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{{examples}}
▲== Fan Fic ==
* ''The Basalt City Chronicles'' averts this; in the Empire of Smilodons, it's said that there's a language for every island and a dialect for every village. Some cultures even have more than one language, for example the Deltharians (most of whom are deaf) have a spoken language used by the few who can hear.
== Film ==
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' uses Basic, the language of the Galactic Republic. Nearly everyone understands it, even aliens that lack the ability to speak it. Likewise, most aliens have one language that they speak constantly. Interestingly, multilinguism is quite
== Literature ==
* The [[Trope Namer]] is ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', where Gandalf translates an Elvish inscription into "the Common tongue." Elves speak Elvish, dwarves Dwarvish, and halflings...Common, for some reason. Tolkien, it should be noted, was a language professor, so his [[Con Lang|constructed languages]] made a good deal more sense than normal.
** Tolkien's work may be the trope namer, but Tolkien's handling of languages was subtle enough that later fantasy works seem like [[Flanderization
** Also, during the First Age as recounted by [[The Silmarillion]], Sindarin ("Gray Elven") was the
* ''[[Clan of the Cave Bear]]'': the various individual camps of Clan people have their own languages but there is a formal Clan language that everyone can "speak" (it's non-verbal); when Ayla meets Jondalar she wants to learn the human Universal language and can't understand for a while that there isn't one.
* In the ''[[Ender's Game]]'' universe, there is a common language based on English called Stark, short for Starways Common.
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* In the [[Liaden Universe]], the common language is called Trade, and that's what it's mostly used for.
* In ''Hellspark'' by [[Janet Kagan]], the common language is called GalLing' (presumably from "galactic lingua franca"); it's an artificially-constructed language, and one of its design features is that it only uses phonemes common to all human languages, so that anybody can speak it without difficulty.
* This is a puzzling matter in ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series, and one of the greatest flaws in what is otherwise a masterwork of
** It is somewhat explained in that all the languages are based on a common ancestor
** Also, according to [[Word of God]], literacy within the setting is unusually high due to the
* ''[[Discworld]]'' (specifically, said by Lord Vetinari, in ''[[
{{quote|"And Morporkian is something of a lingua franca even in the Klatchian empire. When someone from Hersheba needs to trade with someone from Istanzia, they will undoubtedly haggle in Morporkian."}}
* In the ''[[Foundation]]'' series everyone speaks Galactic Standard, albeit with some dialects.
* The characters in [[Tamora Pierce
* In the ''[[Robotech]]'' Expanded Universe, it's revealed that though there are many languages still spoken amongst the Sentinal's races, [[Proud Warrior Race|Zentraedi]] has become a sort of common tongue that everyone can understand. This is justified because the [[Big Bad|Robotech]] [[The Empire|Masters]] used the Zentraedi as soldiers to create their empire, and thus the language was spread.
* The ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' universe has "symbospeech", an [[In-Universe]] [[Con Lang]] that became a common tongue through serendipity. Shortly after humans and [[Bee People|thranx]] met one another, they spent some time working out a language that was easily pronounceable by both species, as they had wildly different vocal apparatus, and the thranx language incorporated significant body language aspects in addition to vocalizations. When additional species were encountered, symbospeech was found to be functionally pronounceable by them, too, and thus became the ''de facto'' galactic language.
* Anne Mason's Kira Warden novels have "the interplanetary language". Theoretically, most people know how to speak it; in practice, a lot of them are pretty bad at it, and it's not very good at nuance, providing lots of work for interpreters like the protagonist.
* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', the main language of Westeros ("translated" as English) is actually referred to as the Common Tongue. It is contrasted with the Old Tongue (i.e. Old English), spoken by the original people who lived on the continent,as well as High Valyrian (i.e. Latin/Romance languages), spoken by foreign conquerors.
* In the ''[[Uplift]]'' series the ridiculously organized and stagnant culture of galactic civilization has resulted in at least twelve different Galactic languages (numbered 1-12) designed to accommodate the wide variety in vocal structures, humans seem to have the easiest time with Gal 7. One of the assorted ways that [[Humans Are Special|Earthclan]] is different from the other oxy-breathing races is that they have languages other than Galactic, mostly Anglic and Trinary, a poetic language designed for dolphins.
