Line #7 Main/ClassicalTongue


1	A language that isn't typically known or used by the common man. It may be dead and mostly forgotten, or only spoken by educated elites such as nobility, scholars, [[SacredLanguage clergy]], or [[LanguageOfMagic mages]]. A few words from it might be used to [[PretentiousLatinMotto denote something special]], or it is used for something or someone's [[YouAreTheTranslatedForeignWord name]], or someone who knows it [[GratuitousForeignLanguage might drop a phrase here and there in an attempt to sound clever]], but don't expect the common masses to use it (anymore). It's often an {{Expy}} [[CanisLatinicus of Latin]], if it isn't [[GratuitousLatin Latin itself]].
2
3	The language may also be some kind of holy language spoken by those in a religious order, which makes the comparison to Latin all the more obvious. In these instances, see SacredLanguage. If forgotten, can become a LostLanguage. In some cases, a classical language came either from or to a NobleTongue.
4
5	A LanguageOfTruth or LanguageOfMagic often doubles as one.
6
7	Compare SmartPeopleKnowLatin. Contrast CommonTongue. See also PrimordialTongue, for a proto-language from which all the other tongues of the world descend.
8
9	See also: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_language classical language]] on Website/TheOtherWiki.
10	----
11	!!Examples:
12	[[foldercontrol]]
13
14	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
15	* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'': Ancient Belkan (which is [[GratuitousGerman suspiciously similar to modern German]]) is spoken only by a few old-fashioned Knights and their Devices.
16	* ''Literature/ScrappedPrincess'': It turns out that the old language is ''English''. For example, the name of their continent, "Dustvin", is a corruption of "Dustbin".
17	[[/folder]]
18
19	[[folder:Fan Works]]
20	* ''Fanfic/RWBYScars'',:[[LittleBitBeastly Faunus]] have a language separate from the CommonTongue everyone uses known as "Ishvi". They only use it amongst other Faunus because for years they've been [[FantasticRacism persecuted by humans]] for speaking it.
21	* ''Fanfic/LetUsBeYourPoison'': Many Faunus don't speak the CommonTongue of New Kingspeak. They only speak their own tongue, Zhoviyak.
22	* ''Fanfic/FromBehindBars'': "Lion-latin" is this to lions. It's actually Swahili.
23	* ''Fanfic/FlamesShade -- Revisited'': Faunus have a basic primal "language" consisting of animal-like noises. This language is something they know from birth. Some noises are known species-wide but some are only understandable to their own kind of faunus (such as cat faunus growls or rabbit faunus clicking).
24	* ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'': The Genasi see primordial [[PrimordialTongue as the world's proto-language]] and a source of national pride. Haara can also speak it, due to growing up in their empire as a slave.
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
28	* ''WesternAnimation/BionicleMaskOfLight'': The writing on Great Kanohi is considered ancient enough that only Turaga can read it, compared to other signs that Takua can read just fine.
29	[[/folder]]
30
31	%%[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]
32	%%* ''Film/TheFifthElement'': The Divine Language spoken by esoteric priests and living {{MacGuffin}}s.%%Is an example how?
33	%%[[/folder]]
34
35	[[folder:Literature]]
36	* ''Literature/AlexBenedict'': The series takes place 9,600 years in the future, more than enough time for civilizations to rise and fall and give our future antiquities dealers something to pick through. Many languages have come and gone in that time. Notably, modern English vanished in the third millennium, and modern French only lasted a millenium more before both languages became only known by their written form -- no one has recordings to know how they sounded.
37	* ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz'': English and Latin have this status for the Church. One aspiring monk remarks on the strangeness of English grammar.
38	* ''Literature/ChroniclesOfTheKencyrath'': Kens is the Kencyr language. High Kens is a super formal and archaic form of the langugage. The scholarly Jaran's battle cry is in High Kens, in the vein of SmartPeopleKnowLatin.
39	* ''Literature/TheDarkTower'': "High Speech", which is the language of Gilead, the city of Gunslingers, and is considered a "civilized" language compared to the Low Speech of everyday communication. It's an "old" language in the sense that, by the time of the first novel (''Literature/TheGunslinger''), Roland is the last of the Gunslingers and thus one of the few people left in the world who actually can speak it.
