Words of Magic

So, I was bored recently, and I decided to revamp the spellcasting for my LARP group. Until now, spell incantations had pretty much been a bunch of nonsense words, but I decided to change it so that mages were actually telling the magic what effect they wanted.

Each spell begins with an activation word that determines the range of the spell.

Fireball would be something like, “þú a Solas”

Solas being ‘burn, fire, conflagration’

‘A’ being ‘small’.

So, ‘One target player+’small’+’conflagration’. + strike (nask)

(I call) a small conflagration to strike that target.

Ice blast is ‘þeír a fu lannar’

Fu= shard

Lannar= freeze, ice

‘distant range’+’small’+’shard’+’freeze’

“(I call) a small shard of ice to freeze a distant target”

Admittedly, it isn’t the best language I’ve ever designed, but then it wasn’t intended for casual conversation.

On the other hand, now players who figure out how the language and which words mean what can create their own spells for use in the game!

Aramarian Old Tongue

I’ve been working on a language for a world I’m creating. I’m still not sure whether the world will be for roleplay, writing, or both. The language is sort of their equivalent (as far as importance goes) of Latin and Quenya.

I’m not going to go into the linguistic rules yet (because they’re overly detaile and I don’t have a lot of time right now), but here are a few words and phrases.

 

One who is gifted with luck (a lucky person): na’ärukhyebha’el

Luck of Heroes (essentially, a mix of ‘Good luck’ and ‘Fare thee well’): aeho ë ärukhyebha

Blade: tebha

Moon: sukyö

Child: rhäned

Hello/Goodbya: sielan (say shell-awn)

Die (the item): pelel

Dice: peleli

Wood/forest: yudar

Town: anie

An example of linguistics

Here’s an example of a language I created, the language spoken by a nonhuman species, called the Sorrians, from a sci-fi novel I’m working on. Their world is a very beautiful one, and their language reflects this. They have mostly vowels in their words, and few consonants in the language itself.

Their alphabet:

Vowels and Dipthongs: a, e, i, o, u; ā, ē, ī, ō, ū; ai, ae, ao, au; ei, eu; iu; oi, ou; ui,

Consonants: b, f, h, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, r, s, w, ‘

Vowels can be long or short. Long vowels are usually written with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū), but if no macron is available, a circumflex (â, ê, î, ô, û) can be used instead.

The letter combination kiu is pronounced [ƫiu]

The letter W is pronounced [w] or [v] after a, [v] after i or e and [w] after o or u.

At the ends of words and syllables, S is often not pronounced.

C pronounced like S before I or E, like K elsewhere.

There is no limit on the number of vowels that can be put side-by-side.

‘ denotes a full, glottal stop in the middle of a sentence, and is a syllable of its own.

Some words, phrases, etc.:

The: Sao (Ssow)

Spirits: Jalesei (Jah-less-eh)

By, of, for, about: Nes, Ne (Nes/Neigh)

By the Spirits!: Ne Jalese’ao! (Ne Jah-less-eh_ow)

Ocarina: Haie’u (High-eh_ooh)

Sing, to sing: Aeiusiña (ah-hway-ooh-see-nyah)

Sorrians (Orig. ‘those with voices’): W’siña (Wuh_Seenya)

Musings of a wandering mind.

As far as worldbuilding goes- it’s important to remember that language is an outgrowth of culture, which is affected by setting. In other words, cultures, and thus languages, evolve differently depending on geography and external influences.

Languages are coherent. It makes no sense to have the word for ‘bread’ sound like ‘Xwixhtltl’ if your word for ‘city’ sounds like ‘Enirtheu’, unless your culture has been overwhelmed by invaders with extremely different language patterns.

Things to consider.