#dialects

So, since westeros is massive and extremely feudal I reasoned that they'd have a lot of dialects, starting with the main one speaken by nobles, known to commoners as "highborn" (I haven't decided what name the lords would give it).

Nobles use this as a univeral language, but in general every lord speaks at least 2 or three dialects: highborn, and the two most common lowborn dialects of their region, while the nobles that reside in KL court speak highborne, Crown (Crownlands main dialect) and High Valyryan (you will never convince me that nobles aren't foaming at the mouth to speak their liege native language).

Meanwhile commoners speak a number of dialects based on their lives: a normal farmer will probably never leave the land they were born in, as such they might go their entire life only speaking the dialect of their region, while a merchant will know a bunch of different dialects, among which highborn and hedges (dialect made to be understandable to most dialects, its name comes from the fact that most hedge knights speak it), while any lowborn who has to deal with nobles on the daily, like servants or guards will know a number of lowborn dialect while also speaking (or at least unbderstanding) highborn.

So, when a noble travels they usually bring a translator with them, to make sure that they will be able to communicate with lowborns should the need arise.

Now onto how this whole headcanon fits our blorbo: Dunk grew up speaking Flea, the dialect spoken in Flea Bottom, rumored to be so difficult to understand that only those born speaking it can understand it, and he could hold a conversation in Crown.

Later (once he was taken in by ser Arlan) he learned a lot of new languages (he still cannot read), even more than those ser Arlan knew, because he had a talent for understanding people, so learning new languages, as long as it was through speach, came easy to him.

Now, I don't know how many of you can speak more than one language, but it is easy to mix up and directly translate a sentence that doesn't make sense outside of its original language, this is partially the reason Dunk is so akward in the show, because he's speaking highborn, and as much as he's fluent in it, he still makes some mistakes, like when he say relatevly weird shit lik: "it is mine by right" or "I hope they will not be found dead" these sentences in the context they were spoken in eiuther made no sense or were in bad taste, but he was directly translating them from another dialect (for examle Crown) so they did not sound strange to him.

This is not to say that our blorbo isnt akward or shy or a bit socially stunted at times, but it is to say that he's these things even more when talking in Highborn simply because he's not as used to speaking it as he's used to speaking in more common lowborn dialects.

If you are interested in more about this (like, idk, what dialects Dunk speaks or how highborn came to be) you are welcome to ask.