40	* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Latatian, the language of the ancient Ankh-Morporkian Empire. It's used by wizards, lawyers, and doctors, all of whom reckon that their professions are greatly enhanced if ordinary folk don't understand a word they're saying. In the same way as modern Morporkian ''just happens'' to be identical to 20th century English, Latatian bears a remarkable resemblance to CanisLatinicus. There is also [[UsefulNotes/{{Greece}} Classical Ephebian]].
41	* ''Literature/TheElenium'': During the Archprelate's funeral, there's a reference to the prayers and chants being in an archaic form of the Elene language that hardly anyone present understands.
42	* ''Literature/GentlemanBastard'' has Throne Therin, the courtly language of the defunct Therin Empire. Amusingly, WordOfGod [[http://www.scottlynch.us/faq.html states]] that the Therin nobility {{invoked\|Trope}} this, [[ConLang creating]] a "tarted-up" version of common Therin to set them apart from the common folk and flaunt their erudition.
43	* ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'': The Ancient Language, an ancient tongue once used by the Grey Men, the first recorded civilization. As an added bonus, it's a LanguageOfMagic and LanguageOfTruth due to a ritual used by the Grey Men to bind the formerly wild and uncontrolled forces of magic to it, which probably explains why it's no longer in common use.
44	* ''Literature/LordPeterWimsey'': At the end of ''Gaudy Night'', Wimsey makes his last marriage proposal to Harriet Vane in Latin and she accepts in the same language ("Placet," meaning "it pleases"). They're both highly educated graduates of Oxford University, where the novel is set. The event is special, in that Wimsey unsuccessfully proposed marriage to Harriet (in the vernacular) '''repeatedly''' over the course of several years and several novels.
45	* ''Literature/MissPeregrinesHomeForPeculiarChildren'': Old Peculiar. Some peculiar-specific vocabulary comes from Old Peculiar, like ''syndrigasti'' and ''ymbryne'', and there's one song in it. But even Millard -- who prides himself as a scholar of all things peculiar -- only knows a little, and there's definitely no one having conversations in Old Peculiar.
46	* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' has High Valyrian, the language of the lost Valyrian Freehold. [[NobleTongue In Westeros it's taught to the highborn as a sign of noble education]], particularly in the Valyria-descended Targaryen dynasty. In the East, it's been absorbed into local "bastard Valyrian" dialects in the Free Cities and blended with Old Ghiscari in the languages of Slaver's Bay. Some notable words or phrases include ''valar morghulis'' ("all men must die", an Essosi greeting that is traditionally replied by ''valar dohaeris'', "all men must serve"), ''valonqar'' ("little brother", part of a prophecy that haunts Cersei Lannister since childhood), and ''dracarys'' ("dragonfire", used by Daenerys to command her dragons to breathe fire).
47	%%* ''Literature/TheSwordOfTruth'': The High D'Haran.
48	* ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': Creator/JRRTolkien, a linguist by trade, devised several for his works:
49	** Westron, the [[CommonTongue Common Speech]] of western Middle-earth during the time of ''Literature/TheHobbit'' and ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', is derived from Adûnaic, the language of the Númenóreans who had already ruled much of Middle-earth before even before they lost their island homeland to catastrophe and were forced to reestablish themselves on Middle-earth as the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor.
50	** Quenya serves in the same capacity for the Elves, being the language spoken by the Elves who (at least momentarily) lived with the [[PhysicalGod Valar]] in the Undying Lands. The Elves of the Third Age mostly use it for poetry and formal literature, and speak a distinct tongue among themselves.
51	** Khuzdul (Dwarvish) is a static, ceremonial language, and Dwarves rarely speak their own tongue to outsiders outside of their BattleCry (and presumably the hearers are expected to soon be dead). When talking to outsiders and sometimes even among themselves, they use Common Speech. If an outsider knows Khuzdul, that is a sure sign that they are considered to be a very honored friend and possibly that they have [[GoingNative Gone Native]].
52	* ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove'': In the setting, which takes place in the 43rd century, more or less, English is a dead language, which [[TheOlderImmortal Lazarus Long]] insists on speaking when dealing with the Howards.
