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Language of Magic: Difference between revisions
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* Subverted in Awakening, the magic system from ''[[Warbreaker]]''. While speaking aloud is essential for Awakening, Commands (aka spells) only work if given in the Awakener's own native language. So ''any'' language is potentially magical, as long as you grew up speaking it.
* Played with in ''[[The Mirror of Her Dreams|Mordant's Need]]'' - the Imagers all use a specific chant when summoning a manifestation from their magic mirrors, but it turns out that the chant is just a load of [[wikipedia:Barbarous names|meaningless syllables]]; however, the effort of remembering it puts your mind into the correct Zenlike state to allow the magic to work through you.
* ''[[Labyrinths of Echo]]'' explores "[[Magic Is Mental]]", but since language and mind are interdependent, this side is complicated. For one, the local specialists say that known spells on "the old language" are mostly profanities, and the stronger, the worse - which some consider fitting, since Obvious Magic mostly is about violently reshaping the world. This rarely has side effects, right until words, attitude and personal power combine in the "right" way. One character in the prequels was going through all the curses erudition and temper allowed to remember, including ancient ones, and accidentally boiled water out of a bath he was going to take - which naturally convinced him that limiting himself to uncool modern swearing is in his own best interests.
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=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' most spells have "[[Magical Incantation|Verbal Components]]" that most be uttered to cast spells
** Words of Creation and Darkspeech are more literal languages of magic. Mortals require a special feat to be able to even say a few words of them, and they have distinct magical properties. Darkspeech, for example, can be used to reduce the hardness value of an object, while words of creation can be used to aid in item creation.
*** There's also Truespeech: Speaking directly to the universe to tell it how things should be, to which it generally obliges, temporarily.
** In [[Forgotten Realms]] it's not used directly, yet incantations on obscure languages appear and are well [[justified]]. There's a mix of magical traditions descended from several different [[Precursors|origins]].In "modern" human spellcasting ([http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?whichpage=-1&TOPIC_ID=4582&REPLY_ID=91007 both arcane and divine], and on Toril the latter influences the former a lot) vocal components are usually done in the caster's native language, with "[http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?whichpage=-1&TOPIC_ID=1901&REPLY_ID=34512 rhyme plus final triggering word]" structure. Which may or may not be more of a fashion or yet another elven influence: magic users are prone to fads like everyone else - according to Volo's Guide, there was a fad on using common word of activations for magic items, too (very... short-lived, for an obvious reason). However, wizards still learn Elven, draconic (formal Old Wyrmish, if possible) and planar tongues - because those are languages of various ancient and advanced practitioners of magic and if you don't know how those words are pronounced, you have no business trying to borrow from such rich sources. And possibly from derived sources, too: once the borrowing is done, even wizards who ''could'' fully transcript a spell may leave the exotic language in, simply because to themselves it's already accessible, and there are more interesting things to do with magical research. Besides, too many wizards are more willing to use personal codes and shortcuts [[Magi Babble|making magical instructions ''less'' accessible to the uninitiated]] than translate obscure things into common.
* Enochian (the language of angels devised by John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I's court magician) pops up in this context often, usually in roleplaying games with a focus on the divine (like ''In Nomine'' or ''Demon: the Fallen'').
* ''Mage: the Awakening'' has the High Speech. It's not ''necessary'' for magic, but it does give it a nice boost.
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