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.
I would have agreed with here but there is one thing... if a game is based on DnD or DnD look alike game then there is an A and a B....
Let me explain: A: in dnd Divine spellcasters gets their spells from gods and goddesses that means when they pray to their god (or goddess) they speak in Celestial or Infernal ( or simply put the supernatural language of lower and higher plane)
B: An arcane spellcasters on the other hand need to speak Draconic or elemental (auran,aquan,ignan and terran) to cast their spells. most true power names of things they want to change or cast are in those languages... (bascilly a wizard spellbook would have been writen in Draconic or elemental depending on what spell it is and wich plane or country your are in in a DnD world)
there is even a C: there is a 3rd spellcasters group and they cast psionics spell... psionics spell comes from the power of mind and the easiest way to notice a psion is that they bodys glow or change when they cast their spell in one or other way.
so once again we are back to the begening why it is illogical to use Latin as both Arcane and Divine spells it could have been one of them but not both....
about the edicational part... I wouldn't go so far as saying that no game have an edictional part... many games do....
*Latin is somewhat overrated by us in west and it *CAN be* seen as propaganda for christianity in other countries (same as Arabic would look for westerners if a divine spellcasters speaks in arabic when they cast their spell),
*we have learned that of the worlds population there are only 33.32 percent christians (of those only 17% are Catholics) so the myth buble of 95 % of world populations knows somewhat Latin is extremly wrong... it more like than less than 10,000 people in the world that can speak it fluently as a second language.
*we learned that in Orginal BG1 they didn't speak latin....
the people of USA doesn't like anything or anyone... not even themselves *sarcasm*... At least 31940 people died from gun injuries in 2011 only in usa ... so they should stop hating people from other countries and stop the violence in their own country. (people from us remember i'm beeing ironic here by saying you guys don't like anyone so please don't get misunderstanding) http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16547690-just-the-facts-gun-violence-in-america?lite
@The_Shairs_Handbook Nice that you have so much knowledge on DnD (or Google), but please keep religion, fanaticism and hate speech out of the discussion...
@The_Shairs_Handbook Nice that you have so much knowledge on DnD (or Google), but please keep religion, fanaticism and hate speech out of the discussion...
their ain't no hate in there IkMarc just facts... you misunderstand everything... if i wanted be hateful i would have wroten differently and say diffrently.. in a way i'm pointing out stuff that would be seen as religious and fanaticim end turn up as hate in a long run (not everyone is like us from west) sometimes we need to see everyone from everywere around the world in diffrient point of view... if it isn't talked about from beginning in educated normal manners then everything going to get wasted... sometimes people need take a risk of talking and arguing and not be afraid of it...
Well, @IkMarc has a point. You do have a tendency for quite unfortunate implications. If I may remind you of your list of "actors if there was a BG live action movie", and it basically being nothing but national stereotypes? The discussion about "OMG BG2 killed all non-white NPCs because they are non-white"?
That aside, you still have not explained why casters in general - from varying races, places and mythology inspirations - should speak a (one! real life) language you feel fits the concept of "caster" for some reason. That is because there is no reason why it should be that way, and having them speak whatever conveys the idea to players the best makes the most sense.
I'll drop out of this "discussion", since you seem to refuse to see the point and just want to copypaste from wikis (again).
@Dee Keep an eye on this one. I think it may be going to a bad place...
@The_Shairs_Handbook Americans are an extremely diverse bunch, just like most nationalities I would imagine.
In any case; Latin is not only a language used by religions. It is also a very scientific language. Much of the "language of science", if you will, is based on Latin; which is why many scientists take Latin classes. Not to mention that a great many modern languages, including English, Spanish, and many others, are based on Latin.
so the myth buble of 95 % of world populations knows somewhat Latin is extremly wrong... it more like than less than 10,000 people in the world that can speak it fluently as a second language.
How could I miss this? You made MY point here: only a tiny fraction of the world's population speaks latin even as a second language. But pretty much everyone will recognize something as latin, if only from a biology book or something. That's the entire reason why latin is a good choice for casters in a game.
I had already given up on finding a point in your wall of text and missed your stereotyping of "hurr hurr eeevil americanz"... 6 eyes, and I still can't believe I just read that. I vote for cleaning up this topic; it's embarrassing to leave such statements here.
This is a stern reminder to everyone to keep things civil. There's an awful lot of grand-standing and dismissal of opinions going on in this thread. Get it together, folks; I don't want to have to close what should be a light-hearted thread. ~Dee
I see Dwarves speaking a Germanic language. Hard sounding words.
Elves speak something like Gaelic. Soft, enchanting sounding language. Hence why I would like the spell incantations being spoken in Gaelic. Elves were the race that brought about spells for the most part.
Would sound silly to me because I speak German and I picture dwarves as way more norse than germanic, so in my mind their languages sound more like Icelandic. Which would, in turn, probably sound strange to native speakers. I'd prefer fantasy languages for all, or made up accents that no-one can pinpoint to a real language.
The point of the joke I was referring to has to do with several people bragging about how beautiful their native languages are. The Brit says softly the word "butterfly". The Frenchman says, no it is more beautiful as "Papillion" ......
and the German blurts out "Und was ist los mit Smetterling?" (And what's wrong with "Smetterling"?)
