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.

  • Tamo240@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 day 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.

    • rotateabull@lemmy.caOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 day 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