What Language Do Wizards Use?
The idea behind the choice of language heavily depends on the languages you know actually. For example, if you were born in Germany, you would choose a language like Latin instead of German or English. If you were born in Japan, you would use a language like German or Latin instead of Japanese and English. If you were born in America it heavily depends on the languages you learn there, though Latin may be one of these. As you may notice Latin is an option for every case here. Though hypothetically if you were born in the old Rom, you would most likely not use Latin for magic.
So what's the reason?
The Idea Behind the Choice of Language
The reason for these language choices is quite simple actually. If it's a language you use every day, you should not use it. If it's a language you occasionally use for something else, it's better but there are other options. What we want here is to choose a language that has no other purpose aside from magic. The easiest here is to choose a dead language since no one uses it anymore. The next thing is, instead of making up your own language - which would definitely work - you can just use one of those ancient languages and there's a reason why. If you connect Latin with magic, it brings a certain connotation with it, this is exactly what we want. This language you choose should only be used for magic and you should also connect it to magic only.
So Why Latin?
Latin is the most known language that is also taught on the highest education paths in our society. It is used in the church as well as in religion but also in old literature and chemistry. But Latin is not the only language that is not spoken but still used. Old Greek is used as well. For example in Psychology with words like Arachnophobia. So we have two languages that are not spoken but used in science and you can still learn them. A great choice. These aren't the only languages though. There are even more languages. Here's a list of a few that are still used for magic:
- Latin (erstwhile spoken by Romans)
- Old Greek (erstwhile spoken by Greek)
- Sanskrit (erstwhile spoken by Indian)
- Hebrew (erstwhile spoken by Israelis)
Which One Should I Choose?
Well as I'm a huge fan of the path free wizards and witches take I'm going to support anyone to go the same way. So check all these languages out and choose the one you like the most. Just make sure to use it only for the purpose you want to learn it for. If you use it for something else than magic it's not gonna have the strong effect it might have had before. I personally would probably go with Latin and Old Greek, as these sound the best in my opinion.
