I keep running into a problem in doing the beastfolk write-ups - since we only have Humans and beastfolk in the DGA, we lack the panoply of usual D&D languages - Draconic, Halfling, Gnome, Orc, Goblin, Undercommon, Elven, Dwarven, etc.
MikeB and I talked about Sylvan being a kind of "common" language for beastfolk, which I like. One option is for language to just not play a big part in the DGA setting - people almost always hand-wave it anyway.
Another option is for the various beastfolk to have their own language, suited to their vocal chords and facial structure, primarily for use amongst themselves.
Common, of course, is probably just "Human",and we can leave it at that. But do we also want national languages? Can Sascrians and Whale Islanders speak to each other at character creation?
I personally like leaning on languages to provide a real sense of cultural and national difference - so that your many nations don't just end up being the same. The downside is that finding an interpreter, etc., or learning a new language in game can be time-consuming sometimes.
I guess my vote would be for each character to automatically start with Common plus either a national language (mostly for Humans) or a beastkin language, and for Common to be like a pidgin, trader's tongue kind of language suitable for bluff, threats and haggling but not suitable for lore or diplomacy.
What do you guys think?
Consider the source
Philology has long been a hobby of mine. One thing that I have noticed is that language is connected, in a pseudo mathematical progression, to time. By that I mean that the growth and expansion of a culture work to develop what the language becomes.
Something that needs to be considered is the current level of social and political development of the various beast-folk clans at the current time. If they are still very low in their social evolution then it is quite likely that their language may yet be metaphoric or even emblematic in its nature. Metaphoric in that rather than using pronouns and adjectives or other more precise elements to articulate a concept they relate to issues using metaphor exclusively. Where we might say something akin to, "Lovely morning, isn't it?" a beast-folk might say, "rising of sun on cool of the glade". In the reference they recall that which they agree is a good or desirable condition of the early day and reference it to a fellow hoping to get the point across in a fashion that the target understands and can relate to.
The means by which they would record their history or those points which they find important would also tend to be emblematic. It is unlikely that many of them read and even more unlikely that there is a common writing amongst all of them. One of the things I tried to point out in a sociology paper was that the cave paintings that many have found and claimed to be early writing could have been created by people that perfectly understood writing, yet did they speak dissimilar languages. In an effort to communicate intelligent creatures would draw their ideas out on some tablet or surface that could be viewed by another allowing the target to understand the sounds that they were making and thereby form the rudiments of conversation
So, treat the beast-folk as however intelligent that they might be, but understand that they are only now developing their language. Since they are still growing and developing as a people so too would their language and literary works.
What I imagine for beastfolk,
What I imagine for beastfolk, since they all had their beginning when they were created by historical Wizards (mostly in Sascria), they would have gotten an immediate boost in terms of linguistic development - they would have all been taught the national Human language of the area where they were to work. Since Pathfinder assumes literacy for almost all people (only Barbarians start out as illiterate among all the classes) they would probably have been taught basic reading and writing as well, at least to understand written orders, signs and so on.
What I see, based on that, would be that while I really like the idea that they would have their own unique idioms, sayings, aphorisms and so on, the beastfolk likely speak an accented version of the Human language wherever they live.
As to how much we want to get into the degree to which their 'bestial' psychology affects their language patterns - that'll come up once we start writing in-game fluff :)
I think national languages
I think national languages are good. Since the beastfolk are created races, they would speak the human tongue of where they are from or Sylvan depending on their relationship with other beastfolk.