I kinda thought of it as, "My native tongue is as ancient as the seas, as foundational as the mountains, as incomprehensible to you as the stars are to ants. Anyway, 2000 years ago I had to hire a guy to translate that into one of your languages just so you people could sign a fucking contract. It was a huge mess, guy took twice as long as he quoted me, legal department rejected it three times before it got approved, the whole thing went way over budget. Long story short, I'm not updating the paperwork. You can Google it if you want the fine print."
Well, for the Western world, classical Latin has a kind of mystique or vibe that other languages don't. People fear the grammar and classical pronunciation is just different enough (all c's are pronounced as "k") to make it sound familiar and foreign.
Both are much worse. I can forgive the French. They merely lost the birth lottery. It isn't thier fault they were born French. To learn it? Intentionally?
I enjoy the language despite butchering it every time, and I especially enjoy the French countryside. Pretty damn forgiving of a terrible accent, and with a smile.
One of my professors could read Akkadian. He had to master Biblical Hebrew before being allowed to begin studying Akkadian. He said he had hundreds of flashcards and spent at least an hour every day studying them - aside from doing his regular coursework.
I took 25 credit hours each of Biblical Hebrew and Latin, and I am quite content never having attempted Akkadian.
It was, more in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods in Palestina and Judaea. It takes almost all of its vocabulary from Hebrew. Even at its height, it was basically just a regional language and never had the reach and depth that Greek and Latin had.
It's important if you're studying intertestamental or early Christian texts, but, even then, many were translated to Greek
We also have latin rhymes and even pronunciation guides from many different times, because the romans ended up teaching latin to quite a few people for uhm... less ethical reasons.
Unless Ea Nasir was carving scarabs and magic squares on his copper, I don't think that counts as a magical text.
I'm aware of the Chaldean Oracles, but they don't survive in their original language. I think the oldest surviving translations are in Greek or Arabic.
I once experienced an episode of sleep paralysis with auditory hallucinations. I heard a deep masculine voice speaking in a guttural language that seemed just on the edge of being comprehensible to me. As if it were the primeval language from which all others sprang. The feel of the language in my ear was as familiar as my native tongue. I recognized the cadence, I could discern where one word ended and the next began, whether a sentence was a question, and so forth. But the words themselves were somehow alien.
I strained my senses trying to hear the voice more clearly. What horrible prophesy was I being given? What dreadful task have I been appointed? Am I the keymaster? The antichrist? Am I dying? Oh shit, that's it, isn't it? I'm dying and going to hell. Fuckfuckfuck. Um. I accept Jesus as my savior? ...Buddha? ...Joe Pesci?
Then I snapped out of it and the voice turned out to be the muffled sound of my neighbor's TV. Praise be to Joe Pesci!
I have a wall in my head that won't accept this as funny because it entirely misses what Satanism is.
It's a response to Christianity, and in its oldest forms, Catholicism. So, the Latin bit should be the default. There wouldn't have been Satanists that were using Aramaic or whatever. Hell, anyone engaging in the equivalent of satan worship from before the creation of satan in the form religious Satanists do worship could have spoken anything from their era anyway.
It's not like there's a ton of examples of satan dictating holy (or unholy) books, but he/she/it would still have spoken the the dark prophets in their own tongue. Why the fuck would you speak Enochian to some random Babylonian? You'd speak Babylonian.
I mean (many of) the earliest Bibles were in Coptic (which is still used liturgically by some of the oldest Orthodox churches). Christianity also really inherited that form of dualism more from the Zoroastrians so Avestan is another great option. But if you want to come from the Judaic roots yeah babylon was the origin of the major opposing deities in Judaism's early monolatrist perspective so especially if you're fighting the Abrahamic God with Baal that would be your main pick.
Side Rant: It really cannot be overstated how much the Catholic church really fucked up Christianity. It was originally a syncretistic anti imperialist death cult (in that you would martyr yourself by publicly accepting death over imperialism). If I ever got a time machine Athanasius of Alexandria is much higher on my list than Hitler. It's not even that I'm specifically opposed to trinitarianism—the number three does seem significant to some universal truth across numerous cultures (Plato's chariot, Taoist three elements of destiny, even Freud to name a few)—but killing people en masse over it is unspeakable. And to have subsequent traditions who were supposedly otherwise anti-catholic in any other respect still specifically follow in the tradition of murder for some reason is ridiculous.
Personally I'm more of a Peter was a Roman plant meant to subvert early Christianity into something more friendly to the Romans. So I'd just go and make sure Peter drowns or something. Either that or ensure that the Cult of Sol Invicta becomes dominant and ensuring Aurelian survives, mostly out of spite.
To be totally fair, Satan and the whole pantheon would have existed for essentially infinite time before earth came about, so I think the point still stands
In some stories, demons (and Satan/Lucifer, their leader) were fallen angels - those who rebel against God and were cast out. This supposedly predated humans, and also means that Satan was God's creation, like all other angels.
Satan cant be billions of years old if the universe os less than10,000 years. Latin or something similar was around when Christianity was invented, so it makes sense god and satan would speak it?
I expect that the idea is to be a dark mirror of Catholic masses (Black Masses, etc.) but this somehow brings to mind the mental image of a Satanist Martin Luther nailing a list of 95 grievances to the door of some wicked temple and translating the Black Mass into German for the accessibility of the common Satanist folks who don't know Latin.
The intent of keeping it in Latin was to keep it from regular people. The Latin is in no way original language, it was preserved as a barrier. The Catholic Church is going to have a lot to answer for on judgement day. Me too honestly, but at least I'm not trying to gatekeep the gospel.
The word snake handling cults all know the real demonic language because they do all that speaking in tongues stuff. That doesn't sound "heavenly" to me.
Those who accept the science, and the of the age of the universe, were tricked by Satan, who placed the dinosaur bones in the ground and fucking magic'd them, so when they're carbon dated, they seem ancient.
Uh... modern young earth creationism is pretty much an American thing, and modern flat earth beliefs only became a thing in the mid-19th century. I know Lemmy likes to dunk on Christians, but this is historically illiterate.
82 Comments
pjwestin@lemmy.world · 126 pts · 112d
I kinda thought of it as, "My native tongue is as ancient as the seas, as foundational as the mountains, as incomprehensible to you as the stars are to ants. Anyway, 2000 years ago I had to hire a guy to translate that into one of your languages just so you people could sign a fucking contract. It was a huge mess, guy took twice as long as he quoted me, legal department rejected it three times before it got approved, the whole thing went way over budget. Long story short, I'm not updating the paperwork. You can Google it if you want the fine print."
dragonbringerx@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 112d
...and using that for my next dnd campaign! Thanks!
pjwestin@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 112d
LOL, I'm honored, thanks!
GamingChairModel@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 111d
His legal templates are all in Latin, his production code is all in COBOL, etc.
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 65 pts · 112d
Honestly, I think Sumerian or Akkadian would be better but Latin does have its charms.
wraekscadu@vargar.org · 63 pts · 112d
Ehh honestly, can't something as powerful and as long lived as Satan just... Know all spoken languages?
Imagine Satan trying to seduce you, but unable to buy your soul because he can't speak your language fluently. Would be a funny setup, but kinda lame
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 19 pts · 112d
Well, for the Western world, classical Latin has a kind of mystique or vibe that other languages don't. People fear the grammar and classical pronunciation is just different enough (all c's are pronounced as "k") to make it sound familiar and foreign.
Quexotic@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 112d
Interesting point, so it kind of puts it in the uncanny valley of language.
familiar foreign spooky.
BucketBong@p.hobo.social · 15 pts · 112d
Satan: vende mihi animam tuam pro maximo desiderio
Me: what's this about my verandah?
