I know I'm not a commoner on this board and I have not contributed much to these theory discussions, but I assure you I have likely spent more time listening to the audiobooks for both WoK and WoR than is healthy. I bring that up because I never got the impression that Taln was anyone but who he said he was. The reason I assume he is who he says is, Taln is "The Herald of War". Which matters because, during a vision of Dalinar's it's made clear that Alethela is both the former kingdom that turned into Alethkar and it's the kingdom that maintains Roshar's knowledge of war. So, Taln being from there would only make sense. There are so many things that are unanswerable in relation to Taln that I find it hard to speculate on his identity thus far. As far as the differences in dialect that are described. Who's to say the powers that his blade gives him may be something that relates to his ability to understand language (not as it's primary power but maybe a side effect. Like the SkyBreaker's ability to intuitively understand the law and justice, his is the understanding of certain things which happen to encompass language.) We know hardly anything about Stonewards or the two adjacent orders. So it's not impossible that he can speak with the trees like a Lorax. That in turn tell him which accent is appropriate for that situation. Also, language is a very peculiar thing. Years can cause utter deviations to certain words and leave others completely unchanged. The phrasing and syllabic retention is not enough for me to think he's anyone other than who he claims to be. One thing I keep thinking is, that in this story's contemporary setting, every single person who sees Szeth is going batsh*t crazy when they see what he can do. Even Kaladin who can perform two out of the three tricks, is still left jaw agape when he witnesses the one he doesn't know about. So, for someone to see Shallan, watch her not only morph into someone else, but then reach and grab her out of the illusion as if he'd seen it a thousand times before and knew exactly what was going on, means he is at worst a fellow radiant at best the Herald he claims to be.