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Old 01-27-2013, 08:48 AM   #1
Johan Larson
 
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Default originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

Let's suppose that any human language can be used to work magic in Icelander's Shadow Court world. Ancient languages are commonly used to do so because magic was more powerful in the distant past and waned away until very recent times. Records of magic use and particular spells are therefore generally very old and written in ancient languages.

Let us also suppose that translation, though strictly speaking feasible, is hard. It's more like translating poetry than prose, except even harder. Translating a spell into a new language may preserve some of the themes of the original, but it really requires a near-total rewrite, because effective phrases in one language are not generally potent in others.

Because of this, the mages of the Shadow Court have focused on unearthing nearly-forgotten records of ancient magic use. The problem with this approach is that the spells found can only be used by those who are fluent in the original languages -- just saying the words isn't enough -- and that's a very small group indeed. Also, just finding the old knowledge is very hard, and making sense of it takes a long time.

More recently, some mages have begun arguing for a different approach, based on using modern languages. Current English works just fine for magic, they say, it's just that we haven't figured out how to do it well yet. But through a combination of careful translation, original research and experimentation, it should be possible to find out. And the payoff will be dramatically more accessible magic-use, which can be effectively taught to security personnel without requiring them to spend years becoming fluent in ancient languages first.

The proponents of these two positions are called Originalists and Modernists. Currently, the Originalists have more to offer since they can draw on existing knowledge of the arcane. But the Modernists have not given up and their effectiveness grows year by year. The day may not be far away when all operatives are taught some basic spells, in their own language.

Last edited by Johan Larson; 01-27-2013 at 10:20 AM. Reason: typos
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Old 01-27-2013, 08:12 PM   #2
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Default Re: originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

Apart from the Shadow Court, there are many people in the world who have discovered the existence of the paranormal. Some of them have formed groups, of varying levels of authoritarianism and secrecy, while others are researching privately.

People who discover the paranormal within the context of a religious tradition where there is a belief in active supernatural forces and rituals designed to affect it will usually be strengthened in their faith and not necessarily look for or accept the supernatural outside of that. They therefore tend toward a very traditional outlook.

In a similar manner, people who take up secular magical traditions that have been preserved well enough to still work will often hesitate to deviate from it.

Some scholars among the Shadow Court believe that formal magical traditions merely represent accumulated superstitions and shibboleths attached to the use of magic by generations of unscientific thinkers. They constantly work on identifying the effacious within old rituals and paring away the supersitions. The end goal is developing a science of the paranormal.

The problem they have is that various unscientific theories appear to have validity. Magic rarely produces consistent results and some of the most obvious superstitious nonsense actually seems to have some basis behind it.

It is possible to use living languages for magic, but the results are not encouraging. Some theorists are experimenting with using archaic or specialised vocabulary and others are constructing their own language. A few romantic scholars want to develop new rituals in Tolkien's Sindarin while others prefer an entirely new language.
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Old 01-28-2013, 02:16 PM   #3
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Default Re: originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

Ad-Libbing:

Of course, some of these Modernists speak of "She who walks between words" some times called "The Lady Syncopate". When the phrases of the spell are miss-translated, and the rhythm of the words is mis-directed, she comes.

Originalists tut smugly, pointing to her and her bliss-and-madness touch as the reason to maintain the ancient languages for magic. However, some less-educated scholars can mis-pronounce even the clearly worded phrases. And to them, she comes.

Those who have studied this creature feel she punishes faulty scholarship. Other's feel she exist to protect the unready and unwary from Things-Man-Was-Not-Meant-To-Know. Few escape the agonizing bliss of her touch unscathed. Most are found dead, face contorted in pleasure. The Shadow Court keeps survivors in Bedlam, recording their polyglossalian babble for research.
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Old 01-28-2013, 02:21 PM   #4
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Default Re: originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

There are a couple of other possibilities:

* An attempt could be made to figure out how to cast spells, not in a modern language, but in a constructed language with systematically logical rules, such as Lojban.

* An attempt could be made to figure out the underlying grammar of spells in whatever ancient languages had them, and make up a constructed language whose grammar consistently embodied that same pattern, and which was thus very explicitly designed to maximize magical potency.

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Old 01-28-2013, 03:49 PM   #5
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Default Re: originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

I just can't help but to see Klingon modernists. And I can't quite decide if that's sad or awesome.
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Old 01-28-2013, 04:43 PM   #6
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Default Re: originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

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Originally Posted by Edman View Post
I just can't help but to see Klingon modernists. And I can't quite decide if that's sad or awesome.
I shan't tell the story of Klingon Wicca - my local exorcist has forbidden it, and last time, Andrew Hackard's head exploded.
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Old 01-28-2013, 06:44 PM   #7
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Default Re: originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
There are a couple of other possibilities:

* An attempt could be made to figure out how to cast spells, not in a modern language, but in a constructed language with systematically logical rules, such as Lojban.

* An attempt could be made to figure out the underlying grammar of spells in whatever ancient languages had them, and make up a constructed language whose grammar consistently embodied that same pattern, and which was thus very explicitly designed to maximize magical potency.

Bill Stoddard
Both, in fact, are areas of scholarship with some promise in the setting.

One aspect of how magic and languages interact still causes fierce scholastic disputes, among the Shadow Court and among other groups in the setting. This is that while the rules of magic and the supernatural in a given area appear to correlate amazingly well to the belief system of the locals, using any widely known language for magic is extremely difficult. Furthermore, widely printed and circulated rituals and spells rarely, if ever, work as well as those who are known only to a small group of people.