Satan: vende mihi animam tuam pro maximo desiderio
Me: Sorry, I... I got to get going, I got an appointment, hope you get help with whatever the fuck you need.
IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 112d
vade retro satana, nunquam suade mihi vana
Steve@communick.news · 5 pts · 112d
Most versions I've seen in TV and movies can.
I'd assume all celestials can speak all languages ever created.
Windex007@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 112d
That's incredibly offensive.
Implying that a holy being could speak french makes me wanna barf
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 112d
I feel like Odin would know French, not because he wanted to but because he got lost and ended up picking it up for insult purposes.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 112d
Don’t worry, the devil only speaks Québécois
Steve@communick.news · 3 pts · 112d
I'm not sure of your reasoning. But I'll provide two ideas that may make you feel better and/or worse about it.
Windex007@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 111d
Both are much worse. I can forgive the French. They merely lost the birth lottery. It isn't thier fault they were born French. To learn it? Intentionally?
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus · 0 pts · 112d
I enjoy the language despite butchering it every time, and I especially enjoy the French countryside. Pretty damn forgiving of a terrible accent, and with a smile.
Its Parisians that usually piss me off.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 112d
Have you seen Akkadian? Shits got like 300 letters. Latin was definitely the upgrade.
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 112d
One of my professors could read Akkadian. He had to master Biblical Hebrew before being allowed to begin studying Akkadian. He said he had hundreds of flashcards and spent at least an hour every day studying them - aside from doing his regular coursework.
I took 25 credit hours each of Biblical Hebrew and Latin, and I am quite content never having attempted Akkadian.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 112d
Yeah, if I was Satan, that would have been the earliest utterance of the phrase 'fuck that shit'.
bunkyprewster@startrek.website · 6 pts · 111d
Aramaic seems like it was a big deal for a while
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 111d
It was, more in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods in Palestina and Judaea. It takes almost all of its vocabulary from Hebrew. Even at its height, it was basically just a regional language and never had the reach and depth that Greek and Latin had.
It's important if you're studying intertestamental or early Christian texts, but, even then, many were translated to Greek
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 112d
Yes but how many Sumerian or Akkadian grimoires survive today in their original language?
harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 112d
Nowhere as many as Latin. As far as ancient languages, Egyptian magical texts definitely outnumber Akkadian and Sumerian.
A large number of surviving Akkadian texts are commercial or official records. The most famous is probably the complaint against Ea Nasir.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 112d
Unfortunately we know what latin sounds like (though most of hollywood has only a vague concept), and nobody speaks ancient Egyptian of Akkadian.
From what I gather even reading either is a nightmare..
Tonava@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 112d
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 111d
We also have latin rhymes and even pronunciation guides from many different times, because the romans ended up teaching latin to quite a few people for uhm... less ethical reasons.
lauha@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 112d
But does it really matter if we don't kmow what they sound like. It's not like audience will know either.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 112d
Unless Ea Nasir was carving scarabs and magic squares on his copper, I don't think that counts as a magical text.
I'm aware of the Chaldean Oracles, but they don't survive in their original language. I think the oldest surviving translations are in Greek or Arabic.
charonn0@startrek.website · 24 pts · 111d
I once experienced an episode of sleep paralysis with auditory hallucinations. I heard a deep masculine voice speaking in a guttural language that seemed just on the edge of being comprehensible to me. As if it were the primeval language from which all others sprang. The feel of the language in my ear was as familiar as my native tongue. I recognized the cadence, I could discern where one word ended and the next began, whether a sentence was a question, and so forth. But the words themselves were somehow alien.
I strained my senses trying to hear the voice more clearly. What horrible prophesy was I being given? What dreadful task have I been appointed? Am I the keymaster? The antichrist? Am I dying? Oh shit, that's it, isn't it? I'm dying and going to hell. Fuckfuckfuck. Um. I accept Jesus as my savior? ...Buddha? ...Joe Pesci?
