As a consumer of fantasy media, I always noticed that either everyone speaks English or they rarely face language barriers. That’s because it’s fantasy. You can do whatever you want.

Something like Esperanto?

Esperanto never really permeated the Earth, but I thought it would be cool to imagine that somehow all the races in all of Elgana decided on one language to use to communicate with each other.

No one would have to let go of their native language. They would just have to learn to speak one for communication with everyone. That’s when I came up with Universal. The name? Well, Humans were the ones that created and named it, so you bet it would be kind of silly.

Humans in Modern Elgana have the largest population and have been the most dominant race since their arrival when it came to making laws. Naturally, through race integration and heavy traveling many native Elganians couldn’t help but pick up some words of Human.

The most used Human language at that time adapted into a language called the Universal which any race can understand and which they learn in school and/or speak at home.

Universal, a language for everyone

A question you might ask is: Is this English? Because a funny thing, every character in a fantasy story seems to speak English.

The answer is no!

Ermahgerd, it’s fantaser langwag!

So, how do I explain myself? A writer friend, or maybe it was a writer acquaintance… I can’t remember who, but someone once said that us writers, we’re translating conversations. They’re not actually speaking fluent English. No, my characters are speaking Universal which does sound like English a lot and shares some spelling, but a lot of it is quite different.

I’m not a language-creating expert, so I can’t even say if Universal isn’t just a version of Esperanto, but what I can say is that I have no idea what it sounds like, but I’m translating it for you, so you can understand what the characters are saying. I even leave in the accents which I believe they have.