Why don't kobolds speak their own language like all the other ancestries?

[Pieboy]

Good day to you! I'm a fan of the little lizard peoples, as you will soon be able to tell from this post. I had noticed what I think is a shortcoming of PF2e in regards to them, which I believe has an easy solution as well.

Kobolds, a widespread ancestry with a large population, in my opinion, cannot have their culture represented as much as I think could be possible.
For those not in the know, unlike most ancestries, Kobolds do not possess a unique language, instead speaking Sakvroth (previously named Undercommon).

This is a major mistake in my opinion, as language is a cornerstone of culture.
Language in all cases carries generations of history, stories, and life experiences of the people who speak it.
Even the most secluded, localised, and smallest-in-population ancestries possess their own language in Pathfinder.
Samsaran speak Samsaran, Vanara speak Vanara, Wayang speak Wayang, Tanuki speak Tanuki, it goes on.
In my view, the biggest strength of Pathfinder as both a setting and a system, is how it can portray as well as represent so many different cultures, both those inspired by real-life ones or those purely fantastical.
This is to say, it bums me out Kobolds seemingly got the short end of the stick.
It is almost as if they possess no agency of their own, which is not true! We all know, and some of us love, how driven these little buggers are!

Allow me to also step back and consider this issue from the perspective of lore. Kobolds being fluent in Sakvroth makes more than perfect sense. Usually living underground, Kobolds are a communal sort, which heavily depend on cooperation between each other and other beings which dwell beneath the ground.
If anything, it would arguably make less sense were they not able to speak it.
That being said, again, it is questionable that Sakvroth serves the role as their "main" language.
It almost suggest Kobolds never progressed as a culture and a people from merely adopting a language commonly spoken underground.

I would like to bring up Gnomes as an example here, as I think they show what how this issue could be resolved perfectly.
Gnomes, a numerous and storied peoples, possess their own language--Gnomish. But it is hardly the only one they speak! Gnomes originating from the first world, they also speak Fey!
I think Sakvroth could fit wonderfully in the same role for Kobolds.

As a final paragraph, I would like to also approximate the number of other ancestries which share the issue of not having their own language.
Using AoN as a source, which lists 49 ancestries, out of all of them there are only 16 ancestries which do not possess their own language, that being:

Awakened Animal, Fleshwarp, Ghoran, Kobold, Poppet, Sarangay, Skeleton, Sprite, Yaoguai, Athamaru, Centaur, Fetchling, Kitsune, Merfolk, Minotaurs, and Leshys

Out of these 16, some however aren't distinct cultures, but are rather either:
A: A transformed member of a different ancestry (ex. Fleshwarps and Skeletons) or
B: Beings created spontaneously, and often as a singular individual, having no time or populous to create their own culture (ex. Leshy, Poppets)
Striking those off the list, we're now left with:

Ghoran, Kobold, Sarangay, Sprite, Athamaru, Centaur, Kitsune, Merfolk, Minotaur
They are quite unfortunate, this group of 9, I mean.

But hey, all of this to say
Come on Paizo!
Goblins speak Goblin.
Let Kobolds speak Kobold too!

[The Raven Black]

Maybe it is the other way around. Sakvroth is the name of the Kobolds' language and they have been so successful in spreading and adapting everywhere that it became the common tongue of the upper level of the Darklands.

[Pieboy]

The Raven Black wrote:

Maybe it is the other way around. Sakvroth is the name of the Kobolds' language and they have been so successful in spreading and adapting everywhere that it became the common tongue of the upper level of the Darklands.

I have to say, your idea is quite rad too! Though I would need to do more research, since Kobolds aren't the only ones who speak Sakvroth. I do not know yet if the idea would hold up under scrutiny.

To my knowledge, Sakvroth does not possess any lore tied to it.
After the remaster it's just common but for people living below the surface.
If we take the old pre-remaster lore, then it actually originated from the Drow.

[Tridus]

Well, the obvious answer is that Kobolds in premaster spoke Draconic and were all themed around dragons. That got stripped out in the remaster and they just did a language swap. It made more sense with the dragon theming why Kobolds didn't have a unique language since they were themed as being draconic offshoots and they wanted to lean into that (dragons are a big deal, after all).

I think the problem is that in actual play this hardly matters. The common trade languages (Common/Taldane, Tien, Mwangi, and Sakravoth) are there so that the game can function smoothly. They're what is getting used most of the time, because a group of PCs who can't speak Goblin encountering a Goblin who only speaks Goblin is a fun encounter once, and after that gets annoying real fast. People tend to go find spells to solve that problem because players want to participate and shutting them out via language barriers doesn't facilitate participation.

Adding another language to the already huge language list would hardly matter, both because the list is already bloated, but also because that language would hardly ever get used in actual play. Just like "it's actually important that the PCs speak Gnomish" is almost never true.

