What are alignment languages?

In my last post I talked about "Common" as a language. In this one I want to answer the question, "What the hell are alignment languages?" Also, "Why is there an alignment language for Neutral?" (By extension this gets into whether Neutral is in itself an ideology or a lack of one.)

Alignment Languages

The concept of alignment languages was baked into the first iteration of D&D (Oe, 1974) and reached it's most elaborate state with the nine-point alignment as detailed in the 1e AD&D Player's Handbook (1978). Here are the relevant passages:

Law, Chaos and Neutrality also have common languages spoken by each respectively. One can attempt to communicate through the common tongue, language particular to a creature class, or one of the divisional languages (law, etc.). While not understanding the language, creatures who speak a divisional tongue will recognize a hostile one and attack (Oe D&D Vol. 1, 12).

In addition to the common tongue, all intelligent creatures able to converse in speech use special languages particular to their alignment. These alignment languages are: Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Neutral Evil, Neutral Good, and Neutrality. The alignment of your character will dictate which language he or she speaks, for only one alignment dialect can be used by a character (cf. CHARACTER CLASSES, The Assassin). If a character changes alignment, the previously known language is no longer able to be spoken by him or her (1e AD&D PHB, 34).

[Edit: I skipped over a section in the 1e DMG which alters the following assumptions somewhat. For now, just go with it knowing that this is my own take on alignment languages. I address EGG's thoughts in the DMG in the following post. ]

Conceptually, we are led to believe that these alignment languages are:

• Full languages in which two proficient speakers can converse.
• Languages that "come with" a character's alignment - so they are neither learnable by someone of another alignment, nor retained if one changes alignment.
• Of a nature that discloses one's alignment when spoken, or at least one's relationship to other alignments.

Inferences and Practical Effects

Given these points, alignment languages are gifted (and revoked) in a supernatural way. They are gifted "by" someone or something of a sufficient power, the supernatural forces (gods) that are representative agents of each fundamental alignment.  

This means that the languages can serve as a real litmus test for alignment. "You say you are lawful; prove it by speaking Law!" Note that this could prevent characters from effectively operating in disguise (physical or illusionary), a common occurrence in D&D games.

They also serve as a kind of secondary Common. A chaotic character could speak to a minotaur in Chaotic. 

Absurdities: Neutrality and Overlap

All of these effects are interesting and bear a kind of strange, but consistent internal logic ... to a point. I find it reaches the level of absurdity with the nine-point alignment and with the nature of neutrality in general. Here are my opinions in that regard.

Given that neutral characters are granted the Neutral language, and that it can be revoked by a change of alignment, we have to assume that Neutral is governed by gods equal/analogous to the gods of Law and Chaos. There gods of Neutrality, and Neutral is not just a position in-between Chaos and Law or some form of agnosticism. 

In practice, a lot of players use neutral alignments as just that, a kind of alignment agnosticism; they don't feel bound by alignment forces and don't have alignment enemies. It's a kind of Humanism, or perhaps even the somewhat toxic Objectivity Positivity espoused by Ayn Rand. That is, it's the ultimate form of self-love/selfishness.

Other players treat it as a kind of religion of its own - seeking a kind of harmony or balance in the universe. It takes some mental gymnastics to reconcile the two types of players. Selfishness and communalism, for instance, would seem to be at odds. (Though one can intelligently argue that what is best for the self is to neither be more or less advantaged than others.) More to the point, what are the gods of neutrality like? They have to exist if Neutral is a gifted language.

Nature is presumably the best model - each organism pursues its own interests, but larger forces (weather, species competition, geography...) conspire to enact change (evolution). IOW, balance is achieved effortlessly over eons, but individually life is a struggle. This gives us a kind of picture of a force that is both real in-game and allows characters a range of expression from selfish or apathetic to a zealot seeking to establish balance. The gods are probably gods interested more in the tapestry than its individual knots of fabric.

That's a cool idea, but functionally, in the game, I kind of want an out. Neutrality seems to draw players who want characters in a neutral, unaligned space (rather than aligned to Neutrality). This means a lowercase neutrality could exist alongside or in place of Neutrality. To relate that to the point of this article, a truly neutral person could not speak Neutral. 

If Neutral exists, each corner of the triangle should be antagonistic toward both of the other corners. Neutral clerics should war with both Lawful and Chaotic ones. Lawful clerics should feel equally antagonistic toward Neutral and Chaotic clerics. If Neutral doesn't exist ... if there is only neutral (lowercase), then the battle ground between Law and Chaos is a bit more charged. 

And what of the nine point alignment? Where we had Law, Chaos, and Neutral before, we now have things like Lawful Neutral, and Neutral Evil. Somehow, the Neutral half of LN is fundamentally different from the Neutral half of NE, otherwise the languages would overlap such that some words would be common to both. Similarly, the Chaotic of Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil would overlap? It's nonsense. I believe this is why Gygax retreated to a position where alignment languages are cultural rather than god-gifted. You aren't magically imbued with Chaos as a language the minute your alignment drifts into the chaotic, but rather you learn all the mannerisms of speech and body language that allow you to fit in. But ... how does this make sense with a magic system that allows you to detect alignment, or weapons that are tuned to one alignment or another? Alignment languages are a mess in AD&D.

Glossolalia

As a kind of wrap-up thought, I want to talk about glossolalia. This is the word for what some religions call "speaking in tongues." (There is an argument among protestant Christians about tongues – some say the were other real-world languages, while other sects believe in a kind of angelic tongue. The latter also usually feature interpreters who can understand those speaking in tongues.) Glossolalia is a more "scientific" term for "speaking in tongues." It specifically means to speak in a language that is not known by others.

Part of me was tempted to think of alignment languages as Glossolalia. They are languages gifted by the gods that are a mark of "ownership" and for which understanding must also be gifted. If your character is lawful, they must be gifted the language of Law and others who would understand them must also be lawful and gifted the language of Law. Further, you have to be "moved by the spirit" to "speak in tongues" and/or to be able to translate them. If you are not living out your alignment, it might prove impossible to access your alignment speech.

From the perspective of a (lowercase) neutral character, a character speaking in an alignment tongue might appear to be speaking gibberish. They might assume such speakers are deluding themselves. 

It's extremely interesting to note that Gary Gygax himself was a member of a fairly extreme protestant congregation; he was a Jehovah's Witness. JWs acknowledge the reality of speaking in tongues. At the time Gygax was writing D&D, JWs believed it was a miracle of God in the first century, as recorded in the New Testament. Modernly, they believe that speaking-in-tongues still happens, but that it is instead caused by a demonic spirit wishing to create division in the church. So, while they don't believe people should speak in tongues, they definitely believe that people can and do speak in tongues and that it is an ability granted by an inhuman supernatural entity. It strikes me that I have never heard anyone claim that Arneson introduced the idea of alignment tongues, which makes me think it was Gygax's invention.  He is, therefore, both its creator and (when it comes to AD&D) it's destroyer.