How High Speech really sounds?

[wyrdhamster]

So after big discussion on Forsaken forum in which I asked why using Ancient Summerian for First Tounge of Spirits, there were intersting connotation with High Speech of Atlantis for Mage. Let me quote some of them...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Human_language

If Proto-Human is truely first language, and it was passed by Spirits, then would it be also High Speech of Atlantis? We know that High Speech is set of vowels and accents putted on normal tounge. Would it possible those sylabs would be this onomatopeic language given huamnity by "gods" ( i.e. Spirits)?

No. Atlantean is it's own language, and like everything else Atlantean, it's mostly gone from the world with Atlantis being wiped from reality. There's no corollary to it.

High Speech and First Tongue are different languages, and spirits don't know what the hell mages are babbling on about.

Makes sense. You can't know the Name of things if there's nothing to use to Name it with, now can you?

This Wikipedia article may also interest you — the idea of a divine language in culture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_the_birds

What is your vision on sound of High Speech and his origin?

[Strill]

First Tongue, the language of spirits, is already a completely separate thing.

[Thorbes]

The problem is that High Speech as most things Supernal gets muddled to those not directly conected to that plane. High Speech sounds like giberish and made-on-the-spot words, or even as no sound at all (an sleeper sees the mage moving her lips but hears nothing, and the lip movements are nonsensical and/or imposible to read).

[Dave Brookshaw]

High Speech doesn't sound like anything, or sounds differently depending on the Mage. To Sleepers and Sleepwalkers, it sounds like gibberish, glossalia, or an unidentified language they don't know. That's because it's not actually a real language but the Supernal platonic ideal of "language" - to Mages, it sounds like gibberish, too, but their Unseen Senses respond to it and they know the information being imparted despite the sounds themselves being nonsense. Most mages can only use it to describe imagos or resonance. Some who are really good at it (and have a Merit) can get short concepts across.

The real trick is in the writing. Magical runes are derived from the shapes in resonance different types of spell make - they work in spellcasting like drawing a blueprint works in construction. High Speech as a communication method doesn't have to be written in them - you can use any alphabet you like to write High Speech down, safe in the knowledge that only Awakened mages will be able to read it. Most grimoires aren't written in Atlantean runes.

Where this really starts to bake one's noodle is that Awakened mages start to see and hear High Speech in all sorts of places they weren't expecting it -- short messages written in the architecture of buildings, warnings in the shape of a motorway seen from the air, adverts that contain calls to arms, the sounds of sacred animals making prayers to the Aether. Some will be the result of mages writing things down. Most won't. The Greek Pythias at Delphi were priestesses who, when exposed to certain fumes, ranted in tongues that the priests interpreted into prophecies. A mage who went to hear them would be able to hear what they were actually saying, even if the Pythia didn't know herself. Same with certain Christian groups and Mediums in the modern day - some of them spout High Speech without knowing it.

And, to forestall inevitable crossover questions, no - as High Speech isn't a real language Demons can't speak it.

[wyrdhamster]

High Speech doesn't sound like anything, or sounds differently depending on the Mage. To Sleepers and Sleepwalkers, it sounds like gibberish, glossalia, or an unidentified language they don't know. That's because it's not actually a real language but the Supernal platonic ideal of "language" - to Mages, it sounds like gibberish, too, but their Unseen Senses respond to it and they know the information being imparted despite the sounds themselves being nonsense. Most mages can only use it to describe imagos or resonance. Some who are really good at it (and have a Merit) can get short concepts across.

The real trick is in the writing. Magical runes are derived from the shapes in resonance different types of spell make - they work in spellcasting like drawing a blueprint works in construction. High Speech as a communication method doesn't have to be written in them - you can use any alphabet you like to write High Speech down, safe in the knowledge that only Awakened mages will be able to read it. Most grimoires aren't written in Atlantean runes.

So is it like Cuneiform script - we know what each rune means, but we don't have any idea how it sound? This means, that we can read in Atlantean sentance like "They ox Prime" as guessing "They cast Prime on the ox", that is? Random Supernal Symbols that can mean something if you "guess" it meaning?

It's important to me, becuase I run Secrets of the Ruined Temple-ike game, and in book there is mentioned that character can buy Atlantean as full Language. So they know how it sounds, or they just make up words they come in they mind that would "sound right"? There is diffrance to be able to speak Atlantean were it is obvious language, with proper vowels and words. And there is other thing when it is made on fly, when mages speak or listen to it. In second options I could say that any guardian of Temple or any words riddle in game are really useless.

