I believe that the read/write proficiency is not for each language, but
rather for each form of writing. I can read any language written in the
roman alphabet. I may not understand it, but I can look at it and say,
"That's not English or French or German... It looks like it might be
Spanish or Italian." or "They have a lot of funny-looking vowels. Maybe
it's one of the Scandinavian languages." or "There aren't any vowels in
this. It must be some kind of code."

For Birthright, it specifically says that the Andu borrowed their alphabet
from the elves, and the Rjuven borrowed from the Anuireans. Therefore, it
should be possible for someone with a read/write proficiency in one of
those languages to read a document in any of those languages, with a
little practice. It also specifically says that while the Brechts derived
their script from the dwarves, they are different, and someone who knows
one can't read the other.

You could rule that particularly complex scripts require more than one
proficiency slot. For example, if you were doing chinese, 1 slot might
get you rudimentary literacy, 2 slots is normal literacy, 3 slots is
scholarly and 4 slots is expert. However, this does not help you at all
with any form of spoken chinese...


Shana L. Rosenfeld shana@westnet.com
Elven regents are Sidhe who must be obeyed.