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Languages in my modern campaign (based loosely on Palladium's Beyond the Supernatural) are percentile based skills. For simplification I have made a limited number of base languages to represent language groups. Your native language is 98%, and you understand it. If you are not skilled in a language, you have a 5% chance to figure out what they are telling you (or 1 in 20). If you spend a skill point on a language, you get 50% +5% / level (or 10 + 1/L if you prefer d20). Of course, a Critical fail means you completely misundertood the meaning of what they are trying to tell you, or they think you just insulted them.
I have made up a list of languages for my game using post-modern language groupings. By knowing a language group, you can communicate to anyone in a related language.
Modern Spanglish - In my world the new official language of the U.S.
Euro-Deutch - Official Language of the European Union.
Nihongo - Japanese, used mainly for business around the world.
Slavonic - Northern Asia, including Russian.
Sino-Asiatic - Southern Asia, including Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, etc.
Erythraean - Afro-Asiatic and Mediterranean languages including Arabic, Punjabi, Swahili, Farsi, Greek, and Hebrew.
Uto-Aztecan - Native American languages
Urbonics - Modern Slang
Ancient / Dead Languages - Latin, Celtic, Heiroglyphics, etc.
Lip Reading - Can lip read any language you know.
Sign Language - Common sign language used throughout the world.
Semaphore - Naval Flags, Morse Code, Signals.
Well, that's how I do it.