Give Humans a Language
In D&D, humans don't have their own language. Instead, they only speak Common. This is also true in Lord of the Rings, and to a lesser extent, World of Warcraft.
It seems safe to assume that this is because the “human” race in these media properties is modeled after Brits and/or Americans, whose language (English) has become the global lingua franca. This tracks with our understanding of racially coded fantasy races: Tolkein's elves are Scandinavian, WoW's trolls are Rastafarian, dwarves tend to be a combination of Nordic and German, and humans tend to be predominantly white and eastern European.
In an effort to step away from a fantasy universe where humans are merely a default, I propose that humans know a language of their own as well. Suggestions:
- Common is a simplified and constructed language designed to facilitate communication between races for trading and political purposes. It would probably use the script of the most powerful race from when the language was invented, or the script of the language's inventors, or maybe it can be written in any script, phonetically.
- The depths of some ideas get lost in Common, since it's rather matter-of-fact, giving players a reason to resort to or learn other languages.
- In addition to Common, just like elves speak Elvish, and dwarves speak Dwarvish, humans speak Human.
- Alternatively, Common could be a primarily culture-sharing language, designed to share art, the spoken word, and poetry. Maybe it's richer than every other language in the world and most other languages have died out. Maybe only older dwarves know dwarvish.