Where this really starts to bake one's noodle is that Awakened mages start to see and hear High Speech in all sorts of places they weren't expecting it -- short messages written in the architecture of buildings, warnings in the shape of a motorway seen from the air, adverts that contain calls to arms, the sounds of sacred animals making prayers to the Aether. Some will be the result of mages writing things down. Most won't. The Greek Pythias at Delphi were priestesses who, when exposed to certain fumes, ranted in tongues that the priests interpreted into prophecies. A mage who went to hear them would be able to hear what they were actually saying, even if the Pythia didn't know herself. Same with certain Christian groups and Mediums in the modern day - some of them spout High Speech without knowing it.

If they don't know words that have cohercive form, how they "hear" High Speech? Or maybe they Unseen Senses tell them "Listen this, this is important gibberish"?

[Menace]

I thought it might be something like music. IF you listen to a song in a different language you dont understand you still might get an idea whats it about. Or when you see color red you think danger. You more "feel" High Speach that "hear" it. And when you speak it the words you use karę meaningless, its the concept behind the that matters. This makes Atlantean less od a language and more od a concept od language. Or at least thats how I see it.

[Strill]

If they don't know words that have cohercive form, how they "hear" High Speech? Or maybe they Unseen Senses tell them "Listen this, this is important gibberish"?

You don't "hear" and understand High Speech on a mundane level. You simply comprehend the Supernal symbols embedded into it. The particulars of the sound are entirely irrelevant.

It is not a language. It is the blueprints of reality. Supernal symbols embedded into sound or an image. What image or sound they're embedded in is incidental.

[Isator Levi]

So is it like Cuneiform script - we know what each rune means, but we don't have any idea how it sound? This means, that we can read in Atlantean sentance like "They ox Prime" as guessing "They cast Prime on the ox", that is?

I'd say it's more like seeing a diagram of electron orbitals; a simple visual image for a complex conceptual and mathematical reality (and where the image only really conveys meaning if you're actually educated in that reality).

I'd imagine that a fair amount of High Speech might be "translatable" into stuff that kind of sounds like extremely esoteric incantations or formulae, although that might often be a convention imposed by the mages doing the translating, and it still amounts to an extremely rough way of articulating what the High Speech writing is saying.

It's important to me, becuase I run Secrets of the Ruined Temple-ike game, and in book there is mentioned that character can buy Atlantean as full Language. So they know how it sounds, or they just make up words they come in they mind that would "sound right"? There is diffrance to be able to speak Atlantean were it is obvious language, with proper vowels and words.

It's worth noting that the "conversational Atlantean" described in that book largely amounts to a constructed language made by applying linguistics principles to High Speech as mages are best able to record it. It can vaguely suffice for finding a way to articulate Atlantean writing conveying things other than magic, and maybe for some extremely rough conversation with an ancient construct or ghost, but it's not really a true rediscovery of whatever they spoke in Atlantis or way to make High Speech fully comprehensive or comprehensible.

If they don't know words that have cohercive form, how they "hear" High Speech? Or maybe they Unseen Senses tell them "Listen this, this is important gibberish"?

I always imagined that mages generally hear High Speech in the form they can comprehend as analagous to their own speaking of it. Like, if one mage hears their own High Speech as a kind of semi-Latin, that's how they'll hear everybody else's as well, maybe sometimes coloured by a sense of dialect or pronunciation or tone that conveys their Nimbus somewhat (I imagine most mages hear Scelesti chants as a kind of horribly broken way of speaking).

This as distinct from the idea in Tome of the Mysteries of literally encoding High Speech into otherwise mundane language.

EDIT: As to how this relates to hearing High Speech in places you wouldn't expect, I'd say it's kind of like being in an otherwise mundane situation where it feels like somebody around is suddenly talking directly to you about things they shouldn't be able to know, and nobody else seems able to hear it. It's something ominous and mysterious and disturbing. Like being on a subway and finding that topics extremely pertinent to yourself seem to keep cropping up in the chatter; not even something any individual is saying, just how the confluence of sounds comes together.

