w_w_johncarmack_d : I back you up on the deus ex machina explanation
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I am very pleased to see a discussion on Latin, it''s always amusing to see that this good old language has still some sort of use once in a while.
The Latin they use in a LOT of writings (mostly english writings), is what you call pig latin (I believe), in French we describe that as Kitchen Latin, mainly because creating words in this fashion is a simple recipe.
A good example of this is the Warhammer 40k universe :
most of the Imperium stuff is called after latin words, some pig latin, some proper.
For instance, the "adeptus" stuff is AFAIK (and AFA my trusty Latin dictionary tells me) pig latin.
Put in another way, it''s easier to understand what the Adeptus Mechanicus does than finding the actual word of "adept" in latin(Adeptus comes from "adipiscor", to acquire).
The Ordo Malleus is an order of bad ass Space Marines who hunt daemons (IIRC), Malleus means "hammer", and was probably used as a reference to the Malleus Maleficarum (the first book on witch hunting written by the Inquisition, I dont remember which inquisitor).
Similarly, the Adeptus Astartes is the "latinised" name of the Space Marines. adeptus is used to describe an organisation nad Astartes means "of Astarte". The thing is, Astarte is the goddess of Love in Syria... weird for an order of warriors. But if you check out a dictionary, Astarte is just next to "astator", "protector", and not far from "aster", "stars" (since they are *space* marines
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). Yeah, i know, far strechted.
My point is, if it sounds cool, and you can give your readers the feeling that it''s all making sense, as in, you chose *that* name because it meant *something* that relates, or give a hint, or whatever; your readers will love it, it''s like finding Easter Eggs in games, it''s a wink in the direction of your reader, a gesture that pleases their ego in this "I know what you mean, *wink* *wink* " fashion
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Anothe thing to consider is the feeling that the langage you use will transmit to your readers.
For Warhammer 40k, the guys at Games Workshop used Latin to impose the idea of Empire, and it works damn well for me.
But for their medieval version of the universe, Warhammer, they use a variety of languages to play on cliches and give a feel to different races. The Empire there uses mostly german-style names, GeheimnissNachte (the night of the secret, the worst night of the year in the game, where all witches gather and *bad* stuff happens), Altdorf ("Old village", the capital), Middenheim ("the middle dwelling" IIRC), Marienburg, etc
I hope this gives you some ideas ?
If I can suggest some other languages : japanese is très cool, especially because you can use all those Kanji characters and only the very persisting reader will go and try to figure out what''s written (I love to do that, take a chinese menu and go on the Net try to figure out what the heck are those fancy characters there for; most of the time they actually *make sense*, which I find very rewarding to find out).
Indian (hindu ?) has absolutely huge names for some divinities and stuff, just look up a baby''s name website for instance (VERY interesting because you get the whole story of what the names mean, not just cool sounding names).
I havent found a cool website for arab, but I dont despair, if there is romanised versions of japanese (called romanji IIRC), there is probably as well for arab.
Oh yeah, german sounds very harsh and hostile, I love it for names of my RPG characters (well, I played Warhammer for quite a few years, too).
The baby''s names /Gods'' names book thing goes for a lot of cultures, of course.
I hope this helps ? If you have more questions about Latin, I did 4 years of the language in high school (I am French, we have to do a lot of languages at school...) so I am sure I could dig in my memories (and books, I keep all my Lating grammar and dictionary preciously).
Good Luck. (oh, and guess what my sig means
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Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !
-----------------------------Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !