Sanctuary has some very clear and obvious inspirations and connections to our own world, but one thing I'm rather curious about, and for which there seems to be little information, is the languages spoken by the inhabitants of Sanctuary. From a gameplay perspective, I can understand that this doesn't have any purpose to mention, but I am still curious about it. Are there any confirmed languages known to exist within the Diablo universe? Below are some of my thoughts, questions, and in some cases personal head cannons for the languages.
- I would assume that the Kehjistani, one of the oldest civilizations on Sanctuary, would have their own unique and well-aged language, maybe something similar to Arabic and eastern languages.
- Since the barbarian and druidic peoples have a similar heritage, I assume that while their languages would have diverged they might have notable similiarites.
- The Xian, being very clearly based off of Chinease culture, would probably just speak in-universe Chinease
- As for the western kingdoms, they have the closet resemblance to English/Western cultures, and basically all speak in-universe English. But was this due to the invasions of Rakkis, who brought the Zakarum faith to the west as well? It seems plausible that he might also have brought his own language as well, and maybe that is what most of the westerners now speak, but even that I have some doubts on.
- As for the Umbaru and jungle tribes, they probably have some sort of indigenous African-style language
The more curiosity about all of this is the fact that everyone in Diablo seems to speak some universal lingua franca. Again, this is largely due to gameplay reasons, but are there any in-universe reasons this could be the case? The only plausible explanation I can think of is that the language of Kehjistan, being the center of culture and civilization, had a massive linguistic influence upon the rest of the world. Perhaps the nations and peoples in what is now the Western Kingdoms, based their languages off Kehjistani, and when Rakkis invaded and conquered the shift towards the common tongue was easier, resulting in a large portion of Sanctuary speaking in a similar language.
Does anyone have any other information about this topic? It's a small detail in the lore of Diablo, but something I'm rather interested in at the moment.