Then I snapped out of it and the voice turned out to be the muffled sound of my neighbor's TV. Praise be to Joe Pesci!
Avicenna@programming.dev · 5 pts · 111d
guttural tv sounds beyond my comprehension
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 112d
I have a wall in my head that won't accept this as funny because it entirely misses what Satanism is.
It's a response to Christianity, and in its oldest forms, Catholicism. So, the Latin bit should be the default. There wouldn't have been Satanists that were using Aramaic or whatever. Hell, anyone engaging in the equivalent of satan worship from before the creation of satan in the form religious Satanists do worship could have spoken anything from their era anyway.
It's not like there's a ton of examples of satan dictating holy (or unholy) books, but he/she/it would still have spoken the the dark prophets in their own tongue. Why the fuck would you speak Enochian to some random Babylonian? You'd speak Babylonian.
Apytele@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 112d
I mean (many of) the earliest Bibles were in Coptic (which is still used liturgically by some of the oldest Orthodox churches). Christianity also really inherited that form of dualism more from the Zoroastrians so Avestan is another great option. But if you want to come from the Judaic roots yeah babylon was the origin of the major opposing deities in Judaism's early monolatrist perspective so especially if you're fighting the Abrahamic God with Baal that would be your main pick.
Side Rant: It really cannot be overstated how much the Catholic church really fucked up Christianity. It was originally a syncretistic anti imperialist death cult (in that you would martyr yourself by publicly accepting death over imperialism). If I ever got a time machine Athanasius of Alexandria is much higher on my list than Hitler. It's not even that I'm specifically opposed to trinitarianism—the number three does seem significant to some universal truth across numerous cultures (Plato's chariot, Taoist three elements of destiny, even Freud to name a few)—but killing people en masse over it is unspeakable. And to have subsequent traditions who were supposedly otherwise anti-catholic in any other respect still specifically follow in the tradition of murder for some reason is ridiculous.
toynbee@piefed.social · 4 pts · 112d
Reading this comment finally helped me understand why new lemmings complain about the prevalence of Linux users here.
Apytele@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 112d
I have no idea how to take this comment.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 112d
I was thinking more that Satan, as we know the entity is largely a product of creation grafted onto older things all hodgepodge.
No reason said entity couldn't adopt older languages if it was real, obviously.
But, in terms of Satanists, they're such a comparatively modern thing that them using Latin makes sense for multiple reasons
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 112d
Personally I'm more of a Peter was a Roman plant meant to subvert early Christianity into something more friendly to the Romans. So I'd just go and make sure Peter drowns or something. Either that or ensure that the Cult of Sol Invicta becomes dominant and ensuring Aurelian survives, mostly out of spite.
hansolo@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 112d
The Old Testament was written in Hebrew.
The New Testament was written in Koine Greek.
The Copts speak a descendant language of Egyptian.
tomenzgg@midwest.social · 2 pts · 111d
If you're talking about the time of Athanasius, Catholicism doesn't exist; The Great Schism hasn't occurred, yet.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 112d
Latin is the best language though
Agent641@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 111d
Which is why it's spoken all over the world today!
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 111d
I mean yeah, it is spoken all over the world today!
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 111d
Uhh, billions of years?
The Bible is centered around just 10,000 or less years of total universal history, from what I've seen.
I don't believe that, I'm just explaining the dogma here.
nieminen@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 111d
To be totally fair, Satan and the whole pantheon would have existed for essentially infinite time before earth came about, so I think the point still stands
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 111d
It was literally a few days
MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 111d
In God's time according to the Bible
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 111d
If i was god id be quicker than human time lol but maybe yahweh is a slowpoke
MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 109d
Isn't that what it is? Few days for god, eons for man.
MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 111d
Haven't God and Satan canonically always existed?