53	* ''Literature/WaxAndWayne'': High Imperial is the language once spoken by [[spoiler:Spook]] the Lord Mistborn, founder of the new civilization, and is now only used in old historical documents and occasional government ceremonies. To readers, it's Spook's bizarre street slang from [[Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy the Original Trilogy]].
54	* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': The Old Tongue, precursor to the CommonTongue used in the books. It was similarly the universal language in its own time, and is now used mainly by nobles to show off their status, much as Latin was in the real medieval age.
55	[[/folder]]
56
57	[[folder:Live Action TV]]
58	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Old High Gallifreyan is the ancient language of the Time Lords, since become so obscure that the Doctor writes a diary in the language to ensure it can't be read by others.
59	* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' has Old Luxan, which D'Argo needs specialized TranslatorMicrobes (as opposed to the regular ones everyone has) to understand, and which Jool disparages him for not knowing. There's also an ancient Hynerian language, which Rygel ''does'' know as he's their deposed emperor.
60	* ''Series/{{Ghoul}}'': The ghoul starts mumbling a MadnessMantra in Aramaic at one point.
61	-->''Finish the Task, Reveal Their Guilt, Eat Their Flesh...''
62	* ''Series/{{Grimm}}'': {{Downplayed}} when Nick needs a text translated that is written in a medieval dialect of German. Monroe explains that the dialect has not been used in a long time but he can still translate it because it is close enough to modern German. Played straighter with the cloth covering the Templar treasure, which has writing in Aramaic and Latin. Rosalee can translate some of the Latin, but says it's archaic Latin, not Classical Latin (which, ironically given the trope name, would be easier to translate).
63	* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': Elendil befriends Galadriel in Numenor by talking in Quenya with her, assuring her that the Elves still have friends in Numenor, especially on the Western shores where the Faithful resides. Quenya is mostly used only by some parts of the Numenorian aristocracy, such as the Faithful, and most of kingdom's old documents at the Hall of Lore are written in Quenya.
64	* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': It's mentioned in one episode that French has become a dead language.
65	[[/folder]]
66
67	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
68	* ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'': Latin is the standard academic language in [[MedievalEuropeanFantasy Mythic Europe]]. Characters need to have a formal education to learn it, and most [[SkillScoresAndPerks Academic abilities]] are only taught in Latin. It's also the common language of European MagicalSociety, used in tribunal meetings and in [[LatinIsMagic magical scholarship]].
69	* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''
70	** In the default setting, Draconic is one of the most ancient languages still in use, partly thanks to its use in magical notation and partly because dragons are candidates for longest-lived non-immortal creatures.
71	** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'':
72	*** Auld Wyrmish is the language of ancient dragon civilization with which different species talk with each other, while each kind itself uses derived dialects.
73	*** Much the same applies to Giant, which is not the same as dialects that giant subspecies, e.g.: stone giants or verbeeg, use among themselves.
74	*** Thorass or "Auld Common" is an ancient written trade language from which "Common" is derived, still used for official records in some lands.
75	*** High Drow is an ancient dialect known mostly to the drow clergy, different enough that they sometimes use it for secret communication over the heads of lay worshipers.
76	* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has Old Realm, as opposed to modern High Realm and Low Realm. It's still spoken by most spirits and by scholars, enough to be used as one of the setting's three {{Common Tongue}}s.
77	* In ''TabletopGame/{{Godbound}}'', there are Ancient Akeh, Old Din and Classical Ren. These are the languages of the three Former Empire-era ethnicities of Arcem. Since the Shattering, the various nations' languages have diverged into clusters of mutually-unintelligible languages. Classical Ren is still the court language of Dulimbai (though the peasants primarily speak Modern Ren), while Ancient Akeh and Old Din are purely scholarly and religious languages.
78	* ''TabletopGame/{{Ironclaw}}'' has Magniloquentia, a dead language that was spoken in Triskellion before they conquered Calabria. Even the majority of priests don't speak it and only read the Calabrese translations of their holy scripture, though there are some advanced holy spells that have to be learned in the original Magniloquentia.
79	* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The language of the [[AdvancedAncientHumans ancient Azlanti empire]] hasn't been used in millennia, but has been incorporated into the {{common tongue}}s of Taldane and Varisian and can still be found in some ruins.
