How many languages can a highly intelligent item speak?

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"The item can read all languages as well as use read magic."
It can READ but can it also SPEAK all languages?
Or is it still limited to the "common plus one language per point of intelligence bonus"?

 

Can it speak to begin with? Not all intelligent items can speak, even if they can read and understand things. Otherwise, yeah, they're still limited. OR whatever the GM says.

 

Yes it can speak. Sorry I forgot to mention it. It has speech & telepathy. It has 19 Intelligence, 19 Wisdom and 10 Charisma. So if it IS restricted to languages it can speak it will only get 4 plus common??

 

Yes, it can read all languages, but it's still limited to speaking Common + 4 appropriate languages.

 

Ok. Thanks. Doesn't really make sense to me but ok

 

Why? I can read and understand about 20 languages, but I can only speak about 6 or 7 of them. Besides, it's magic. Ain't gotta explain shit.

 

I just assumed that if you can read it you can speak it. You are saying them in your head as you read it???

 

Not necessarily. Although a human brain generally associates writings with sounds, the understanding of written words actually comes from their shape. I can read text without "hearing" the words in my head, and even though I might be able to understand it, I may have no idea how to actually form sentences in any one particular language. It's a completely separate skill.

 

Makes sense. Never thought about it that way. Just always assumed if it was readable it was speakable as well. Learned my something new for the day

 

There's a simple example of this, really. Imagine you're learning how to read hieroglyphs. You have an explanation of what the pictures mean, so you can roughly interpret their meaning, even when they form a sentence, but no one explains to you how to pronounce the words or what the grammatical rules are. Eventually, you'll be able to read the inscriptions, perhaps even write some of your own if you can infer the basics of grammar, but you'll never be able to speak the language. Reading, writing, and speaking are related but separate skills.

Granted, when you have something like a Roman or Cyrillic alphabet, you can usually say the words formed by the letters (even if poorly), and if you interpret a language long enough, you'll eventually learn the grammar that goes along with it instinctively to some degree, but that all takes time and effort. For the purposes of D&D, you shouldn't really overthink it.