I've been confused about the elemental language(s). The PHB lists Primordial as the language of elementals, and the Elemental Evil Player's Guide has genasi speak Common and Primordial, but when I go through the Monster Manual, all creatures with the elemental type actually speak or at least understand Aquan, Auran, Ignan, or Terran, depending on their element(s), which aren't mentioned in the PHB as far as I know, and not a single one actually knows Primordial at all.
In fact the only creatures I find there, who speak Primordial, are night nags and krakens.
I even checked the Monster Manual Errata if the languages are maybe an unintentional holdover from older editions.
Can someone shed some light on this? What exactly is Primordial and how does it relate to Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran?
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Primordial is all of them. It's a "relic" from 4th Edition they decided to keep. From what I remember, Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran are dialects of Primordial. I can't remember which book it was in, but I think it said that if you can speak one, you have a rudimentary understanding of the others. If you know Primordial, you can understand and speak each individual ones fluently.
Now I gotta look it up.
"Some of these languages are actually families of languages with many dialects. For example, the Primordial language includes the Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran dialects, one or each of the four elemental planes. Creautres that speak different dialects of the same language can communicate with one another."
Languages, PHB pg 123
Ah, there it is, I don't know how I missed that. Thanks for the explanation though.
No worries. I wasn't sure if I was remembering right or pulling it out of my kiester. Glad to help. :)