On the mud I play, it's entirely possible for everyone to learn every language, however most people don't bother because there's more important things to do, and people rarely speak their native tongues in public anyway. It's a skill-based mud, so your skill in the language determines how much of someone's speech you understand. It's possible to become fluent in any language, but it takes a LOT of work (For example, my current char knows a lot of languages, but isn't fluent in any of them, and I've been playing her over a YEAR. Of course, languages are also something I don't work on that often.)
Some languages are rare and/or semi-secret though, mainly the languages of races that you can't play unless you get put into a body of that race (i.e. you can't start out as one). Knowing these languages tends to add to your prestige, however most people don't go around bragging that they know them, because then everyone would beg them to teach them the language and they don't want to, they want to keep it semi-rare. Sometimes people even trade rare languages like they'd trade spells.
On another mud, there's a language known only to a group known as Templars. It's perfectly learnable by anyone else, however I'd imagine very few outside the group ever learn it because if the Templars ever found out, they'd kill them or somesuch. And no self-respecting Templar would voluntarily teach it to an outsider, so if it was ever found out who taught the outsider, the teacher as well as the student would get punished.
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