That's the point, it can be a hard sounding language.
But I agree with you, I've heard Gaelic spoken and sung by the families of my Irish friends, and it can be very beautiful.
Would sound silly to me because I speak German and I picture dwarves as way more norse than germanic, so in my mind their languages sound more like Icelandic. Which would, in turn, probably sound strange to native speakers. I'd prefer fantasy languages for all, or made up accents that no-one can pinpoint to a real language.
Since dwarves come from Old Norse mythology that isn't too far off. Most historic written sources about dwarves are actually in medieval Icelandic.
@FinneousPJ I am a biological science student. Most phylogenic names are either Greek or Latin. Most people do not realize how much Latin influences scientific speech and the english language in general.
I don't find my native language "beautiful", nor does it sound "hard" to me. It just sounds common and I think it's the same for any language. If you speak it and hear it every day, it's hard to connect it to something specific. In a fantasy game, I prefer something that sounds more... fantasy, so any real language I would recognize immediately is out. Latin is a bit an exception (and hence a lesser evil in games) because it doesn't summon any assocciations (i.e. with the last person I heard speak a language) beyond "old language".
Why does all this discussion about Latin reminded me of my Roman Law classes back when I was in Law School? More speciffically about the roman emperor that decreed that when in doubt the judge should always condemn the ugliest contender...
@Tresset Yes, that's what I said: loan words. However someone in this thread made it sound like scientific articles are still released in Latin like they used to.
Comments
Let me explain:
A:
in dnd Divine spellcasters gets their spells from gods and goddesses that means when they pray to their god (or goddess) they speak in Celestial or Infernal ( or simply put the supernatural language of lower and higher plane)
B:
An arcane spellcasters on the other hand need to speak Draconic or elemental (auran,aquan,ignan and terran) to cast their spells. most true power names of things they want to change or cast are in those languages...
(bascilly a wizard spellbook would have been writen in Draconic or elemental depending on what spell it is and wich plane or country your are in in a DnD world)
there is even a C:
there is a 3rd spellcasters group and they cast psionics spell...
psionics spell comes from the power of mind and the easiest way to notice a psion is that they bodys glow or change when they cast their spell in one or other way.
so once again we are back to the begening why it is illogical to use Latin as both Arcane and Divine spells
it could have been one of them but not both....
about the edicational part... I wouldn't go so far as saying that no game have an edictional part... many games do....
the edicational part of todays lesson should be:
*Magi comes from zoroastrianism
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/opeol-BF-X.html
*Latin is somewhat overrated by us in west and it *CAN be* seen as propaganda for christianity in other countries (same as Arabic would look for westerners if a divine spellcasters speaks in arabic when they cast their spell),
*we have learned that of the worlds population there are only 33.32 percent christians (of those only 17% are Catholics) so the myth buble of 95 % of world populations knows somewhat Latin is extremly wrong... it more like than less than 10,000 people in the world that can speak it fluently as a second language.
*we learned that in Orginal BG1 they didn't speak latin....
@kamuizin
the people of USA doesn't like anything or anyone... not even themselves *sarcasm*... At least 31940 people died from gun injuries in 2011 only in usa ... so they should stop hating people from other countries and stop the violence in their own country. (people from us remember i'm beeing ironic here by saying you guys don't like anyone so please don't get misunderstanding)
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16547690-just-the-facts-gun-violence-in-america?lite
Nice that you have so much knowledge on DnD (or Google), but please keep religion, fanaticism and hate speech out of the discussion...
That aside, you still have not explained why casters in general - from varying races, places and mythology inspirations - should speak a (one! real life) language you feel fits the concept of "caster" for some reason. That is because there is no reason why it should be that way, and having them speak whatever conveys the idea to players the best makes the most sense.
I'll drop out of this "discussion", since you seem to refuse to see the point and just want to copypaste from wikis (again).
@The_Shairs_Handbook Americans are an extremely diverse bunch, just like most nationalities I would imagine.
In any case; Latin is not only a language used by religions. It is also a very scientific language. Much of the "language of science", if you will, is based on Latin; which is why many scientists take Latin classes. Not to mention that a great many modern languages, including English, Spanish, and many others, are based on Latin.
I had already given up on finding a point in your wall of text and missed your stereotyping of "hurr hurr eeevil americanz"... 6 eyes, and I still can't believe I just read that. I vote for cleaning up this topic; it's embarrassing to leave such statements here.
~Dee
"Und was ist los mit Deutsch?" (And what's wrong with German?)
Elves speak something like Gaelic. Soft, enchanting sounding language. Hence why I would like the spell incantations being spoken in Gaelic. Elves were the race that brought about spells for the most part.
The point of the joke I was referring to has to do with several people bragging about how beautiful their native languages are. The Brit says softly the word "butterfly". The Frenchman says, no it is more beautiful as "Papillion" ......
and the German blurts out "Und was ist los mit Smetterling?" (And what's wrong with "Smetterling"?)
That's the point, it can be a hard sounding language.
But I agree with you, I've heard Gaelic spoken and sung by the families of my Irish friends, and it can be very beautiful.