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I made this post in James Jacob's asking thread, and I wanted to discuss this more as it's something I find fascinating. Let me preface this with the admission that I only have a BA in English, and thus this is armchair scholarship at best. Also I'm well aware that this is just a game and an activity like this may be taking it way too seriously, but I find this an interesting thought exercise, one that may lend some insight into how people on Golarion talk or sound, and how that can lead to new and interesting PCs. I would love to hear your takes on it, especially since, as an amateur, there's probably a lot of gaping holes in this theory that I missed. Thank you! And without further ado, ON TO THE SPECULATION!
Taldane is the common tongue used on Golarion, and Taldor was founded by Azlanti survivors of Earthfall. Now, considering that Azlanti has been stated to sound like a mix of Latin and Japanese, we can extrapolate that Taldane sounds like one of the Romance languages, most likely Italian, as well as Japanese (I'm no linguist, so I don't know if there are regional variants of the Japanese language). The presence of Latin-sounding names among Taldans and Italian sounding names among Chelaxians corroborates this theory.
Going into blind speculation here, I imagine that the Chelaxian accent of Common sounds more like French given the Chelaxian ethnicity is an intermingling of the Germanic-like Ulfen and Italian-like Taldans, similar to the intermingling of Frankish and Italian culture under Charlemagne. Galt's France-like nature hints at this too.
I would also speculate that the Varisian tongue has a similar, Italian sound due to Thassilonian being its root language, which in turn was an evolution of Azlanti, Xin and his followers being Azlanti expatriates.
Because it's been hinted at that the Kellids are the closest match to a Celtic people on Golarion, Hallit may have similar sounds to Gaelic and Welsh, meaning that in places where that language and Common mingled the accents would become more like British ones, such as in Mendev, Numeria, Brevoy and the River Kingdoms. Brevoy also exhibits some Slavic influences that may be explained by the introduction of the actual Russian language from Earth by Baba Yaga in her conquest of Irrisen.
Finally, given the statement in Dwarves of Golarion that words like "hammer" and "gold" originated in Dwarven and were adopted into Common, I posit that it too sounds Germanic, and may have influenced the development of Skald, as the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, from where the Ulfen hail, is home to one of the largest concentration of dwarves outside the Five Kings Mountains and neighboring Druma.
Varisia is another matter entirely. You've got the native, likely Italian-sounding Varisian mingling with the French-sounding Chelaxian Common, Skald coming from the neighboring Lands of the Linnorm Kings through trade, Dwarven spoken in Janderhoff, and I'm not even gonna get started on the complexities of Shoanti's evolution.
Amateur linguistics is fun!
For my own world building, I have a lot of fun considering linguistics and the spread of languages, because of course, language is also culture and can assist or hinder the expansion of ideologies and religions.
No linguistics training here, so I am in a similar boat to you Zousha (but does everyone in the boat speak the same language?), but I am a sociologist, so I find culture and the movement of ideas and language fascinating.
http://t.qkme.me/3uuycx.jpg
As a DM, I have rewarded players that have invested in linguistics even when they don't have the perfectly suited language: "Okay, so you don't speak their tongue, but you work out some similarities to this other language which you have, so by mixing that with this and a touch of that, and some gestures, you can communicate meaning".
And you can emphasise how alien a culture is, by the players not being able to understand even a single word.
Interesting thread, considering I still need to figure out how the languages are related to one another in my own campaign world...
One dm I know sort of started with languages, then trade, rivers and seas, then peoples.