Yep, they are so iconic, and helpful, like when an enemy calls 'Incertus' you know something will blast off. Or a lich calling 'vita, mortis, careo' you have shivers going down your spine cos you know that will be a nasty spell (horrid wilting, wail of the banshee, finger of death!) And when the big boss of Ascension calls 'Praeses' you know you have to take action or die in the following time-stop.
The school I went to did; I was very lucky. That was back in 1995-2000, though, and I'm pretty sure the teacher left a year or two after I finished. Doubt they found another one.
hmm.... it should be old persian language not latin.... thats sooo wrong....why must anywone (programmers) who doesn't know anything about history of magus (magic) speak in latin in video games...it's sooo wierd..... anyway what is done is done and there is nothing we can do about it....(maybe doing a mod that change everything that is in latin to old persian *sarcasm* haha)
So you are saying that ALL casters in the game are based on Ancient Persia...? That makes as much sense as saying they are all based on Ancient Rome.
naaw i just saying the language should be more close to the orgin of the word magic, magi,magus and so on... in this case old persian... it just seems more right and more magical....
if we use latin for spells then it is would be nice and more appropriated to se divine spell casters to use it (thinking more on the exorcism movies here)...
edit: personally I think the best solution would have been if they from the beginning used some non-existing language thet they come up with...
Still not making sense. "Mages should speak persian because the word magic is persian" is like saying "everyone who makes pizza should speak italian because pizza is italian". There is no restriction where mages can come from, hence no reason why they should all speak the same language. Most probably don't use the words "magic" or "mage" in their native language and cast spells in whatever they usually speak, too.
It's latin in game because that's a dead language and transports the meaning that mages use ancient knowledge. It would be asked a bit much to make up a new language for every possible caster in the game and latin is the easiest way to communicate "ancient secret words" to players of all languages. If they spoke persian, it would probably sound mysterious and exotic to western players, but not to native speakers. There's no other commonly recognized language no-one speaks, so any other language would sound non-mysterious and potentially rather comical to someone.
@KidCarnival but why should latin be used as language on a another planet thats the whole quastion??? thats illogical in itself... if you look at old movies (or the new wizard of OZ movie) most magical words is something exotic and from middle east (not latin)... I find it very very wierd when it comes to arcane spells if they use latin word... if they want to use a dead language then it should be Akkadian, old persian or some other dead language from meddle east... if they want to use divine (priest spells ) then I personally prefer to hear latin...
wouldn't go so far to say latin is dead language... there are more people in the world that still (going to school learning latin and so on) speaks latin then other dead languages .. lets say as an example how many people in the world still speaking the the Cuman language??? .......
Play Family Feud. Ask 100 people on the street "Name an old language that isn't spoken anymore". You bet with the exception of the odd history student, you get far over 95 % "Latin". A vast majority of people has never heard Akkadian or Sumerian and wouldn't be able to make a close guess if they heard it in a game.
Chances are people who make sounds for videogames also don't really know what those other languages sound like, so they take the one language pretty much everyone will recognize as "ancient language no-one speaks anymore". Because that's what everyone understands.
Did Baldur's Gate really need real dead languages to begin with? AD&D already boasts of ca. 50 fictional languages, which should possess more than enough interesting material for immersive arcane and divine chantings to work with. Only downside to that is that most of them come without official WotC dictionaries to work with.
On the other hand, I'm all for including R'lyehian as part of the Wild Mage's arcane chanting. :P
Play Family Feud. Ask 100 people on the street "Name an old language that isn't spoken anymore". You bet with the exception of the odd history student, you get far over 95 % "Latin". A vast majority of people has never heard Akkadian or Sumerian and wouldn't be able to make a close guess if they heard it in a game.