[Teridax]

I don’t know if this is the canon answer, but since the remaster kobolds are all about glomming onto a powerful magical benefactor, so it could just be that they adapt their language as well as their physical characteristics to match.

[Pieboy]

Tridus wrote:

I think the problem is that in actual play this hardly matters. The common trade languages (Common/Taldane, Tien, Mwangi, and Sakravoth) are there so that the game can function smoothly. They're what is getting used most of the time, because a group of PCs who can't speak Goblin encountering a Goblin who only speaks Goblin is a fun encounter once, and after that gets annoying real fast. People tend to go find spells to solve that problem because players want to participate and shutting them out via language barriers doesn't facilitate participation.

Adding another language to the already huge language list would hardly matter, both because the list is already bloated, but also because that language would hardly ever get used in actual play. Just like "it's actually important that the PCs speak Gnomish" is almost never true.

I believe that, to your detriment, you're coming at this issue from a purely utilitarian approach. That being, that at the game table, having less languages is good as it allows for seamless interactions.

It is absolutely true that putting 30 different languages in one's game is a sure-fire way for 23 of them to be ignored.
What I had proposed instead, is something that, I think, would add depth to the world and sell the players on the fantasy of Pathfinder.
It doesn't escape me that Kobold as a language would not be commonly picked, but the possibility of not picking it, I believe leaves everyone worse off.

As for language barriers, this is why spells like Translate and items like Books of Translation or Choker of Elocution and skill feats like Multilingual exists. A situation where players encounter a character who barely speaks common or doesn't speak it at all, is also a fun challenge for a party. It allows non-pure combat characters to shine!

I would like to add, players being unable to communicate with Kobolds, I believe, isn't an issue that exists. All bestiary entries I could find list common as one of their languages, which is to say, Kobolds speak common as often as they speak Sakvroth. Unless an AP or a GM actively chooses to strip them of that, of course.

[AceofMoxen]

Pieboy wrote:

As for language barriers, this is why spells like Translate and items like Books of Translation or Choker of Elocution and skill feats like Multilingual exists. A situation where players encounter a character who barely speaks common or doesn't speak it at all, is also a fun challenge for a party. It allows non-pure combat characters to shine!

As mentioned above, Darmok and Jalad is a story that only works once. Stargate SG-1 tried to have translation as a reoccurring issue, and quickly dropped it as boring. Maybe you could build a game where translation is a major, reoccurring challenge, but that's not pathfinder, and I'm skeptical of that game's appeal to a board audience.

Also, starting at level 3, casters have increasing options to completely negate the challenge of translation. This turns these encounters into a simple gear check. If your caster is low-charisma, and the translate only affects them, you can have a little fun, but again, that only works once. It's pretty common that the caster has the best Charisma, too.

One of the better uses for languages, IMO, is during combat. The Hobgoblin commander shouts orders, and the PCs who understand goblin can know what's happening.

[Tridus]

Pieboy wrote:

I believe that, to your detriment, you're coming at this issue from a purely utilitarian approach. That being, that at the game table, having less languages is good as it allows for seamless interactions.

This is a game, so a utilitarian approach is necessary. It has to work as a game. From a game PoV adding another ancestral language really doesn't do much because there's already so many of those that players basically never use.

Quote:

It is absolutely true that putting 30 different languages in one's game is a sure-fire way for 23 of them to be ignored.

What I had proposed instead, is something that, I think, would add depth to the world and sell the players on the fantasy of Pathfinder.
It doesn't escape me that Kobold as a language would not be commonly picked, but the possibility of not picking it, I believe leaves everyone worse off.

Does it, though? Most ancestries have a language. One that doesn't because they glomp onto someone else and adopt their language is narratively different from the others. It made more sense when it was draconic than it does with sakravoth, but "they also have another language on top of that" isn't really unique in Pathfinder.

Quote:

As for language barriers, this is why spells like Translate and items like Books of Translation or Choker of Elocution and skill feats like Multilingual exists. A situation where players encounter a character who barely speaks common or doesn't speak it at all, is also a fun challenge for a party. It allows non-pure combat characters to shine!

All of those things exist precisely to minimize language barriers. It's one of the odd dichotomies of the game: they put all these languages in, and then immediately turn around and give players relatively easy access to ways to avoid having to actually interact with any of that.

Which, I mean, they have to, because language barrier encounters get frustrating if they happen with any regularity and players will gravitate to ways to get around it. But it does make languages largely not matter a whole lot when by level 5 you can simply poof the problem away with a spell. It just means the players that can't do that have a harder time participating in a scene.

(I remember a couple of PFS scenarios back in PF1 I was in where the whole thing was predicated on being able to speak a specific language. I didn't have it in one case, and it really sucked. In the other case I was the only one that had it, and I had to use a lot of my spells per day giving it to everyone else in the party so they could function. Neither case was a fun time.)

