForgottenRealms'' subverts this by having several "trade languages" even on Faerûn -- Heartlands' "common" (a dialect of [[{{Planescape}} Planecommon]]), Kara-Tur "common" and Undercommon which is said to be a mix of Dwarven, Gnomish, Low Drow, Upper Common and so on. While [[FantasyCounterpartCulture many specific cultures]] retain their own tongues still, though some reduced to dialects of "common". Other continents may have their own "common" languages, of course. Who still thinks 'Comprehend Languages' spell isn't worth learning?..

* DungeonsAndDragons, being heavily based on ''TheLordOfTheRings'', uses this extensively.

* Today, English is significant throughout the so-called "West," thanks to a combination of British power in the 1800's and USA power in the 1900's

* In ''Hellspark'' by JanetKagan, the common language is called GalLing' (presumably from "galatic lingua franca"); it's an artificially-constructed language, and one of its design features is that it only uses phonemes common to all human languages, so that anybody can speak it without difficulty.

If it is never stated explicitly that everyone is speaking the same language, it might be a case of TranslationConvention or even TranslatorMicrobes instead. See also AliensSpeakingEnglish.