* Generally, [[Harry Harrison]]'s novels set in the future will have Esperanto (a failed [[Real Life]] attempt at making one language out of many) as the language of the old Empire and as lingua franca of all worlds. In the ''[[
* Subverted in the ''[[Ethshar]]'' series by [[Lawrence Watt-Evans]] -- each nation has its own "language", but the reader eventually learns that the differences are really little more than a local dialect and/or shifted pronunciation of a common tongue.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* Commonly [[Zig-Zagging Trope|Zig-Zagged]] in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]''. Almost every demon speaks English, even ones in alternate dimensions, until it's more dramatic for one not to.
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' had Interlac, which I think was math-based. (As it went, most races seemed to learn English easily enough, though admittedly most examples were diplomats and traders.)
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* ''[[Star Trek]]: The Federation'' had Federation Standard and the Klingon and Romulan empires had the racial languages of the Klingons and Romulans.
** Although, the line between this trope and [[Translator Microbes]] was frequently blurred.
* In ''[[Doctor Who]],'' this trope is subverted
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', being heavily based on ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', uses this extensively. But tries to not give in ''completely'' as it has language-related magic. Specific settings are likely to have a "Lingua Franca" and a handful of specific languages.
** ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' subverts this by having several "trade languages" even on Faerûn. Usually people can talk to each other, but on the larger scale there are Common "common" (Heartlands' dialect of [[Planescape|Planecommon]]), Kara-Tur "common", Undercommon (mix of Dwarven, Gnomish, Low Drow,
*** Simplified in 4th edition, (no surprise there) for the most part there are only ten languages, with common being the trade language. There are however 7 other languages for different regions.
* ''[[Traveller]]''. Galanglic was the official language of the Third Imperium.
* In the ''[[Rolemaster|Spacemaster]]'' setting ''Privateers'', the language Species Standard is spoken by all of the known intelligent races.
*
* ''Dark Dungeon'' RPG, supplement ''Samaris, island of Adventure''. In the world of Yaddrin, the Common Tongue is spoken by most merchants and travelers.
* Played with in ''Narth 2000'', a ''[[GURPS]]'' gameworld documented [http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/narth2k.shmtl on its creator's website]. The game is set some five hundred years after an unspecified [[Apocalypse How|Class 3 Planetary catastrophe]] struck a "standard" fantasy roleplaying world. According to its [http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/chars.shtml#header9 character creation guidelines], all the languages in the starting area descend from "Old Common" but have diverged, somewhat radically; at the lower end this is little more than a difference in dialects, but at the upper end it can be like the difference between Portuguese and Romanian (both descended from Latin).
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' makes heavy use of [[Translator Microbes]] in the form of computers that need to be regularly updated for new languages, as practically every species in the setting is as linguistically diverse as humans. There is, however, a "trade tongue", which Shepard refers to as "Galactic" at one
▲* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' makes heavy use of [[Translator Microbes]] in the form of computers that need to be regularly updated for new languages, as practically every species in the setting is as linguistically diverse as humans. There is, however, a "trade tongue", which Shepard refers to as "Galactic" at one point -- a simplified artificial interspecies language, essentially Space Esperanto.
* ''[[The Longest Journey]]'' gave us Na'ven or Alltongue, a magical language spoken in all of Arcadia (a parallel universe). Its omnipresence is justified with the fact that you can become a fluid speaker after listening to it for just a few minutes, as April does upon her first visit to Arcadia. It's magic.
** Interestingly, Zoë from the sequel doesn't appear to need to listen for several minutes before learning the language. Perhaps it's because {{spoiler|she's not really there and is only dreaming}}.
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* In ''[[Dark Star One]]'', all alien races use a language called Terra (read: [[Aliens Speaking English|English]]) in order to make communication between them easy.
==
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' actually has ''five'' common languages: Galstandard West, East, Eight, Brown, and Peroxide. Given
▲* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' actually has ''five'' common languages: Galstandard West, East, Eight, Brown, and Peroxide. Given recent revelations that Galstandard Peroxide is only spoken by ocean-dwelling creatures, it seems as though each language is tailored to a specific voice and vocal type.
* Most units in ''[[Erfworld]]'' speak Language, but Natural Allies have their own (unnamed) languages, and only a few members of each tribe speak Language.
== Web Original ==
* [[Aliens Speaking English|English]] is the common language of the ''entire universe'' in ''[[Chaos Fighters]]'', as explained [http://journal-of-murazrai.xanga.com/755247488/page-104-random-chaos-fighters-tidbit-1/ here].
