To any 18 or so year veteran

Amathe

I played long ago, and I just have to know the answer to this question.

Learning languages. Did it ever make any difference? Or was it always just for fun? I used to visualize some exotic quest where my mastery of an obscure language helped somehow. 

skek

Yes some quests require you to hail npc's in a particular language.  An example (can't give you a link as zam is down) is the dragon in the NE corner of the Blightfire Moors.  you have to speak to him in draconic to proceed with the quest.

Also on the FV server there is no 'common'.  Elvish is the language most people use instead of common, so it requires non elves to learn that (which takes about 15 mins spamming your merc)

The Alaris xpac also locked progress behind a language, but this was learned by doing quests rather than standard spam.

Really it was a nice idea, but very underutilised

Elsabolts

It was always a " Life-Style" choice.