- the type of spirit?
- its nature as a free spirit (eg. player, animus)?
- its native plane?
- its Force?
- its abilities?
- the history of its having achieved freedom?
Full Version: Spirit true names
What aspects of a spirit do you think would be intrinsic within a spirit's true name?
The type of spirit and native plane are encoded in the cadence, the Force and abilities in inflection, and its history in pitch. When written, ligature, baseline, and kerning serve the same purpose, respectively.
~J
~J
Well, back in the dawn of man, knowing the word for something allowed you to refer to it, to define it. Even today, linguist and antropologists are discovering that a people's speech affects their perception, their understanding of the world they live in. I mostly forget the article, but one pice I read explained how this remote tribe in chile did not verb their sentences in the same time as us - future was what had happened and the past was ahead of them, or something messed upo like that. It affected their whole comprehension of reality. So a spirit's name, the word for him, defines him in a very profound sense. Seeing how they are beings of quicksilver and magic, the way their name defines them is far more powerful than the way the word 'chair' defines the object.
Edit: Ah, here's the article: http://www.physorg.com/news69338070.html
Edit: Ah, here's the article: http://www.physorg.com/news69338070.html
To properly pronounce the true name, rip your tongue out of your head and sneeze.
Backgammon, thank you for that article! I just might have to add Aymara to Alleycat's near-native languages.
(Edit: and it makes me look at the subtitle of the SR3 revised thread in a whole new light.)
But re defining essence of a thing in words -- when it becomes to environmental control (of which spirit control is a variant), is this maybe more limited specifically to the magic of the written word? Consider the spirit-binding tradition of Solomon: which absolutely relies on a written binding, and which retains elements of writing magic in (for example) numerology.
Language defines a way of looking at the world -- but maybe writing comes closer to trying to control it.
(Edit: and it makes me look at the subtitle of the SR3 revised thread in a whole new light.)
But re defining essence of a thing in words -- when it becomes to environmental control (of which spirit control is a variant), is this maybe more limited specifically to the magic of the written word? Consider the spirit-binding tradition of Solomon: which absolutely relies on a written binding, and which retains elements of writing magic in (for example) numerology.
Language defines a way of looking at the world -- but maybe writing comes closer to trying to control it.
| QUOTE (Talia Invierno) |
| Language defines a way of looking at the world -- but maybe writing comes closer to trying to control it. |
That sounds like a doubleplusgood idea.
| QUOTE (Backgammon) |
| Well, back in the dawn of man, knowing the word for something allowed you to refer to it, to define it. Even today, linguist and antropologists are discovering that a people's speech affects their perception, their understanding of the world they live in. I mostly forget the article, but one pice I read explained how this remote tribe in chile did not verb their sentences in the same time as us - future was what had happened and the past was ahead of them, or something messed upo like that. It affected their whole comprehension of reality. |
Speaking as a linguist, you're completely correct.
This ends up being kind of a neat semantic debate that linguists go through a lot. Many Austronesean languages (such as Ambae) have spatial referential systems that are adapted to their historical location as an island culture - specifically, they don't talk about things as being 'North" or 'west' but rather as being "inland' and 'towards the sea.' Because some of these islands are volcanic, the further you go inland, the further you go up, so inland means up as well. Likewise, toward the sea means down. What happens when you put these people in a giant crater, and how do they talk about where they are or where they need to go?
This gets really interesting when you talk about less round area. Theres a language I can't remember off the top of my head that is spoken entirely by people living on a mountainside that faces south. When these people talk about going south, what they actually say is "downhill." Because the rain in the area comes principally from the south, it is often described as falling "uphill," as the rain itself is moving north. What happens when you put these people in the middle of the great plains, where everything is flat?
Sorry about the off-topic.
I recently moved to Cleveland, and I'm learning that all navigation is accomplished by travelling in the directions of: towards the lake, away from the lake, or along the lake. 
...yeah, we did it the same way in Milwaukee. The Great Lakes, wonderful reference points.
In Portland where I live now, the main line of demarcation is the West Hills (Royal Hill for those TT buffs which is about what it almost has become today), which splits the older part of the city from the western burbs. To a lesser degree, the Willamette River serves this function as well ("...on the other side of the river")
In Portland where I live now, the main line of demarcation is the West Hills (Royal Hill for those TT buffs which is about what it almost has become today), which splits the older part of the city from the western burbs. To a lesser degree, the Willamette River serves this function as well ("...on the other side of the river")
Here's an interesting, uhm, 'article' on spirit names: http://www.sacred-texts.com/grim/magus/ma223.htm
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