80	* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'': Among Darrians, the Old Script ''Yaser Te-yulep'' is used for poetry and legal documents and the Roman Script ''Rome Te-yelup'' is used generally.
81	%%* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': High Gothic. It's rendered as DogLatin in the books as a TranslationConvention.
82	* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' had (at least in earlier editions) the Latin expy called Classical language. Not surprising given the setting's tendency for FantasyCounterpartCulture.
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84
85	[[folder:Video Games]]
86	* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'': Aldmeris, the language of the Aldmer (Old or First Elves), {{Precursors}} to all of the modern [[OurElvesAreDifferent races of Mer (Elves)]]. It parallels Latin in that it didn't so much die out as evolve into several distinct but clearly related languages, some living and others, like [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Dwemeris]] and the Falmer language, extinct. Translating Dwemeris is a side-quest plot point in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' while translating the Falmer language is a side-quest plot point in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''. Rediscovering the language of the dragons (Dovahzul) is a main quest plot point in ''Skyrim''.
87	* ''Franchise/FireEmblem'': The Ancient Language in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' is used as a [[LanguageOfMagic spellcasting language]] in most contemporary settings and is the primary language for the Heron tribe. Most of what Princess Leanne says is in this language. In fact, it's simply [[CypherLanguage English in an invented script]]; translations can be found [[https://serenesforest.net/path-of-radiance/miscellaneous/ancient-language/ here]] and [[https://serenesforest.net/radiant-dawn/miscellaneous/ancient-language/ here]].
88	* ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'': Creator/BioWare commissioned a 2,500 word ConLang called [[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/arts/do-you-speak-tho-fan-its-all-the-rage-in-jade-empire.html Tho Fan]], also known in universe as "the Old Tongue". They ended up using it to save memory on dialogue as they could get away with using only a few sentences in what would sound like gibberish to most players, and the majority of [=NPCs=] speak "English" anyways.
89	%%* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'': Ancient Hylian.
90	* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'': Negotiating with different species requires researching their [[http://wiki.swordofthestars.com/sots1/Category:Xenotech_Technology languages]]. Most of them have three, a "CommonTongue" that allows Ceasefire agreements, a secondary language that allows the formation of alliances or non-aggresion pacts, and a third that enables tech sharing and demands for their surrender. Humanity's are English, Latin, and Hanzi.
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
94	* In the ''VisualNovel/ShinzaBanshoSeries'', whenever a character speaks and it is distorted, that means that the character in question is currently speaking in a language not of this current world but from a previous one[[note]]Compare the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psT6WryHNVo before]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmrM_HhvsBY after]]. Same character, same chant, different eras[[/note]]. As this is something not meant to exist in the current reality it creates a BlackSpeech like effect and tends to be exclusive to the Gods or those with close ties to them that populate the series.
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97	[[folder:Webcomics]]
98	* ''Webcomic/EarsForElves'': Some children argue about the proper pronunciation of "Taurë", the word for "wood elves" in the Forgotten Tongue. It's the first part of the name of the Taurëcuiva Festival.
99	* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': The dead Old Tainish language has been replaced by Tainish and [[CommonTongue Continental]] in common speech, but is still studied extensively as the LanguageOfMagic. Since it's the only language the BackgroundMagicField of the Khert understands, spell composers put a lot of work into rediscovering long-lost bits of vocabulary.
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:Western Animation]]
103	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has a RunningGag where French has become one by the year 3000.
104	[[/folder]]
105
106	[[folder:Real Life]]
107	%%* [[GratuitousLatin Latin]], of course.
108	* Ancient Greek is also a real life example (in fact as a rule of thumb, Latin is favoured by Lawyers and Greek is favoured by scientists).
109	* Sanskrit also fits the bill, and it's even used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the forms of hymns and mantras.
110	** It also has several [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_language Sacred Languages]] used by various religions. Including: Latin, Sanskrit, Koine Greek, Aramaic...
111	* Hebrew. Interestingly it has been revived as everyday speech in a deliberate social engineering project of the Zionists. Many Ashkenazi Orthodox dislike this considering Hebrew a holy language and Yiddish the common language of the Jews...a position that Sephardi, Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews, Orthodox or otherwise, find annoying.
