History Main / LanguageOfMagic

*** Not just theoretically possible: The Magus managed it in "Avalon," although [[CastFromHitPoints it severely exhausted him.]]

** However, probably due to the ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' and ''HarryPotter'' examples above, quite a few fans have mistaken it for Latin and written their fanfiction accordingly. Despite the fact that the two languages don't sound at all similar.

* ''{{Merlin}}'' seems to use Old English for this purpose. This is weird, given that Old English would have been the language of the Saxon invaders that King Arthur fought against. Chalk it up to TranslationConvention.

* In ''MahouSenseiNegima'', every spell is activated by a [[ByThePowerOfGreyskull magic release key]]. Most [[HermeticMagic western spells]] are spoken in Latin, though some of the higher level ones are done in Ancient Greek. Specifically, the main body of your spell must be an actual phrase in Latin (or Ancient Greek), but the aforementioned "key" can be any random string of sounds that tickles your fancy.

* [[TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]] doesn't really ''need'' to use the fruits of his Latin correspondence course for his incantations,since his magic works via focus of intent. In fact In the Dresden universe, it isn't a specific language that's important, but what the words mean to the wizard saying them. magic words are in a language foreign to the user to insulate their mind from the power. The spell languages are in a language that means something to hte user but is still unknown enough to insulate the wizard from his or her own power.

* In PatriciaCWrede's ''Magician's Ward'', it's ''insanely'' dangerous to try casting a spell in your native tongue, for reasons partly related to the Harry Dresden example above.

* In PoulAnderson's ''Operation Chaos'', magic works much more effectively if the caster uses an esoteric language -- esoteric to ''his/her culture'', that is (the hero at one point creates a minor but effective spell in PigLatin). So student mages come to the U.S. from Africa or Asia to learn spells in American street slang.
** Simple law of similarity, obviously. You can not expect to get extraordinary results from ordinary language.

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* In RobertEHoward's ConanTheBarbarian story "The Phoenix on the Sword", Thoth-amon uses this.
-->''he whispered dark names and grisly incantations forgotten the world over save in the grim hinterlands of dark Stygia, where monstrous shapes move in the dusk of the tombs.''

-> ''I had a professor in college who read Anglo-Saxon like he'd grown up with it. This was the language of "Beowulf", a rolling, singsong way of speaking, full of portent. Like thunder, rumbling for miles over a windswept plain. After the passage of time, this professor explained, ancient languages become the language of magic, the meanings forgotten but the power of them remembered. The Catholic Church [[OminousLatinChanting could chant Latin]], and it didn't matter that no one knew what the words meant a thousand years later. He'd been speaking metaphorically. But he was right.''
-->-- ''[[KittyNorville Kitty Goes to War]]''

BlackMagic is often paired with BlackSpeech, WhiteMagic is often in [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Angel song]]. In works set on Earth, the language may be a real-but-now-dead one, such as [[AltumVidetur Latin]].

** Subverted in that [[OurElvesAreBetter the elves]] use this language for normal conversation.

* An unusual example in TrintonChronicles is that there are true dragons [[FurryFandom who look like everyone else]]speak two different languages, one for magic and one for everyday speech. The magic one is OlderThanDirt for them, so ancient in fact that even they don't fully know what it means. Most magic users (who we presume were taught by dragons in the past) utilize this language to cast spells and call to the universe to change reality in some way.

* The odd example is where the true dragons speak two different languages, one for magic and one for everyday speech in TrintonChronicles. The magic one is OlderThanDirt for them, so ancient in fact that even they don't fully know what it means. Most magic users (who we presume were taught by dragons in the past) utilize this language to cast spells and call to the universe to change reality in some way.

* The GoldenAge hero Zatara cast spells by speaking backwards. His daughter Zatanna casts spells the same way.

** Subverted in that elves use this language for normal conversation.

* [[TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]] doesn't really ''need'' to use the fruits of his Latin correspondence course for his incantations, but since his magic works via focus of intent, and he is trained enough to evoke at will, using English would make him accidentally set his apartment alight whenever he thought of the word "fire"; thus making using (pseudo-)Latin terms the wisest course.
** It isn't a specific language that's important, but what the words mean to the wizard saying them. Each wizard uses their own individual language of magic, as seen with another character who uses Ancient Egyptian for her spells.
*** It is worth noting that White Council (basically the better wizards in the Dresdenverse) meetings take place entirely in Latin, but that's probably just so nobody has to take a bunch of time translating everything to different languages for everyone's benefit.
** There's no risk of a wizard setting fire to things accidentally. In the second book, we get an explanation of the magical language thing: magic words are in a language foreign to the user to insulate their mind from the power. They can mean something, and they can be uttered without making anything happen, but if a wizard uses magic with words from a language they speak fluently, or no language at all, their brains get fried. Note that Harry's Latin is atrocious, which makes things difficult because it's still the lingua franca of the wizard community. If he ever takes a crash course in Latin, presumably he'd have to start using a different, more obscure language for magic words.

** Justified, seeing as to her, the universe is one big computer program that can be altered with a little coding.