And yes, they were in Equestria it seemed, somewhere close to the much smaller eastern coast. The accents and dialects of Equestrian spoken here were noticeably thicker and harder for Handy to get used to than the language in the heartlands. There were quite a lot of words and manners of speech he flat out did not recognize at all, and sometimes he swore they were speaking another language entirely. This was the reality of living in such a vast and disparate kingdom. Even though there was a common tongue, it was not a unified and centralized language the way modern English was. He considered himself lucky it wasn't like medieval France, where you could legitimately walk into the next county over and the people spoke a dialect of French that was more alien than German. The more he thought about it, the more odd it seemed that most griffons in Gethrenia and Firthengart wrote and spoke in fluent court Equestrian, but it made a horrifying economic practicality given their raw importance in trade with the Equestrians. It was no wonder even the common folk followed their nobility and merchant classes in adopting it. Such thoughts brought his mind back to the runic script he saw on old road signs, temples to the All-Maker, and even the labels of that firebrand stuff Tanismore had gotten them all drunk on in the tournament, and he realized how very little he actually knew about his adopted kingdom and its people. He opted to remedy that one of these days when he was not busy trying to figure out how to traverse Equestria and complete his mission without anyone actually spotting him.