112	** The Orthodox Sephardi also traditionally considered Hebrew a holy tongue, and their own common language was Ladino. Unfortunately, unlike Yiddish, which developed among Eastern European Jews who were forcibly segregated from the rest of the community, and therefore was not very much like German, Ladino developed among Spanish and Portuguese Jews who lived in a Muslim-dominated society, which meant they were tolerated and allowed to mingle -- which means that modern Ladino sounds almost exactly like Spanish, with hardly any Hebrew influence -- to the point where the official language regulator for Ladino in Israel is a member of the ''Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española'', the general council of [[UsefulNotes/SpanishLanguage Spanish-language]] regulators. Which is why most modern Sephardim just prefer Hebrew.
113	* Arabic is an interesting case. Classical Arabic -- the flowery language of Literature/TheQuran -- is unquestionably dead, but it's not difficult to understand for one who speaks Modern Standard Arabic, which is less flowery and more businesslike. However, nobody speaks MSA as a first language, either: they speak one of the numerous varieties of Arabic. However, none of these are traditionally written down, and high-class colloquial Arabic blends seamlessly into MSA anyhow. The result is that while Classical Arabic is a classical language for Arabs (and a holy language for Muslims, Arab or otherwise), Arabic in general is very much alive.[[note]]The same process is how we got from Latin to the various Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.), incidentally. Vulgar Latin, a simplified version of the elaborate Classical Latin and the form spoken by the masses, gradually broke up into different dialects that evolved in different directions. The difference is that the printing press and widespread literacy -- and eventually broadcast media and the Internet -- arrived in the Arab world before the split was complete. One of the peculiar discoveries of recent Arabic linguistics is that if you write most Arabic dialects in Arabic script and use etymological spellings, Arabic-speakers can mostly understand passages in each other's dialects even if they wouldn't have a clue what was going on if the passages were read out loud. As it turns out, grammatical differences between most dialects aren't big enough to affect understanding, the pronunciation differences are mostly elided by the script (variant vowels are hidden because Arabic script leaves them out and variant consonants follow consistent sound laws and are thus covered up through etymological spelling), and vocabulary differences are easy to resolve for an educated speaker (as they usually derive from synonyms or near-synonyms in Classical Arabic). This discovery became widespread with the advent of the Internet, as Arabic-speakers increasingly needed to spell out their vernacular speech for chats, text messaging, Facebook posts, tweets, and so on.[[/note]]
114	* Classical or Literary UsefulNotes/{{Chinese\|Language}} differs from modern vernacular Chinese mostly in style and vocabulary, one of the more salient features being the lack of multi-character words. It survives mostly in literature, certain formal contexts, and school exams. Classical Chinese provides a straight example in Chinese-influenced, but non-Chinese countries, such as Vietnam, Korea, or Japan. The educated elites of the bygone era in these countries could read and write classical Chinese easily. The peasants of their own time or their modern descendants, not so much.
115	* Scholars now suspect that the written standard form of Old English (the language of ''Literature/{{Beowulf}}'') had become this, or at least started to, by the Norman Conquest. Numerous misspellings and scribal errors suggest that the late Anglo-Saxons' spoken language had already come to greatly resemble what we now call Middle English even without the much-vaunted impact of Norman French. This is largely attributed to contact with the Old Norse spoken by the vikings and viking descendants of the Danelaw (which consisted of roughly the northeastern half of the country). The viking contact not only gave Old English a bunch of new words, it affected the grammar of the language: Old Norse was related to Old English but had a vastly different set of grammatical inflections, so the English and vikings quickly realized that they could make themselves understood by just dropping the inflections and relying on word order and helper words to convey grammatical information (what linguists call analytical grammar). This quickly became the spoken standard even in areas technically outside the Danelaw, most notably London. Meanwhile the written standard was based on the West Saxon dialect spoken in the court of UsefulNotes/AlfredTheGreat and which continued to be spoken in the southwest, and was therefore essentially free of any Norse influence, including the shift from an essentially inflected to an analytical structure. Thus by 1066, the written standard language was no longer much like what most English people spoke, especially outside UsefulNotes/TheWestCountry and certain western parts of UsefulNotes/TheMidlands.
116	[[/folder]]

Context Main / ClassicalTongue