The Language of Magic

From what I learned in my humanities class, magic usually involves invoking a God, Demon or whatever to do a task for you and they do it for a price. Whether it be Negima, Harry Potter, buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gargoyles, Angel, Sorceror Supreme or anyhting that deals with magic, it involves some sort of incantation that allow the user to do stuff. In thing always bothers me, just what is with Hermetic Magic and Latin anyway? I am not to familiar with language (at least I need to do more research on it} but most magics use Latin, Greek, Hebrew or some other ancient language to use a spell. It is not limited to western magic as I had seen some eastern shows where a sage, witch or wizard use some language to utilize a sealing spell.

In a sense even the Christian prayer can be soome form of magic as you are basically asking God to something for you and all you have to do is have faith while waithing for His answer. I always wondered, why do you need to elaborate on what spell you are invoking as opposed to just "Thunder Blast" or "Starlight Breaker"? What is it with Language and Magic?

That completely ignores Wild Magic and Background Magic Field.

The reasons most magics have some kind of restrictions on them is to prevent them from becoming a Story-Breaker Power.

Fight smart, not fair.

Bluntly demanding a thunder blast is not a good method of requesting assistance. If you're persuading supernatural beings to lend you some of their power, you'll have to be meticulously polite and use effort to show how much you really want that spell.

Anime geemu wo shinasai!

printf("Because \\'\\'real\\'\\' magic is defined very specifically.");

However, as to why magic usually uses Latin or Ancient Greek or whatever, that's Rule of Cool.

edited 13th Mar '11 12:31:05 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Because charlatanry works best when it sounds impressive.

In the case of prayer, it's because the idea is you are making a request rather than bargaining. It's like the difference between asking a friend to help move the couch or hiring someone to do it.

Well, Greek and Latin were also the languages of learning in the middle ages - and we're drawing most of our stereotypes about witchcraft and whatnot from therer, right? Some famous real world tomes of magic, like Corpus Hermeticum (where we get the whole hermetic magic thing from) featured a compilation of various texts in Greek and was later made famous by a Latin translation.
Furthermore, obscure languages indicate the effort that goes into the magic - you have to be educated (in possible forbidden knowledge) to do it. Other classic languages like Hebrew, Armenian (all linked in some way to the Bible), Coptic (=Egyptian), Babylonian or Sanskrit may fill in the void at any time. Stemming back to Ancient civilisations and/or links to a holy book are prefered.
Also, while not shown very often in media, magic at it's core doesn't need language. If we simplify the concept, you could say that magic is a way of changing the real world by crossing into a real beyond reality or a sort of Netherworld, actively changing things there (which is linked to the real world and affects it as well) and crossing back. But alot of this rituals used for that is linked with words which have alot of power in the western cultural sphere (best illustrated by the way God creates things in the Bible).
Which is why religion is not magic because they're asking a deity/force/whatever label you put there to do the things (which is no guarantee!) instead of doing it actively themselves.
summary of some religios lessons from back in school Take it with a grain of salt, please.

edited 13th Mar '11 3:34:38 PM by myrdschaem

This has always bothered my as well. Especially in stories like Harry Potter, where no one ever even seems to so much as wonder about what the heck magic is.

Let's consider these from Harry Potter:

• Wizards have a seemingly endless amount of power. Casting spells does not visibly tire them out.
• Incantations work not by having an implied effect that the spell-caster knows ahead of time, but rather they are static- if a person reads the incantation on a scarped piece of paper, it will do exactly what the original user intended it to do. The incantations are unchanging.
• The spells do more than just mechanical things - they carry out complex tasks, often metaphysical in nature. Such as charms which invoke happiness or metamorphosis. How can the caster know precisely the make up of a dog, before turning something into one? Unless that information comes from another source.

These alone would seem to imply some form of entity with extraordinary power and unimaginable reservoirs of intelligence.

Yet the characters never notice these questions. I've often considered writing a fan-fiction where a muggle scientist discovers magic and tries to determine where it comes from - only to find some sort of Cosmic Horror.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

What the OP discusses is pretty much why some Christians don't like the Harry Potter series. The characters aren't getting their magic powers through prayer and so that raises questions where the powers are coming from, which inevitably leads to speculation that they are Satanic.

As a contrast, the characters in The Chronicles Of Narnia only get magic from Aslan, so no problem there.