Chances are people who make sounds for videogames also don't really know what those other languages sound like, so they take the one language pretty much everyone will recognize as "ancient language no-one speaks anymore". Because that's what everyone understands.
actually it's very wrong to say vast majority of people.... and 95% is wrong.... the Christians are 33.32 percent of world population and of those are Catholics 17% and Orthodox 3.53% wich means about 20.53% should know (hopefully) latin..... but i would say less than 10% or less knows latin when they hear them (most of them are fanatics religous or skilled collage student or someone who likes to learn latin )
it is very unduly to expect all people of earth knows somewhat latin... thats whats makes us people in west very not very smart and blind if we think like that.
plus we shall not forget if we use to much latin people on other nonchristian country (around of 66,68 % of the earth population are not christian) going to think we are advertising christianity and thats i'm personally are against... I don't like advertisim of any religon in any form anywere (sadly latin and christianity goes hand in hand thanks to bible same thing can be said about arabic and koran)
i do belive that people who make video games should be careful by not using latin (depending on what kind of game it is of course ) if they want to have bigger international success (if theyonly have europe, north and south america in mind only than latin should suffice as wanna be dead language if not then there is two option for them... 1st option is to come up with a language of their own (much prefered) or 2nd hire or take a help from a scientist who specilize on dead languages.)
now that beeing said... it's as you said biowere (vidoegames programmer) at the time when they did BG1 was a grupp of collage student with not alot of money to go around and the only exotic language they known was latin... so they used it...
@KidCarnival but why should latin be used as language on a another planet thats the whole quastion??? thats illogical in itself...
Well then you could just as easily ask why are they speaking in English (or Italian, or whatever a given translation is)? It's because this is the best way to reach their target audience (most of whom speak English). Similarly, many more gamers will recognize Latin than will recognize Persian, hence the use of Latin.
I wouldn't have been opposed to them using Persian (or a made up language, or anything else), that's just the logic I would guess the developers used.
i quotes myself again haha....now that beeing said...vidoegames programmer at the time when they did BG1 was a grupp of collage student with not alot of money to go around and the only exotic language they known was latin... so they used it...
and yes... english is a common language around the world... but the use of latin as i said earlier if used in a game as spell language should be used as Divine (priest) spells but not arcane...
only reason i wrote this was illuminate people about the word of magi and why new modern globalized games (not old games as BG.. the past is in the past) should use someting else than latin as arcane spells...
Both arcane and divine magic are fantasy. There is no reason why one should be language A, but the other should be language B. The only thing that would be somewhat useful - having two different languages, so players can hear "ah, it's a divine caster" and take a better guess what the enemy is throwing at them. Make arcane spells Klingon and divine spells ancient Sumerian? Sure, why not. Make arcane spells ancient Sumerian and divine spells Klingon? Sure, why not, same result. So, no, games "should" use whatever works best for them/their target audience because no-one is playing games to get educated about the origin of words. If people are interested in that, they study linguistics.
Play Family Feud. Ask 100 people on the street "Name an old language that isn't spoken anymore". You bet with the exception of the odd history student, you get far over 95 % "Latin". A vast majority of people has never heard Akkadian or Sumerian and wouldn't be able to make a close guess if they heard it in a game.
Does Gaulish count, or does Eluveitie singing in it make it not-count?
The original BG1 chants were totally different though. BG:EE uses BG2 latin-chanting sounds. I don't think the original Bg1 ones are from any known language, but they might be. They sure sound more alien and creepy.
Play Family Feud. Ask 100 people on the street "Name an old language that isn't spoken anymore". You bet with the exception of the odd history student, you get far over 95 % "Latin". A vast majority of people has never heard Akkadian or Sumerian and wouldn't be able to make a close guess if they heard it in a game.
Does Gaulish count, or does Eluveitie singing in it make it not-count?
Given the origins of high fantasy, if anything they should be speaking Old Norse, Old Germanic or Celtic. However this is not the point and hardly anybody cares.
They took the effort to let them cast spells in Latin and that is pretty cool.
Latin is labeled as an arcane and magical language in many folklore, and the older language in knowledge to be taken in account.
The older version of english and german are pratically lost in history, being changed by the passing of time into a way that totally differ from their original spells.
We could use middle east languages but... i don't think USA people would like that !
By the way i always thought the game should be wrote with the old english in the same way Vampire: Redemption was made:
"Thou dares to face me? Art thou so daring to face death weakling, do not mock my power or thee shall face the consequences" !
They still offer latin in my schools but it's heavily advised not to take it. Why take Latin unless you don't really care to use the language in day to day life? You could probably find at least one person to speak spanish with daily, and this week I met some french immigrants at the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I can honestly say I've never met anyone who spoke fluent latin in day to day life.
When the designers get to the point of deciding how to present something they probably try to choose a solution that conveys the atmosphere that they are trying to depict. In this case, Latin worked, as simple as that. They didn't have to invent something or research languages they were less familiar with. Latin worked, and over the years in our society it has been associated with a medieval atmosphere.
A foreign language always give some magic to an history, even if magic doesn't exist in that history world (as Sherlock Holmes books). I always play BG in english cos this make me feel the reality of the game more distant, thus more possible in a far land. It's a personal thing that i'm sharing, but i give my 2 cents that other people think as i do.
IkMarc
Member Posts: 552
Comments
There needed to be a reference to Mr. Tibbs at the Fake Greek Wedding on Are You Being Served?. "Eurypides, Aristotle, (forgot)...".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi
basically if you want base something in draconic or mage writing it would look something like this...it should be wroten in old Behistun Inscription.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Behistun_DB1_1-15.jpg
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/opeol-BF-X.html
if we use latin for spells then it is would be nice and more appropriated to se divine spell casters to use it (thinking more on the exorcism movies here)...
edit:
personally I think the best solution would have been if they from the beginning used some non-existing language thet they come up with...
It's latin in game because that's a dead language and transports the meaning that mages use ancient knowledge. It would be asked a bit much to make up a new language for every possible caster in the game and latin is the easiest way to communicate "ancient secret words" to players of all languages. If they spoke persian, it would probably sound mysterious and exotic to western players, but not to native speakers. There's no other commonly recognized language no-one speaks, so any other language would sound non-mysterious and potentially rather comical to someone.
/ magician proverb
but why should latin be used as language on a another planet thats the whole quastion??? thats illogical in itself... if you look at old movies (or the new wizard of OZ movie) most magical words is something exotic and from middle east (not latin)...
I find it very very wierd when it comes to arcane spells if they use latin word... if they want to use a dead language then it should be Akkadian, old persian or some other dead language from meddle east...
if they want to use divine (priest spells ) then I personally prefer to hear latin...
wouldn't go so far to say latin is dead language... there are more people in the world that still (going to school learning latin and so on) speaks latin then other dead languages .. lets say as an example how many people in the world still speaking the the Cuman language??? .......
Chances are people who make sounds for videogames also don't really know what those other languages sound like, so they take the one language pretty much everyone will recognize as "ancient language no-one speaks anymore". Because that's what everyone understands.
On the other hand, I'm all for including R'lyehian as part of the Wild Mage's arcane chanting. :P
it is very unduly to expect all people of earth knows somewhat latin... thats whats makes us people in west very not very smart and blind if we think like that.
plus we shall not forget if we use to much latin people on other nonchristian country (around of 66,68 % of the earth population are not christian) going to think we are advertising christianity and thats i'm personally are against... I don't like advertisim of any religon in any form anywere (sadly latin and christianity goes hand in hand thanks to bible same thing can be said about arabic and koran)
i do belive that people who make video games should be careful by not using latin (depending on what kind of game it is of course ) if they want to have bigger international success (if theyonly have europe, north and south america in mind only than latin should suffice as wanna be dead language if not then there is two option for them... 1st option is to come up with a language of their own (much prefered) or 2nd hire or take a help from a scientist who specilize on dead languages.)
now that beeing said... it's as you said biowere (vidoegames programmer) at the time when they did BG1 was a grupp of collage student with not alot of money to go around and the only exotic language they known was latin... so they used it...
I wouldn't have been opposed to them using Persian (or a made up language, or anything else), that's just the logic I would guess the developers used.
i quotes myself again haha....now that beeing said...vidoegames programmer at the time when they did BG1 was a grupp of collage student with not alot of money to go around and the only exotic language they known was latin... so they used it...
and yes... english is a common language around the world... but the use of latin as i said earlier if used in a game as spell language should be used as Divine (priest) spells but not arcane...
only reason i wrote this was illuminate people about the word of magi and why new modern globalized games (not old games as BG.. the past is in the past) should use someting else than latin as arcane spells...
They took the effort to let them cast spells in Latin and that is pretty cool.
The older version of english and german are pratically lost in history, being changed by the passing of time into a way that totally differ from their original spells.
We could use middle east languages but... i don't think USA people would like that
By the way i always thought the game should be wrote with the old english in the same way Vampire: Redemption was made:
"Thou dares to face me? Art thou so daring to face death weakling, do not mock my power or thee shall face the consequences"