What do other languages use for "magic" words; or names and titles in fantasy and sci-fi novels or cinema?

Submitted ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨rotateabull@lemmy.ca⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

Apologies if this is not the correct community for this question, happy to post elsewhere if that is the case.

In English, it feels common place for fantasy novels to use Latin inspired words for their spells or magic languages - unfortunately Harry Potter is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, but I’m sure there are more! Sci-fi can also fall into this ‘trope’ using Latin themed titles or names - such as “Augustus”, “Primus”, military titles, names etc.

Is this common for other languages in Europe to pull from Latin for their fantasy/sci-fi books? Do novels in the eastern hemisphere pull from dead/uncommonly spoken/ritualistic languages for this purpose? Does one languages pull straight from other living languages?

Is Sanskrit used in South-Eastern Asia? Are there extinct Chinese dialects that live on in the fantasy/sci-fi genres? Do novels written in an Arabic language use a dead sister language from the Arabic continuum? Do books in South American pull from the wealth of languages spoken before European colonization? Do languages with multiple alphabets (looking at you Japanese, but would love to learn about other languages with multiple alphabets) use only a specific alphabet for magic spells? Is Swahili used for magic words in Somalian media?

I’m not looking for answers on these questions explicitly (not that they wouldn’t be appreciated), just giving examples of the theme.

A notable (English) exception I recently read - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine - which uses names from the native language(s?) of the Americas, primarily Aztec if I’m remembering correctly.

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mcmodknower@programming.dev ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
One Japanese anime (Ascendance of a Bookworm) uses German for the names of the gods.

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- njm1314@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The manga Negima! used German and Latin and a number of other languages if I recall.
  
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- Maven@piefed.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Japan using German for naming things is actually super common.
  
  A big example right now is the anime Frieren which names almost everything in German. Including the title (which means to be cold).
  
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- Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I remember an anime (that i never watched nor got interessed so i forgot the name) where they use Italian to cast spells I want to watch it 😂
  
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- rotateabull@lemmy.ca ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Interesting! Names of old Germanic gods (Odin, Tyr, Hella, etc.) or typical German names (Klaus, Sabine, Angela, etc.)?
  
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  - MagosInformaticus@sopuli.xyz ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    According to TVTropes (Gratuitous German, AoaB examples page) it looks like they lean less on German names and more on nouns like Angriff (attack) and Leidenschaft (passion). Japan particularly seems to like choosing German as the gratuitous foreign language.
    
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  - MartianSands@sh.itjust.works ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I don’t know what names are typical, but they certainly aren’t using actual norse gods. All the characters, gods included, have german-sounding names, but they’re mostly long enough that I doubt people use them routinely in real life
    
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it_depends_man@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Anime and japanese (and chinese?) culture often uses German or French imagery or words in ways that either lack some context and sometimes it’s complete gibberish. The “Frieren” anime uses German words for names that would not be names in German. (Frieren is a verb means, “being cold”, but actually not the kind of emotionally cold that the character Frieren is either, it just means being physically cold).

The use of latin is actually deeper rooted in mysticism and religion. Nobody really used it as a spoken language after the fall of the roman empire, but the chatholic church still used it it’s ritualistic language until the bible was translated to German by Martin Luther. That’s not the only case of that happening either, if you look into the sumerian and related languages, they shared an alphabet, but the actual grammar and pronunciation and use shifted and it evolved in a way that the older language grew to be exclusive for religious rituals, while the more common language was a different one.

Another example that might have slipped your attention is mathematic’s use of Greek symbols. We don’t speak Greek. We don’t have those symbols readily available on keyboards or anything.

Programming languages of course. They’re basically exclusively in English. Some of the concepts in programming are actually cumbersome to translate and make the most sense if you have an understanding of English.

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riskable@programming.dev ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
In situations like this, it’s best to remember why dead languages are dead: Nobody speaks these languages anymore because everyone kept accidentally casting spells!

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HK65@sopuli.xyz ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So in folk tales from Eastern Europe or Germany I know, most “magic words” are either rhyming nonsense or just specific sentences in the same local language. Think “abracadabra”, ours in Hungary is “csiribú-csiribá”, you’d pronounce it like “chiribooh-chiribaah”.

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- MagosInformaticus@sopuli.xyz ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  “Sim sala bim” is one you see a bit in the Nordics, popularized by a Danish magician with the stage name Dante. Gibberish definitely does help remove the magic words from what the audience knows a bit.
  
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- rotateabull@lemmy.ca ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I didn’t even think about the being a common nonsense or flavour of jibberish in other languages, thanks for sharing!
  
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Infrapink@thebrainbin.org ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Apparently the Hindi translations of tge Harry Potter books translate the Latin into Sanskrit, but that's more of a cultural thing, since Sanskrit has a similar cachet among South Asian Hindus and Buddhists as Latin has among European Christians.

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- Tamo240@programming.dev ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Using Latin for Latin based languages has the benefit that the words feel appropriate for their effects somehow, since most people don’t know Latin but would be familiar with words that have similar roots.
  
  Translating them into alternative historical languages gives the same effect for other cultures.
  
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  - rotateabull@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    That’s what had me asking this question, wasn’t able to articulate the as clearly in my big speel as you did in 2 paragraphs though haha
    
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- rotateabull@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That is exactly the type of example I was looking for! I wonder if that’s common amongst books that are written in languages those regions?
  
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tomjuggler@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Professional magician here - when I do my show for kids I always get them to shout out “Boom!” and explain that it’s like a special effect in the movies.

Whenever I say I’m going to teach my favourite magic word, some kid always chimes in with “Abracadabra”. I think it’s from Vaudeville - some magician made it up and everyone copied them ever since.

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- T3CHT@sh.itjust.works ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You should know the origin, and surprise - it’s Latin!
  
  Per wikipedia: “The actual origin is unknown, but one of the first appearances of the word was in a second-century work by Roman physician Serenus Sammonicus… who in chapter 52 prescribed that malaria sufferers wear an amulet containing Abracadabra written in the form of a triangle.[12][13]
  
  The power of the amulet, he claimed, makes lethal diseases go away.”
  
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Ioughttamow@fedia.io ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Speak friend, and enter

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A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I prefer those that are completely made up.

Iain M Banks uses very nice names, imho. Humanoids and drones all have a complete form that is very long.

E.g. Xide Hyrlis’ full name is Stafl-Lepoortsa Xide Ozoal Hyrlis dam Pappens

Not to speak of intelligent spacecraft who name themselves, e.g. Ethics Gradient or Serious Callers Only.

I could go on for hours.

Of course he must have taken inspiration from somewhere - no idea how or where.

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DagwoodIII@piefed.social ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
[off topic?]

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.

The backstory is that Earth sent out colonizing ships to distant planets. The passengers were kept in suspended animation, while the crews were allowed to clone new bodies and transfer their minds.

This particular planet was colonized mostly by Hindus. After developing super powers to help conquer the hostile native fauna, the crew has declared themselves Gods. They use the Hindu pantheon.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/lord-of-light-roger-zelazny/c41678bf1dbdd1a7

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GreyCat@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
In the magic 2.0 series of books, even though it’s not really a rule imposed by the universe or anything.
The characters like to use Esperanto for their spell/program names.

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Rothe@piefed.social ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Harry Potter isn’t really exemplary of English in this regard either. You are generalising from lack of knowledge. This isn’t a thing in English either outside of Harry Potter.

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