Hodor

I suspect that Rowling could have averted a ton of the problems she has had with the religious community if she had been so wise as to have magic explained as being genuinely mechanical - such as coming from a complex machine built by lost technology centuries ago, or some form of pseudoscience based in quantum physics.

This would have added a fun angle to the story anyhow, as I can hardly imagine that none of the magic folk would ever research science and combine it with magic.

Although, the ministry of magic outlawed that. Maybe they were hiding something...

It would have made for an awesome plot point.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

It's a kid's book. Who explains magic like that in a kid's book? You may as well say that gods are just aliens. It's fine for sci-fi, not for kid's fantasy.

Anyway, myrdschaem is right, grimoires weren't written in vernacular languages much.

edited 13th Mar '11 7:43:34 PM by Tzetze

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I also don't think Rowling had an obligation to make her fiction compatible with their fiction...

I've always like the idea of magic as a programming language. Does anyone happen to know of a work or works that use that idea?

^^^^^ Actually, there is evidence of magical experimentation in the Harry Potter series. It's probably most obvious in HBP though, where it actually shows Snape making up new spells through trial and error (and presumably some magical intuition).

IIRC, Fred, George, and Hermoine made up some spells too.

edited 13th Mar '11 7:55:49 PM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

I think this is reasonably common anytime someone who has a sciency background writes fantasy fiction. There's The Laundry series by Charles Stross.

Also, The Incompleat Enchanter is an older series that has some kind of mathematical magic I think(?)

Personally, I think Harry Potter magic is actually like that of Earthsea- magic exists in nature and you can use it by giving name to spells. Either that or it's powered by the souls of people in an alternate universe.

edited 13th Mar '11 7:55:16 PM by Jordan

Hodor

I heard that she is actually a Christian herself, so...

I don't think it was worth the trouble. And it still would have made for an awesome plot point.

Experimentation within magical concepts, yes, but never all out science.

Dangit, I had an idea just like that.

STUPID ORIGINALITY! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!

edited 13th Mar '11 7:56:55 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

^ Law of Conservation of Detail. She's writing a fiction series, not a textbook.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

She doesn't have to be advanced, just mention it, even in passing or as a small plot point or world building detail. A lot of people would have really appreciated that, including myself.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

I'm trying to tell, is that because otherwise, you'd think her work was anti-Christian?

Hodor

I don't think it's so much that the work appeared anti-Christian so much as it didn't specify that it wasn't.

Their magic really could come from a Lovecraftian horror, as it was never specified.

The most important thing about any work, is not what it says, but what it implies. In-universe, magic looks very clearly to becoming from some intelligent and powerful source - that alone is difficult to reconcile with Christianity.

I liked the work myself, and wondered about the details. I would have liked an answer though, as I find it to be one of the more interesting concepts. It's one of the most obvious and imponderable mysteries in the books.

edited 13th Mar '11 8:04:09 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Isn't magic a bit more complicated in HP verse? I mean, you don't only have words but also wand movement and the wand itself, right? And most of the spells have to be practiced before you can work them correctly. Wouldn't that imply a more mechanical nature for the universe - you have to fulfill a certain number of conditions to make it work?

what? I never thought anything like that. It's just how the universe runs.

Oh hey we're off-topic.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

By "mechanical", I mean things like moving objects, changing temperature, and so on. Things which would be more believable. However, when you get to things like spells that do strange and complex tasks, it all seems a bit off the wall.

It seemed apparent to me from the start. Given that magic could do some really weird things, it always appeared as though some outside force enabled complex tasks to be carried out - such as a computer downloading a program to perform some function.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

If all it takes for you to assume intelligent force is «really weird things», then I don't think quantum bullshit would have made you think otherwise.

There's quite enough quantum bullshit in fiction as it is, anyway.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I really don't care, plot wise it would be an improvement to have at least a passing mention. The fact that they are waving magic around that can only be explained by something other than "magic" bugs the daylights out of me.

As for really weird things implying intelligent force, it's more the complex things, the demonstrations of limitless power, and the horrific violations of thermodynamics.

edited 13th Mar '11 8:26:51 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Naw. It's magic. Explanation over.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

There's no such thing as magic!

Even if it is real!

No, really. We don't call computers magic - we understand what they are.

edited 13th Mar '11 8:39:11 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD