I know this is a really simple observation, and I understand to some extent why it's the case but; Why don't more alien species speak planar languages on first contact?
That sounds strange, let me back up.
Back in Golarion, the planes had a grand old time romping across the world. Angels and devils and demons showed up constantly. Spellcasters could easily call on various elementals to perform tasks for them, etc. From these interactions, it made sense that the languages these creatures spoke(Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal, Auran, Aquan, Ignan, and Terran) became known across the planet.
In Starfinder, there is still the spellcasting capacity to contact these creatures. In fact, with the addition of Planar Scions, we know for certain it happens. So it's very strange that when you encounter a new alien civilization that has at least Pathfinder level tech, no-one thinks "Hey, what about the alignment or elemental languages?"
Obviously these cultures should have the same means available to contact the other planes, there should be some measure of spread of planar languages through their civilization. Yes I know Comprehend Languages and Share Languages are a thing, but spellcasters have a tendency to be greedy with their slots. If you know the same language as someone, you don't need to cast comprehend languages or share languages constantly. You can use those spells for things potentially more important to your daily life.
As I said, I understand some of the design decisions why it's not used(but it was used in at least one adventure that I'm aware of... Hello dwarves who speak 'Terran'). It just irks me slightly. Forgive my complaining
@BigNorseWolf
That's all well and good for the pact worlds, but what about other civilizations? Planets where the they aren't as advanced and magic is still in fashion, or empires that have as rich a heritage as golarion? Surely explorers would think that elemental languages are going to be common, and learn some for that exact reason.
@Nefreet
No it was meant for here as this is more a complaint at the extant society scenarios than anything else.
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It would work in a high level and extended first contact scenario as a ready made Rosetta stone for coming up with a language dictionary for each other's native languages, but it's not going to help you talk to anyone other than a very small slice of scholars and magicians.
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I think this is more of an expectation bias.
You're absolutely right the Golarion had a lot going down on it, but that's cuz it was special is so many ways (the starstone being a major part of that)
But even on Golarion most regular people didn't speak the planar languages, though many of the monsters did.
Instead we've been getting (and correct me if I'm wrong, my experience has been more on the AP side of things than the SFS side, though that has been changing) alien races that don't speak any recognizable language, which is what I would expect to see.
Now, their high level people probably could speak a planar language like our high level people do, but there's been hosts of reasons why we haven't run into high level alien races as of yet (APL being the main one).
Anyway, just my 2cp