Quote:

I would like to add, players being unable to communicate with Kobolds, I believe, isn't an issue that exists. All bestiary entries I could find list common as one of their languages, which is to say, Kobolds speak common as often as they speak Sakvroth. Unless an AP or a GM actively chooses to strip them of that, of course.

It's not, but every kobold being trilingual is kind of strange, isn't it? That's a weird thing in Pathfinder in general: a lot of ancestries speak a LOT of languages, all the time.

Ultimately it doesn't bother me if it were to be added, but that's because it doesn't really matter. Players will interact with it as often as they interact with languages like Gnomish: very, very rarely.

The way PF2 handles languages just means that past low level languages don't matter a ton.

[Squiggit]

I kind of really dislike the notion that because they primarily use as same language they "never progressed as a culture" as if they're like fundamentally stunted in some way.

Language is an important part of culture, but there are dozens of societies both in game and in real life that share languages in common while still having deep and rich cultural uniqueness. I really dislike and vehemently disagree with the suggestion that not having a unique language makes some group culturally stunted or lesser.

[Claxon]

Squiggit wrote:

I really dislike and vehemently disagree with the suggestion that not having a unique language makes some group culturally stunted or lesser.

The United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand (and Others) would probably all agree.

[Ajaxius]

Honestly, I'm of the opposite opinion. I want to see fewer niche ancestral languages. The proliferation that language is tied to race (rather than culture) is a bit of an outdated idea. It also creates this kind of weird idea that dwarves, regardless of where you find them, will speak one common language in Dwarvish. Really, there should be multiple dialects of Dwarvish, and off-shoot languages, and and and... I'm getting ahead of myself.

To address your specific examples

Tanuki maybe shouldn't be a language since the Tanuki are not a socially isolated culture. They're more or less pseudo-fey hanging onto other Tien cultures. They should, generally, adopt the language of the culture they latch onto. (Unless, of course, they expand on Tanuki more to say that there are distinct cells of Tanuki culture spread all throughout Tian Xia, a la halflings!)

Samsaran definitely shouldn't be a language since, by lore, they're just an offshoot of a Tian culture who happen to reincarnate in different parts of the world, then gravitate back towards Samsaran homelands. They should probably just speak a secondary language from where they reincarnated - or maybe even just let them be unique in that they are not restricted by language options at all in exchange for not having a single language to themselves. (Not that many people play with those restrictions in the first place)

Vanara are fine, being a pretty standalone society, and Wayang lived as their own culture in the plane of shadow long before coming to the material plane. But again, case-by-case, if you look at a lot of "ancestry languages," I think many are misplaced.

All that being said, I do agree on Kobolds. However, rather than just saying, "They speak Kobold unilaterally across the world," I'd like to see a small section of various Kobold languages, possibly based on the source of their obsession or locales. Again, dialects would be great, here.

I know all of this is a bit moot, since the core philosophy is, "The game needs to have common languages for the sake of gameplay. Overcomplicating that makes gameplay difficult for very little benefit." But I do still wish Langauge got as much consideration as other unplayed secondary subsystems, like Survival.

[Aristophanes]

Claxon wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

I really dislike and vehemently disagree with the suggestion that not having a unique language makes some group culturally stunted or lesser.

The United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand (and Others) would probably all agree.

The United States and England: Two countries separated by a common language. ;-)

[Pieboy]

Squiggit wrote:

Language is an important part of culture, but there are dozens of societies both in game and in real life that share languages in common while still having deep and rich cultural uniqueness. I really dislike and vehemently disagree with the suggestion that not having a unique language makes some group culturally stunted or lesser.

I was not implying that cultures which share languages are in any way inferior.

If that is what you took away from my post, I apologise.

My knowledge on countries which share languages isn't broad, but I will try to elucidate what I had meant to get across, which is how culture forms language.
I am comfortable bringing up is Iberian Spanish and Mexican Spanish, as well as British English and Australian English, given that I have interacted with people speaking each language.
If you inspect both of the pairs of languages closely, in spite of how they're largely the same, they are all distinct.
Because the languages all come from different countries, and spoken by people with different culture, they have changed over time.
They possess different vocabulary and even pronounce the same words differently.
Which is to say, even in real life, countries which on the surface speak the same language, aren't speaking the exact same language. So much so, trying to use one in place of the other is an easy way to commit a social faux pas.
As life goes on, language, much like the people who speak it, changes.
It always does.
Which is why I am surprised Kobolds haven't made their own.

[Pieboy]

Ajaxius wrote:

Honestly, I'm of the opposite opinion. I want to see fewer niche ancestral languages. The proliferation that language is tied to race (rather than culture) is a bit of an outdated idea. It also creates this kind of weird idea that dwarves, regardless of where you find them, will speak one common language in Dwarvish. Really, there should be multiple dialects of Dwarvish, and off-shoot languages, and and and... I'm getting ahead of myself.