* The First Federation of ''[[Orion's Arm]]'' attempted to standardize "Anglic", but once the Feds lost power Anglic evolved into a family of languages several times more diverse than the current Indo-European family.
== Western Animation ==
* All the various cultures in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' appear to share the same language. From pole to pole and around the world.
* ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe|He Man and The Masters of The Universe]]'' and ''[[She-Ra: Princess of Power|She Ra Princess of Power]]'': Pretty much all of the countless species and races on Eternia speak or at least understand English. Furthermore the same applies to Etheria, Trolla, Primus... pretty much any planet or dimension the characters encounter, including Earth making this also a case of [[Aliens Speaking English]].
== Real Life ==
* The original "Lingua Franca", aka Sabir — North African and Mediterranean maritime language that was a French-based pidgin.
* English is the most universal example of this trope In [[Real Life]], due mostly to the very expansive English speaking British Empire and later the global dominance of the United States in the latter half of the 20th century. Although it is not the most natively spoken language, it is the most often taught as a second language, and thus the most widely spoken. This is confirmed by international treaty, which stipulates English as the official language of aerial and maritime communications, and is considered a working requirement for various scientific fields. They don't call it "The world language" for nothing.
* [[Esperanto]] is an attempt at this.
* [[w:Transpiranto|Transpiranto]] is a parody of this.
* Further constructed languages attempting this: Interlingua and Ido.
* Also Loglan and its derivation Lojban (short for "logical language" in English and Lojban respectively). The
* As part of the legacy of the conquests of [[Alexander the Great]], Greek used to be pervasive throughout the old Eastern Roman Empire, to the point where even [[The Bible]] was translated into it so that it could be understood by Hellenized Israel. Hellenistic Greek is actually the Trope Co-Namer, as its most basic and used variety was known as ''Koine Dialektos'' (literally, the Common Tongue).
* Russian, conversely, enjoyed this status in the Communist bloc; learning Russian there was like learning English in Europe. It still works that way in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
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* The language people know as "Chinese" is actually only Mandarin, which is spoken largely everywhere due to it being taught as part of the official curriculum. Otherwise, people in China speak a large family of languages sufficiently dissimilar that knowing one doesn't help in understanding another.
** However, their common descent (from the Old Chinese language spoken up to about the [[Dynasties From Shang to Qing|Warring States Period]]) means that ''learning'' them is easier once you know one of them; ask native English speaker who has taken French and then Spanish (or any other combination of Romance languages) how much easier the second language was than the first for a comparable phenomenon.<ref>Conveniently, the split has further analogues: the Min languages split off before the other ones (which evolved from Middle Chinese), much in the way that the Balkan dialects of Vulgar Latin that became Romanian and its close relatives were more separated from the Italian and Western dialects were separated from each other.</ref>
** Chinese linguistic unity is further increased by its logographic (each symbol represents a word) system of writing; the same glyph would be pronounced differently in each language, but usually remains the same. Therefore, a written language independent of speech, known as Classical Chinese, developed, serving as a
* India is in the same boat as China: there are ''thousands'' of languages, but almost everybody there speaks Hindi or English.
** After India became independent, there was a movement to purge British influences including English. The return to traditional languages failed because it was far too useful to have a single standard language that most educated people already knew. Economic reforms in [[The Nineties]], which opened India to the wider world economy in which English is a huge advantage, put the final kibosh on any attempts to remove English from the country (and gave rise to the [[Operator From India]] trope).
* In even earlier centuries, Latin was the preferred language for scholarly discourse. Latin is ''still'' in use by the Roman Catholic Church as its preferred language for edicts and internal documents.
* The Italian language was developed by Dante Alighieri (author of ''[[The Divine Comedy]]'') from a blend of Latin and an assortment of dialects spoken by the different city-states that currently make up the nation of Italy.
* In general, when a large empire spreads its language around and then dies (either by being conquered or by [[Balkanize Me|splitting up into squabbling fiefdoms]]...or as often happens, [[The Roman Empire|both]]), the language usually starts to diverge into dialects, which dialects eventually become mutually unintelligible. However, that language may persist as a
* The Japanese dialects aren't so different that people would have too much trouble communicating with each other (aside from a few cases of [[Separated by a Common Language]] and when Okinawan get involved), but they still have ''hyojungo'', or "standard language", that is roughly based on the Kantou dialect.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Language Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Common Tongue]]
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