Now try to make a Japanese person to pronounce and spell it.

The spelling and pronounciation error might be becuase of difference in languages. Astlanian language is not clearly defined in the book but maybe they don't have a sound or a letter that correspond to the English language. Think of the various languages and writing just here. In speach for example there might be a limitation of sound. Rotokas for example only has 11 phonemes (English has about 40). Writing is even more diverse. Try reading a German text. What are those weid letters?

Though as I can see. Astlanian language has similar phoneme set as English but maybe lack the 'TH' phoneme that might make them replace it with 'T' when they speak and write it. Astlanian also seems to be writing in alphabetic like English but maybe they don't spell words with -TH- or use the letter(s) that correspond to the phoneme (like θ) in their writing which might also cause them to misspell Thomas' name. It might even be not possible to spell his name right if Astlanians use Semanto-phonetic (like Chinese and Ancient Egyptian) or Sylabic (like Hiragana/Katakana Japanese and Thai).

Edited by user Monday, July 7, 2014 10:26:12 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

If you consider the complexity of languages, mispronunciation and misspellings is more that likely. It probably happen often.

Well, I will explain things further to you Tizzy.

Language is extrememly complex. Lets start with speech/spoken language

In speech, you communicate with sound we create with our mouth, throat, nose, etc. We are able to create different sounds with our speaking devices. Sounds like |s|, |b|, |p|, |e|, etc. These different sounds used in speech is called phonemes.

We are capable of making hundreds of these phonemes but each language only use a fraction of these available phonemes in its phoneme set. English for example uses about 40. Other languages uses up to more than a hundred phonemes. Other uses less to about a dozen of these phonemes. This difference of phoneme sets creates problems. Essentially it makes it impossible for one language to actually pronounce words from another language correctly.

There are also rules of how these phonemes are combined for each language thereby creating another layer of complexity making it the impossible even more difficult.

Say let say a Japanese person would speak the name Rupert. One characteristic in Japanese language is that they only use a limited set of syllables. They had a sylable 'ru' but they don't have the syllable 'pert.' These makes it impossible in their language to pronounce these correctly because they don't have the 'pert' sylable. The closest they could get is to pronounce it like this ru-pe-ru-to. Now that is four sylables not two as like the original.

You could try and experience how difficult this really is, try speaking a language that contains phonemes that isn't used in the English language (you're Eglish speaker right? ) and have a different speech pattern. Try following this How to Speak Mandarin tutorial:



Notice the letters with strange markings bellow the Mandarin texts. Can you read them?

Or try this strange language, the 'clicking' language these natives in the documentary speaks:



Now imagine what the names of these people would be. Could you even speak them?

Also there are very interesting rules that other languages follow that are quite alien to English speakers. For example, in Mandarin a difference in pitch of a single sylable could change the meaning of the word even though the words are the same phonically. You might not be calling the person in their correct name because you don't get the pitch of a sylable in their names right.

There is also the language used by the deaf and mute. The Sign Language. This don't use sounds and, yes, these people do have sign language 'names' they use which is just a bunch of motions and has no corresponding sound attached to it.

Not to mention, these people might not even know how to speak their names. How could they when they can't speak or hear their names. Even if they are magicaly given the ability to speak and hear, they don't have the skill to do it. The mute never have spoken it would have as much dificulty as a baby speaking their first words. And the deaf never even know what their names sounds like. Then you ask them to speak it?

Now these is just human speech. In the book, it is clear that there are non humans. One is reptilian in nature. Now these nonhuman species would even have even different sound and phonemes in their languages.

Think of the dolphins. They are said to have a spoken language, in all their clicks, and razz, and whistles. Many of the sound the dolphin makes is even supersonic and out of humans hearing range. Now how could you even speak language like that when your mouth and throat is not even designed to make those sounds? Not to mention, you can't even hear many of those sounds.

Now, mispronunciation? Hahahahahahahah. LOL. LMAO. I have to laugh at that.

Now, we don't even touch about writing yet.

Edited by user Tuesday, July 8, 2014 9:47:10 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

In hindsight, my LOLing in the end seems too discourteous. I ask for forgiveness.

Well, it doesn't really matter anyway. It is enough to know that wizards take control of you with your name.

Is there a way for demons not to respond to wizards when the wizards summon them? A spell or charm of sorts?

Wah! That sucks. Names has such a strong hold ain't it?

Well, if the demon's name enable such a strong control over the demon, is such thing the same to other creatures? Will it work on wizards for example? You know compel them. Or maybe it isn't done (that much) because it is bad manners and all? You can do that to a demon but not your fellow wizards.

So if a soul was flooded by a sudden surge of external animus, or if a person went through a literally soul changing event, would it be possible for their true name to change. In a world of magic their is always an exception to every rule with enough power.

Also if it is possible for priests to learn of a person's true name, shouldn't a few objects exist that compel others to speak their true name or to tell their wielder the other's true name, like Tal's mirror, but revealing names as opposed to demonic natures.

Another post mentioned that God's view the agent's of other gods as demons, so does their magic have as negative effect on each other as it would against a demon. If so it would help spread the whole heretics are evil ideology. How were the God's and their agents made anyway.

Hmm. Isn't your true name an essence of who you are? Then changing your true name essentially makes you not you.

A device that shows your true name... might not be possible. I mean, there is nothing in a true name to detect. You can say tell what a color a mineral is or how much it weigh or how dull it is, but, unless you know the name of the mineral, there is nothing in the mineral that would tell you what its name is. You can't pick a magnifying glass or something that would tell you it is called _____. And that is for something mundane, like the name of the mineral (which is quite finite in number). Now for names (which is infinite in number), a device such as that is even more impossible. But still it is a fantasy world, anything is possible, even break the law of the universe.

As for gods seeing other god's agents as demons. That bids the question, how could a god (or anyone) tell its a demon? And if a god can mistake other entities as demons, does that mean, these entities and demons are basically the same? Could you even say that these gods are demons themselves?

Edited by user Tuesday, July 15, 2014 8:03:26 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

It has been noted that demons and angels are similar, but created in different ways. A demon by a wizard, and an angel by a god. So could it be that demons are just crude copies of Angels. If so it would explain why they dislike the ugly, twisted imitations of themselves. It would be like Frankenstein, but weaker and inferior to you in every way, but similar enough that you might feel uncomfortable. Some humans hate the idea of identical, or improved humans created by other humans, so Angels/ Gods might hate the idea of ugly, weaker, crudely made demons made by humans that just happen to resemble Angels. It goes against many of their ideals and could allow humans to glean more information about the origins of the celestial and divine than they might like.

We dont really even know if Angels hate Demons.
Well they wont like them, because they in another political faction, whose goals often differ.

As I understood the first binding of Demons, the summoner could create an Angel looking Demon, if he could get rid of his preconceptions.

Just to be clear it is impossible for a demon to unbind themselves and then rebind themselves with a new name in a horribly painful and soul altering process. First generation bound demons is branded into their bindings as that is always what wizards spells bind to.

Rupert is what I assume is an unbound demon as he lacks that black thing in his chest. The book didn't go into much detail, and from what I know it is unlikely Rupert's true name is his given name, and it is unlikely a god gave him a true name. All the other demons had the black thing in their chest and all demons with a wizard they were bound to had a link to the wizard as an extension of this black thing. You can view the bar scene with Tom, Rupert, and Boggy for clarification of the event of which I speak.