Challenge entry #1
Multilingual Magick
I can manage in a few languages: Macedonian, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. And I can probably survive in a whole lot more than that. I love learning bits of different languages, even dead ones like Latin and Phoenician. I think improving my Chinese and Russian are next on my list, though. My Chinese is alright, but I can’t write a serious paper like I had to for university anymore, so I would like to get that back at some point.
Recently, I tried translating some Polish using knowledge from the languages I know and online dictionaries.
When it comes to the demonic side of things (The Demonolatry Experience for some context on why I think of demons at all), Latin seems to be the number one language of rituals and spells. The Light Bearer’s Call, for example,
Ut patet viam meam dimitto ceteris
Aperi tu cor meum ut lucifer audite quaeso
Meae voca ego offerre mea erga obsecro incipere
(Don’t worry, you haven’t summoned Lucifer by reading that in your head. But I blurred it anyway. 
)
So, I thought I would try examining these things a little more closely. In doing so, I went through a lot of interesting little rabbit holes.
One thing I noticed is that in a rite to Beelzebub written in Greek, Thanatos is called upon, and there’s no mention of Beelzebub himself. Now, Beelzebub isn’t known for any connection to Thanatos. He’s thought to be derived from the Canaanite god Baal, to whom the Egyptian equivalent is thought to be Set, whose Greek equivalent is thought to be Typhon.
But, that is perhaps taken too literally. For the text actually evoked the “Angel of death,” which, in Greek, is “θανάτου” (thanátou). Just because Thanatos is the personification of death, because it’s in lowercase, it could simply mean “death” in any personification and not be referring to him. I’m not sure I’m explaining this clearly… But it’s basically “death anywhere” versus “this specific Death.”
On the other hand, I can’t find a single example of Ancient Greek that actually uses case. It’s all “uppercase” in everything that I can find. Which leads me to believe that the only way we can make this distinction is actually through context. Given the context, I would have to assume that it is not necessarily Thanatos himself, but whichever spirit of death heeds the call.
For my fellow language nerds, you already know that thinking about this is fun. But for those of you scratching your head and going, “Okay…?” just chalk it up to a language nerd thing. I’m already fighting the voices of others in my head who get angry and say, “Who cares?! X is X! End of story!” 
I’m chuckling at the image now, but it actually is really frustrating to have my curiosity shut down so hard all the time.
But yeah, that’s part of what I’ve been up to recently (outside of my 9-5, Etsy shop, moving arrangements, and life with my partner and cats).
In other news, through various other threads, I learnt the proper pronunciation of Hekate (heh-kah-tee), besom (bee-som), and Samhain (sah-win). I think that alone is a win, but hey, that’s just me – I like all victories, big and tiny. 