Remember that High Gothic isn't really Latin... it's Pseudo-Latin. Having something sound cool is more important than it being accurate.

For example, in my Guard army I have a Hellhound (I have several Hellhounds actually, but this is just a specific one, the first one I ever bought). Through a number of circumstances it showed itself to be very hard to kill, and so I wanted to call it the Eternal Flame. So we looked up Latin words and came up with Immortalis Incendium. Of course, Immortalis Incendium doesn't really mean Eternal Flame, it's closer to Fire Without End or maybe even Unending Fire, but 'Immortalis Incendium' sounds cool, so we went with it.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Pretty much, yes. Imperial Gothic is more or less if Latin and German got together in some disturbing incestuous relationship and had little mutant bastard offspring for several generations. Mmmmm.... Linguistic inbreeding.

Crap! Now I have visions of some bad-ass dark future electric banjo stuck in my head!

"Khorne went down to Terra, he was lookin' for some souls to steal...." I think Charlie Daniels just became an Inquisition agent.

ZillaPrime said:

Not quite. Low Gothic and High Gothic are represented by English and Pseudo-Latin, respectively, for the benefit of the audience - it's much like the fact that The Lord of The Rings is presented as a translation into English from the in-setting Westron language.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Note that I said "Imperial Gothic". A bit of a throwback term in the GW fluff, but it is more or less interchangeable with "High Gothic" in more recent books.

But you guys do know Gothic is just American-English and Chinese mix together, right? Well, that is what lots of the fluff hints it, and it makes sense to me, but lol, Latin and German does sound a million times cooler. ;P

I thought that was only in Firefly, dyp100.

My Missionary in Rogue Trader has just got his hands on what he calls a Flare Staff - essentially a flamer on a stick, but with a cool brass lions head instead of the usual nozzle. It's called Bane - no-one's bane in particular, since fire is usually pretty baneful no matter what gribbly you are

Naming weapons are IMO a great way of giving them personality, which I think they should have in a setting where every piece of technology is considered to have a spirit that you have to keep happy to avoid malfuntioning. My guardsman character has named all her weapons; her Death Light Lasgun is called Stella while her Combat Shotgun is called Johnny Jr. and her Bolt Pistol is called St. Peter.

Now I just have to find a name for my Lathe Great Hammer that our Tech Priest have gotten in the Lathes system where he went on a pilgrimage during our last stretch of down time.

dyp100 said:

As Kylen already pointed out, that was Firefly. The Imperium is an English creation (hence the continued English spellings in 40k-related Fantasy Flight publications, which is an awesome feature), and I think the whole thing is quite saturated with British style and humour. It's all part of the charm.

High Gothic is roughly analogous to Latin in medieval times (a scholarly language) whilst Gothic is basically a bastardised version of it. So, as N0-1_H3r3 said earlier, those are represented using Latin and (British) English.

There are plenty of references to other languages and cultures (the far-future versions thereof) throughout 40k fluff, so utilising, say, Hebrew or Japanese to represent a futuristic version of those cultures is pretty in-keeping with canon, in my opinion. They're not actually going to be exactly the same, but then neither is the basic language the characters are speaking, so it's reasonable to have them there and exercise some artistic license!

Niqvah said:

I've never seen Firefly, not a single frame of it...Sooo...Actaully, 40k fluff is High Gothic is a mix of American English and "Pacific" languages, I presume they mean China. (Also, it would just make sense in the future of today, but not back when they made this fluff so they kept it vague, me thinks. xD)

I know what Gothic is, I've been into 40k so I was 7. -Facepalm- But this is just my take on it, it makes sense to me.

Well, GW is known to borrow cultures and such for inspiration for the 40k, so of course other languages are gonna pop up.

Also, being British, I am happy they kept original English in all there stuff. xD It keeps my spelling from making American typo's, me thinks.

If that's your personal take on it, then that's fine, but I have to say I still have no idea where you're getting the American bit from. It's a universe created in England and primarily written by Brits...

To make it more straightforward: what fluff are you referring to when you say American and "Pacific" languages? I haven't come across anything like that in GW codices or Black Library books, but I can't say I've exhaustively read every author, so I'm interested in your source. It's not at all how I imagine them to speak.

High Gothic is nonsense Latin, surely? Or Latin for those who use online translators rather than bothering to actually learn it. Let's not overcomplicate this here, guys. As for Chinese, well I don't know where the hell that comes from because I've never seen so much as a shred of Eastern inspired wording in any High Gothic.

dyp100 said:

Your first offense is the fact you have never seen Firefly, which is fixable.

And being FROM America, I can admit we had no bloody clue what a Chirgeon is (Yes, after reading it, we realized it was a surgeon), and while we appreciate the meters system for how easy it makes gridding stuff, Don't be calling how we spell and say stuff typos, please and thank you.

dyp100 said:

Speaking of typos, friend from the other side of the pond, I believe the word you wanted was their , which is a possessive pronoun, and not there which indicates a location. How about you don't bash us "colonials" if you can't avoid typos yourself, mate? There are, after all, three distinct English language dictionaries which are all equally well accepted by writers and linguistics; and each has nuances and variances the others lack.

But otherwise, Firefly was a good series.

You say biscuit, I say cookie.

-=Brother Praetus=-

EDIT: Ramble, ramble, ramble. There I go again.

Tullio said:

Read Dune

The Hobo Hunter said:

Er... Different universe?

I jest, I jest... but you can't deny the setting is very influencial to the 40kverse as we know it. And there's a metric buttload of eastern-inspired stuff in Dune.

The promethium must flow |3

I didn't meant to offend anyone, I just meant it keeps me from making typos. (As in...Using American English instead of British English.) Sorry, my grammar can get pretty bad at times, I didn't meant to start a flame war, just being a bit reckless without checking what I've written.

dyp100 said:

No real offense taken on my end. Hence, the emoticons in my post. Some people dislike the things. I enjoy them as they allow people to illustrate whether they are irate or playful, happy or embarrassed. Otherwise, there is a certain lack of context when reading the posts of others which can cause confusion and misunderstandings.

Peace

-=Brother Praetus=-

The "pacific languages" is a rather sneaky new addition. It is not really in the vast majority of the fluff nor is it in any of the BL novels that I have read.

Where it does sneak in is a little tiny passage burried in the DH core book. So far that is the only reference to "pacific languages" that I have been able to find (and I am a hardcore 40K otaku)

ZillaPrime said:

Huh. I've not seen it myself. Zilla, could you be awesome and give me/us a page number to reference? It's possible that the "pacific languages" reference might be referring to the particular dialect of low Gothic most common to the Calixis; but that's just me speculating without reading the specific passage.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Hmmmm, stupid me, apparently High Gothic is a varied mix.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/High_Gothic , Goes all the way back to Rogue Trader, it seems, but I guess it's all we got, I don't think GW has updated any fluff yet on it.

dyp100 said:

I think the important takeaway from that passage is that the actual language of High Gothic in the 41st millennium originated from our present day amalgam of English, European, and Pacific languages... But for our purposes in-game, it's represented by Latinized English for us, the players/readers.

Ophilia Midkiff said:

I know, I just wanted to get the bottom of the actaul language, "in-fluff", I personally love Latin and use it in my fluff as much as possible.

Lol, Oh Emperor, I've derailed this thread real good. xD