Translation magic

Presentation of an absolutely essential piece of magic that really helped make my initial time in Sérannie a lot less painful and confusing that it could have been—and that's saying a lot!

— Isabelle

Isabelle

Isabelle is a young French woman who was brought through a magical portal to Sérannie, hit with translation magic, and told to help the Séranniens beat their Dark Lord. Only, once the questing party triumphed, she was forced back to the normal world. She is rather bitter about that.

While looking for a way to go back, she writes journal entries about her time in Sérannie to not forget what happened and to prepare for her return, illustrating her notebook by sticking postits with emojis scribbles, drawing, or printing photos.

The magic

Contrary to its name, translation magic does not, in fact, translate anything. After all, it is associated with only one language, not two.
It is a magic that has to be cast on one person at a time. Once it has been done, the magic will slowly dissipate over time; the length of time it lingers depends on the strength it has been infused with, going from a few hours to a few weeks. After this, it needs to be renewed, either by the same caster or a different one—the first one being preferred as the consistency helps the person on which it is cast learns the language faster, which is, after all, the main objective of this type of magic.

Translation magic works by putting images or impressions in the mind of the person on which it has been cast when that person hears a word in the language associated with the magic. And let me tell you that it's just as bloody confusing as it sounds.

Understanding any word in isolation is hard if they're not basic nouns or adjectives. Understanding a full sentence is easier, but it takes a while for your brain to process it, so you better hope that everyone around you is being considerate and speaks very slowly with lots of pauses. But of course, no one actually is, let alone all those arrogant nobles!

Translation magic by AmélieIS with an image from Vetcteezy

My experience

As soon as I arrived in Sérannie, I was slapped with some translation magic, but it took me forever to be able to actually make sense of what was happening!

It was basically impossible to follow any conversation with me only understanding one word every minute. Worse, it took me weeks before I was able to take hold of the magic and work it in reverse, grasping some words one by one until I was able to ask a basic question.

Of course, translation magic is very difficult, but I'm also pretty sure that the company I was in did not help at all.

It took me literally months of silently listening to everyone before I was able to fully follow what they were all saying, and even longer before I was able to participate without sounding like a toddler. Of course, once I made friend with Romain and actually started talking with someone, it got better...

The way the magic works is really strange. Since it's only putting images and impressions in my brain, I'm still the one who has to come up with actual translations. Most of those are pretty obvious, but others are conscious choices I made after some deliberations.

Sérannian society by Prospero Piatti

Take the concept of "Dark Lord", for example. It's a really weird one. What is even a Dark Lord? The one we had in Sérannie was basically a mixture of a terrorist and would-be revolutionary. Someone attempting a coup d'état. Yet, what struck all Séranniens the most was that he was using extremely taboo Illusion magic. And he was also a mysterious figure whose true identity was unknown but who was surrounded by rumours. And so I decided that Dark Lord was really fitting for his title.

by Peter Forster on Unsplash

For other words, I decided not to translate them at all but to use the Sérannian words, as it made more sense. This is for stuff like food (tarcie leaves and lariche fruit), material types (roanne wood), or musical instruments (faniol).

Lariche fruits by Annie Stein

And of course, while translation magic helps a lot with speaking the language, it is practically useless with reading their ideograms and runes. Better than nothing, but I can tell you that I've struggled with their damned books, and only the fact that they contained the secrets to magical wonders—and the fact that I had nothing better to do for years but read—helped me decipher them!

But after seven years living in Sérannie, I am proud to say that I am completely fluent in the language!

Sérannian runes by AmélieIS