I tend to go with
Elvish = French
Drow = Romanian
Dwarven = Russian
Draconic = German
Common = English (heavily stunted)
Gnomish = Indian
Druidic = Gaelic
and I'm still deciding on some others. I want to use hawaiian, chinese, japanese, and I need to research some african or native american dialects.
EDIT: Goblin and Orc def need some references. Actually, I could see Orcish being similar to Japanese with the trouble differentiating between R's and L', trying to talk around those tusks.
Chinese could easily be Undercommon, since its the other winner of "most common language"
Japanese, by relation to Chinese, could be something like Terran or Alko.
Good point there on Chinese=Undercommon.
Sylvan and Aklo I feel should be two similar languages since both are used by fey. Or at the very least Aklo should be something like Esperanto.
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Wouldn't Tien be Chinese, it being listed as the Eastern Common Tongue.
I've got a list of Real World = Golarion languages that I use in conjunction with Google Translate for PbP games, though if the GM or other players have already picked something different then I'll go with that as I'm not too picky.
Abyssal = Gujarati
Aklo = Bengali
Auran = Sinhala
Azlanti = Latin
Celestial = Armenian
Draconic = Chinese
Dwarven = Russian
Elven = Finnish
Giant = Icelandic
Goblin = Hmong
Halfling = Dutch
Hallit = Mongolian
Infernal = Tajik
Kelish = Persian
Orc = Klingon
Osiriani = Arabic
Polyglot = Swahili
Shoanti = Maori
Skald = Danish
Terran = Welsh
Thassilonian = Greek
Tien = Japanese
Undercommon = Khmer
Varisian = Romanian
Vudrani = Hindi
Some of those are meant to use a roughly real world counterpart and others were selected based on how the written form 'looks' or how the words sound :)
But I'm also just a layperson regarding actual linguistics so take my own list with a grain of salt in that regard.
In practice, the utility of spending a lot of skill ranks to learn languages strikes me as limited, given how early you can get Tongues (not to mention that noted first-level spell Comprehend Languages can be enough in certain situations).
I've studied a lot of different languages IRL, and in principle I enjoy works in other (non-interactive) media that explore linguistic issues, but I personally don't find it that interesting to deal with language barriers in a game. So no, I don't have any particular interest in playing polyglot characters, though it can be kind of fun to pick out 4 or 5 languages for a character with high starting Int.
In my group, halfling is Texan English.
I don't really remember if we have any more, but that's the one that comes up most. (Not in terms of language, but in terms of what does this language sound like at our table.).
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I like to imagine that Infernal is Latin. Mostly because of the "Romanes eunt domus" scene from Life of Brian--which is how I picture most Infernal lessons going.
Our table also has a running joke about how Giant is just Common (English) in ALL CAPS.
Oh, and Tolkien Dwarvish is modeled on Semitic languages. Discuss the implications vis a vis the dwarves in his legendarium...
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The closest thing I ever came to a "common" tongue in my homebrew is a sign language called "Traders' Tongue", used by merchants, diplomatic missions, and adventurers. Most of the nations have their own languages and dialects. The history behind Traders' Tongue is it has its roots in a rebellion that overthrew a tyrannical empire centuries past. It was used to relay information in secret while in public places. It was called "Traitors' Tongue" in that period of history.
Nobody I've ever played with has ever bothered to memorize tongues. Or comprehend languages. It seems to most like a waste of a spell slot that could be sued for buffing, protection, or damage. But that may just be the people I've ended up playing with.In practice, the utility of spending a lot of skill ranks to learn languages strikes me as limited, given how early you can get Tongues (not to mention that noted first-level spell Comprehend Languages can be enough in certain situations).
I've studied a lot of different languages IRL, and in principle I enjoy works in other (non-interactive) media that explore linguistic issues, but I personally don't find it that interesting to deal with language barriers in a game. So no, I don't have any particular interest in playing polyglot characters, though it can be kind of fun to pick out 4 or 5 languages for a character with high starting Int.
Clerics get Tongues starting at level 7, so it's a simple way from fairly early on of dealing with situations like "hey, we're going to parley with the Munavri tomorrow", "we've been captured by some strange species of creatures we've never seen before and none of them speak Common", etc.
Whether it's worth a spell known for arcane or spontaneous casters, who get the spell even earlier, is another question (though either a wizard or a sorcerer in my last campaign took it -- I forget which, maybe the wizard picked it up from a scroll?). But if you take it, it's probably for the same reason you take something like Rope Trick or Prestidigitation: yeah, it's not helping you fight things, but a spell like this allows you to navigate the world more easily in between. It's a way of solving a specific practical problem.
As for the other point the one thing I have never done is made analogs from human languages to made up ones.
Me neither; I dislike when this happens in fantasy in general. The closest I've ever come was saying something to my animal companion in Welsh this one time (just to illustrate that I spent about 3 seconds or whatever talking to him, and nobody else could understand me).
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I've always personally HATED how language is handled in D&D/Pathfinder... I like you use it whenever possible to obscure what the PCs can learn by just sneaking around listening in and the such, But what has always bugged me was that ANY language is one skill point away. That something as unscholarly as a Barbarian can just up and learn a language that they have never encountered just because they beat a few goblins in the head with a rock is down right ludicrous to me.
The closest thing I ever came to a "common" tongue in my homebrew is a sign language called "Traders' Tongue", used by merchants, diplomatic missions, and adventurers. Most of the nations have their own languages and dialects. The history behind Traders' Tongue is it has its roots in a rebellion that overthrew a tyrannical empire centuries past. It was used to relay information in secret while in public places. It was called "Traitors' Tongue" in that period of history.
You mean a language that replaces the bluff/sense motive mechanic of doing the exact same thing? Lol
Well, I never thought it, but yeah, I suppose so. This homebrew language trick predates the bluff/sense motive skill by several years, though, going back to early 2e.
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I think languages are oftentimes glossed over.
This is the biggest takeaway from the PF view of languages.
Learning a foreign language is a long and often haphazard process, and the game effect of investing a single skill point to get a new language just doesn't come anywhere close to approximating this difficulty.
However, given how in most games the role of languages seems very, very low-key, I see no compelling reason to use any complex alternate homebrew solution.
When I'm DMing, I try to take at least token efforts to include situations involving many and various languages. When I'm running a PC, I do often invest a few odd skill points in linguistics, just because it feels useful to have some non-magical communication skills.
This said, I suggest the following quick fixes:
1) Characters only speak "like a native" with languages they got at 1st level (from race and INT bonus).
2) Extra languages picked up through level advancement, skill point use and so on can be spoken but *imperfectly* (with an accent, sounding "off" or like a foreigner, etc) unless specific linguistics skill checks are made. Understanding such a language is also less than perfect, and missed linguistics skill checks can lead to misunderstandings, depending on the situation. The DCs of such linguistics checks can be set on the fly by DMs depending on their gut feeling for how difficult things ought to be, usually in the 10/15/18/20/25 range.
3) PCs can only speak these secondary languages "like a native speaker" once they have spent significant game time using them. Usually that means living for at least six months in a community using said language.
4) Ancient or magical languages that are usually only consumed in written form require high-DC linguistics checks for anything of critical importance (usually in the 20/25/30 range).