At first glance, that appears to contradict the widely held view within the community of researchers of the paranormal, namely that belief shapes reality to some degree and that a given work of magic is difficult mainly in proportion to how much it goes against the worldview of caster, target and witnesses. How to reconcile that view of the paranormal with the fact that widely known spells and rituals don't work is, to say the least, somewhat problematic.

One school of thought holds that while belief provides pathways down which the paranormal can travel and shapes for it to take, humans who act to change belief into reality also depletes magical energies in some way. Each spellcaster who knows a certain ritual is thus working with the same store of energy as every other spellcaster with knowledge of the same ritual, whereas one that is known only to the originator is accessing pathways no one else can. According to this school, the most powerful magical workings thus result from inventing new ways to channel the paranormal within a popular and established system of belief.

A variation of this is that as humans make daily use of a living language, in speech and thought, they unconsciously frame their wishes in that language, voice their desires and make talismans against their fears. Thus, the reason widely used languages make poor vehicles for channeling the paranormal is that they are being used for millions of minor acts of magic without people realising it.

Another way to think about this theory is that as a language is used daily by many people, every word and phrase has so many shifting definitions and contradictory meanings invested in it that the overwhelming effect is one of static. Because everyone has their own impression of the building blocks of the language, no one metaphysical meaning can long endure and the ritual is outdated, not to mention drowned in the noise, as soon as it is written.

Others believe that it is not the number of people who use a language or know the words and gestures of a ritual that matter. It is the number of skeptics. Everyone person who knows and uses the words without expecting them to produce any effect is someone whose will must be overcome to effect a given spell.

The influence of spirits on this is also often debated. Spirits may or may not all be residues of living humans (or other mortals), but it is certain that the more intelligent of them also use languages and those languages are usually human ones. A much higher proportion of spirits communicates in languages scholars have determined as being of magical significance than could be expected if their languages were determined by who they were in life.

It is not known whether this is because certain languages have a innate characteristics which make them more suitable for paranormal use and that speakers of these langauges were therefore somehow more likely to end up as spirits or whether the mere fact that many spirits prefer Latin, for example, contributes to the effectiveness of Latin as a ritual language.

There are theories that mortal belief provides pathways for the paranormal, but that the will and energy of the spirits power it. That would mean that any language not widely used in the spirit world is never going to be very effective for magic use.

The case of the Enochian language provides an interesting example. While it undoubtedly works very well for rituals and is favoured by many of the most proficient magicians within the Shadow Court, the evidence also points strongly to it having been an invented language, made up from half-remembered Romance languages by a common conman. How it can both be a Secret Language of Magic and a fraud generates some very interesting debate.

Those who make the best use of Enochian are scholars of the Elizabethan era and linguists, much like applies with every magical language. Knowing the milieu in which it was used appears to be crucial for being able to successfully experiment in order to reproduce the ritual in the correct way. On the other hand, Enochian was, when the Shadow Court started to study it, rather limited in applications, with mostly divination and spirit rituals existing for it. Diligent research has revealed more rituals and some new ones have been written, but it's still much less versatile than many other traditions.

Latin also has a very strong following within the Shadow Court, seeing as nearly all rituals used in the Western world exist in functioning form in Latin. It doesn't grant the raw power that some rarer languages do, but instruction in it is certainly more common. Some classicists use the Latin of Cicero and Caesar, but Vulgate Latin actually has much more of a magical tradition.

The primary investigations of ConLang within the Shadow Court has been into the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The combination of widespread cultural appeal with the fairly low rate of day-to-day use is projected to yield extremely benefician returns. Being an expert in Sindarin culture, however, is far from easy.

As for other power groups in the setting, the Vatican is fond of Greek and Latin both, obviously. Groups in the Middle East have found that Classical Arabic is suprisingly useful and versatile for magic use, but the most powerful magicians are relying on even older tongues, down to the ancient and mystical languages spoken by spirits that claim to have witnessed the birth of civilisation.
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Old 01-29-2013, 01:52 AM   #8
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Default Re: originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
Groups in the Middle East have found that Classical Arabic is suprisingly useful and versatile for magic use.
That's really quite surprising, given the way that widely used languages lack magical heft. The Koran is written in Classical Arabic, and is mostly studied in that form. The language isn't all that different from Modern Standard Arabic, and most Muslims pray in Classical Arabic, irrespective of the vernacular language they use.
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Old 01-29-2013, 02:39 AM   #9
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Default Re: originalists and modernists in the Shadow Court

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
That's really quite surprising, given the way that widely used languages lack magical heft. The Koran is written in Classical Arabic, and is mostly studied in that form. The language isn't all that different from Modern Standard Arabic, and most Muslims pray in Classical Arabic, irrespective of the vernacular language they use.
Indeed. It's one of the primary departures from the usual correlation between the popularity of a language and its effectiveness for paranormal purposes.

Theories abound as for why, of course.

One very unpleasant consequence of it is that some of the most accomplished rogue magicians come from Muslim nations.*

A less unpleasant consequence is that the Gulf monarchs mostly friendly to the UK tend to be surprisingly willing to accept the existence of the supernatural and to have considerable resources related to it. The Saudis, as well.

*Few of them, however, would be regarded as good Muslims by mainstream society.
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