[proindrakenzol]

High Speech doesn't sound like anything, or sounds differently depending on the Mage. To Sleepers and Sleepwalkers, it sounds like gibberish, glossalia, or an unidentified language they don't know. That's because it's not actually a real language but the Supernal platonic ideal of "language" - to Mages, it sounds like gibberish, too, but their Unseen Senses respond to it and they know the information being imparted despite the sounds themselves being nonsense. Most mages can only use it to describe imagos or resonance. Some who are really good at it (and have a Merit) can get short concepts across. The real trick is in the writing. Magical runes are derived from the shapes in resonance different types of spell make - they work in spellcasting like drawing a blueprint works in construction. High Speech as a communication method doesn't have to be written in them - you can use any alphabet you like to write High Speech down, safe in the knowledge that only Awakened mages will be able to read it. Most grimoires aren't written in Atlantean runes. Where this really starts to bake one's noodle is that Awakened mages start to see and hear High Speech in all sorts of places they weren't expecting it -- short messages written in the architecture of buildings, warnings in the shape of a motorway seen from the air, adverts that contain calls to arms, the sounds of sacred animals making prayers to the Aether. Some will be the result of mages writing things down. Most won't. The Greek Pythias at Delphi were priestesses who, when exposed to certain fumes, ranted in tongues that the priests interpreted into prophecies. A mage who went to hear them would be able to hear what they were actually saying, even if the Pythia didn't know herself. Same with certain Christian groups and Mediums in the modern day - some of them spout High Speech without knowing it. And, to forestall inevitable crossover questions, no - as High Speech isn't a real language Demons can't speak it.

Can High Speech coded data be transmited via any form electro-magnetic radiation including things like microwave and infrared?

[Suleri Drals]

High Speech doesn't sound like anything, or sounds differently depending on the Mage. To Sleepers and Sleepwalkers, it sounds like gibberish, glossalia, or an unidentified language they don't know. That's because it's not actually a real language but the Supernal platonic ideal of "language" - to Mages, it sounds like gibberish, too, but their Unseen Senses respond to it and they know the information being imparted despite the sounds themselves being nonsense. Most mages can only use it to describe imagos or resonance. Some who are really good at it (and have a Merit) can get short concepts across.

The real trick is in the writing. Magical runes are derived from the shapes in resonance different types of spell make - they work in spellcasting like drawing a blueprint works in construction. High Speech as a communication method doesn't have to be written in them - you can use any alphabet you like to write High Speech down, safe in the knowledge that only Awakened mages will be able to read it. Most grimoires aren't written in Atlantean runes.

Where this really starts to bake one's noodle is that Awakened mages start to see and hear High Speech in all sorts of places they weren't expecting it -- short messages written in the architecture of buildings, warnings in the shape of a motorway seen from the air, adverts that contain calls to arms, the sounds of sacred animals making prayers to the Aether. Some will be the result of mages writing things down. Most won't. The Greek Pythias at Delphi were priestesses who, when exposed to certain fumes, ranted in tongues that the priests interpreted into prophecies. A mage who went to hear them would be able to hear what they were actually saying, even if the Pythia didn't know herself. Same with certain Christian groups and Mediums in the modern day - some of them spout High Speech without knowing it.

And, to forestall inevitable crossover questions, no - as High Speech isn't a real language Demons can't speak it.

Only written or a mage can see the High Speech in natural symbols ? (a patch of moss in his coffee, ect ...)

[ArcaneArts]

At the risk of sounding Demon-y, it's like when you hear something in the white noise of a room when no one else does.

In regards to accidental usage, one wonders if the Arisen and those who closely emulate the Nameless Empire's style evoke more high speech than normal(accidentally, but shared principles are shared principles).

[Isator Levi]

In regards to accidental usage, one wonders if the Arisen and those who closely emulate the Nameless Empire's style evoke more high speech than normal(accidentally, but shared principles are shared principles).

I wouldn't think so. Not anymore than anything else coming from the same template (like, if you construct a motorway in emulation of one that resembles a rune, it'll still reference the shape no matter what your intent).

I'd say that certain non-human supernaturals might be less inclined to stumble out with things relevant to mages, because the Supernal does not seem quite so present in a non-human soul. I'd think that might also make them less... resonant with 'external' influences that might produce a similar effect.

[Joker]

Where this really starts to bake one's noodle is that Awakened mages start to see and hear High Speech in all sorts of places they weren't expecting it -- short messages written in the architecture of buildings, warnings in the shape of a motorway seen from the air, adverts that contain calls to arms, the sounds of sacred animals making prayers to the Aether.

It would be fun if the geomancy in a mummy's tomb spelled out the High Speech rune that describes the supernal symbol that belongs to the mummy's principle pillar or their decree.
It won't ever happen in canon, but it would be a fun little detail for crossover games.

[Lian]

It sounds like esperanto

[ArcaneArts]

Rather the opposite.