GreenMartian@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 111d
In some stories, demons (and Satan/Lucifer, their leader) were fallen angels - those who rebel against God and were cast out. This supposedly predated humans, and also means that Satan was God's creation, like all other angels.
MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 109d
So Satan's existence is Biblically fairly recent?
IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf · 11 pts · 112d
this is because Satan tries to mimic God and the lsnguage of the Roman Catholic Church is Latin.
Taleya@aussie.zone · 11 pts · 112d
Why not, worked for the church
UPGRAYEDD@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 111d
Satan cant be billions of years old if the universe os less than10,000 years. Latin or something similar was around when Christianity was invented, so it makes sense god and satan would speak it?
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 112d
Well it’s the ecclesiastical language of Christianity, and the Satanic cults depicted are typically couched in Biblical mythology.
pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 112d
I expect that the idea is to be a dark mirror of Catholic masses (Black Masses, etc.) but this somehow brings to mind the mental image of a Satanist Martin Luther nailing a list of 95 grievances to the door of some wicked temple and translating the Black Mass into German for the accessibility of the common Satanist folks who don't know Latin.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 111d
It is the christian language though... A while ago the bible was in latin.
Edit: the catholic bible
doingthestuff@lemy.lol · 9 pts · 111d
The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.
Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 111d
language of the catholic church more specifically then
Jtotheb@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 111d
And the Catholic church more specifically still!
MyVeryRealName@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 111d
I think he meant the Catholic Bible
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 111d
Yep, thanks
VinegarChunks@lemmus.org · 1 pts · 105d
The Bible was translated to Latin by St Jerome in the 300s
doingthestuff@lemy.lol · 1 pts · 104d
The intent of keeping it in Latin was to keep it from regular people. The Latin is in no way original language, it was preserved as a barrier. The Catholic Church is going to have a lot to answer for on judgement day. Me too honestly, but at least I'm not trying to gatekeep the gospel.
VinegarChunks@lemmus.org · 1 pts · 104d
Latin was a widely spoken language in the 300s
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz · 5 pts · 112d
"Uuuh..." -- The Pope.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 111d
Lately Hell has changed to Esperanto.
aeronmelon@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 112d
Same with Enigma.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 110d
The word snake handling cults all know the real demonic language because they do all that speaking in tongues stuff. That doesn't sound "heavenly" to me.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe · 3 pts · 112d
I mean, the amount of legal Latin used in anglophone countries does bolster the argument.
E.g. prima facie, mens rea, stare decisis, etc.
Zozano@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 112d
Christians think the Earth is 6,000 years old.
Those who accept the science, and the of the age of the universe, were tricked by Satan, who placed the dinosaur bones in the ground and fucking magic'd them, so when they're carbon dated, they seem ancient.
Also the Earth is flat, obviously.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io · 8 pts · 112d
Uh... modern young earth creationism is pretty much an American thing, and modern flat earth beliefs only became a thing in the mid-19th century. I know Lemmy likes to dunk on Christians, but this is historically illiterate.
Lucky_777@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 112d
Christians love the flat earth cult, because it's just like their own cult. Belief other facts
IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf · 2 pts · 112d
actually, time is not linear for God so we cannot assume how old the Earth is via using the six/seven days
go science and roman catholicism
Zozano@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 112d
Okay - let's assume that that the timeline is fucked up.
That doesn't explain how god first created light... Then somehow made the sun and stars later.
IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf · 0 pts · 112d
"light" might be the big bang and the sun and stars came significantly after that
Zozano@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 111d
If that's the case, then god didn't make the sun and stars, he just waited for them to form.
IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 111d
What if he was creating them during the time they formed?
God can use chain reactions to create and destroy
Zozano@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 111d
Stop being retarded.
IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf · 0 pts · 111d
really brought the 4chan outta yourself for this one
daggermoon@piefed.world · 2 pts · 112d
I always thought the same thing.
ledasll@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 112d
What if he thought that language?