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.
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.
Yeah, I would say that magic spells, in English and other languages, are more traditionally associated with rhymes than specific words. Latin associated to magic is through catholic ritualist use of Latin. Even then, it was more about repeating prayer phrases, like in stereotypical exorcism or funeral rites. Gothic novels, for example, straight up used catholic prayer in Latin to convey magical intent. But it was not vaudeville magic or modern day superpower magic like in pop culture.