All that being said, I do agree on Kobolds. However, rather than just saying, "They speak Kobold unilaterally across the world," I'd like to see a small section of various Kobold languages, possibly based on the source of their obsession or locales. Again, dialects would be great, here.

The idea of there being different dialects for ancestral languages is a neat one.

I do not know how well that would work in application, though.
If there were, let's say two Dwarf languages called Swedish and Mongolian, I do not know if players at the table would distinguish between them, or if they'd just call both of them Dwarven, since that is what they're used to calling the language Dwarves speak.

I have to say though, Kobolds adopting language of what their benefactor is tied to?
That's a golden ticket idea to BigBrainsville!
That sells the fantasy and culture of Kobolds way more than slapping Sakvroth onto the ancestry could ever do!
Brilliant take!

[OrochiFuror]

Ajaxius wrote:

Honestly, I'm of the opposite opinion. I want to see fewer niche ancestral languages. The proliferation that language is tied to race (rather than culture) is a bit of an outdated idea. It also creates this kind of weird idea that dwarves, regardless of where you find them, will speak one common language in Dwarvish. Really, there should be multiple dialects of Dwarvish, and off-shoot languages, and and and... I'm getting ahead of myself.

All that being said, I do agree on Kobolds. However, rather than just saying, "They speak Kobold unilaterally across the world," I'd like to see a small section of various Kobold languages, possibly based on the source of their obsession or locales. Again, dialects would be great, here.

I know all of this is a bit moot, since the core philosophy is, "The game needs to have...

Agree.

Unless it's a xenophobic or isolationist people, of which there are way too many in fantasy, any mingling with other cultures would effect their language. Any mixed ancestry living space is going to be very different then each of their parts. Any ancestry, like kobolds, that constantly break off to make new residents somewhere and have unknown exposure to other cultures of their ancestry would over time all be unique cultures, same as humans in the real world.

So having an ancestral language often makes sense only in a physiological sense, not a cultural one. I don't think most humanoid ancestors should be able to fully speak draconic, they just don't have the mouth shape and other anatomy to make the same sounds dragons would use for communication.
So with the tag system that Paizo uses, languages should often have tags associated with them for physical requirements to speak it, and denoting a language that has many dialects. So a language that might have started with one ancestry could have physical limitations and dozens of dialects that some might be mixes of other languages. So any dwelling of creatures could be denoted as having X dialect of Y core language.

Language is complicated and often just a hassle in game terms, but having a setup for people really interested in those sorts of things would be interesting, especially if there were anyone at Paizo with an interest in fleshing it out more. I understand that it's far easier to leave the broad strokes of ancestry language and leave it open to any GM to infer or make those specific adjustments, or to denote specifically for any one settlement when such a thing is noticeable.

[lemeres]

Tridus wrote:

Well, the obvious answer is that Kobolds in premaster spoke Draconic and were all themed around dragons. That got stripped out in the remaster and they just did a language swap. It made more sense with the dragon theming why Kobolds didn't have a unique language since they were themed as being draconic offshoots and they wanted to lean into that (dragons are a big deal, after all).

I think the problem is that in actual play this hardly matters. The common trade languages (Common/Taldane, Tien, Mwangi, and Sakravoth) are there so that the game can function smoothly. They're what is getting used most of the time, because a group of PCs who can't speak Goblin encountering a Goblin who only speaks Goblin is a fun encounter once, and after that gets annoying real fast. People tend to go find spells to solve that problem because players want to participate and shutting them out via language barriers doesn't facilitate participation.

I would still argue that this works for them culturally, even when draconic is not a default.

They only speak the common language of the area because they are always ready and willing to adopt and appropriate the culture of their current benefactor. They drop it just as quick when that benefactor doesn't prove useful any longer.

So this could be seen as a sign of a bizarre mix of cultural malleability and elasticity.

Additionally, the gameplay implication could also have an effect in setting for their masters as well: having cute servants that sometimes babble incomprehensibly in their own tongue can be fun at first... but you start to become suspicious about what they are saying behind your back. Having your own language only goes so far to obfuscate when your master can just make tools to translate it.

Better to forgo that entirely, and rely on a coded set of nonverbal codes and social cues. The kobold language is a squint and a quick glance at your tribesmen, the tone of one word your draw out a little too much, a glance at a bottle of ingredients that is a liiitttle bit too dangerous in high doses.

[Ajaxius]

Pieboy wrote:

I have to say though, Kobolds adopting language of what their benefactor is tied to?
That's a golden ticket idea to BigBrainsville!
That sells the fantasy and culture of Kobolds way more than slapping Sakvroth onto the ancestry could ever do!
Brilliant take!

I appreciate the compliment, but I'm just extrapolating on what they previously did with draconic lol