Universal Translation Spell

When you first step onto te surface of an unfamiliar world, the first thing you want to do is be able to communicate with the folks who live there. And what better way to do so than through a quick and simple spell so easy, it's often the first one a prospective mage learns?

He laid his hand on his forehead and then let the hand drop away. Suddenly, the confused mess of syllables miraculously crystallized into words and phrases.
"I asked, my friend, if you wanted to look at something incredibly powerful deep in our vaults?" And, well, coming from someone like him, how could I refuse?

Breaking Down Barriers

The Universal Translation Spell (often referred to as translation charms or translating spells) takes the words of a sentient creature - that is, any creature that can be affected by the Mind Form - and transforms them into comprehensible speech irregardless of the language's origin. If one speaks, for example, Grequin and someone else casts the spell who does not understand that tongue, the Grequin will change to reflect their native tongue.
One of the beauties of such a simple spell is that it works whether the castor knows the language to be translated or not. That's where the Mind magic kicks in; the spell causes the target's intended meaning to be translated more than the actual words. Whether it's a rare dialect of a language or its most widely spoken standard, complex business jargon or even the ramblings of a millennia-old magical statue, the words suddenly change and warp to make the most sense to the person casting the spell. 

But Not Without Its Disadvantages

UTS's are not always perfectly reliable or a cure-all. For one, they do leave minute magical traces that powerful or perceptive demons can catch the scent of. This means field agents often are natives of the area or hire local guides or translators to prevent detection. In addition, the following problems can arise:

• idioms and very specific words that have no equivalent in the target language might not translate over perfectly, as the spell translates words and rearranges them in a comprehensible order, but doesn't deal with cultural translation in that sense;
• common performance mistakes (such as stutters, lisps, repetitive phrases, or mispronunciations) in speech will confuse the spell. This can cause it to reproduce the mistaken sounds in isolation then artificially adding in the rest of the sentence around it. This can be rather jarring or even cause the spell to fail completely; and
• the speaker's tongues, vocal chords, lips, teeth, etc. will still move in their natural patterns irregardless of the translated words. This is actually a common way to tell that someone is using a translation spell, as actual speakers of one's native tongue will speak normally, but translated speakers will have their mouths move incorrectly. 

Lastly, a UTS is hardly permanent. It needs to be recast regularly in order for the effect to continue at full strength; if it begins to wane, the native sounds and diction will begin to increase in volume and replace the translated speech until it completely dominates once more.

Related Form

Mind

Somatic Classification

E to reverse E

The Most Important Spell

Naturally, in strongly multicultural places like Limbo, this spell becomes of utmost importance. In fact, the Sunless City has a permanent Universal Translation Spell woven into the rituals of the Argent Wards in order to facilitate the running of such a diverse city. Other planetary hubs might have guilds of translators that fulfill this role, or have mages learning at international academies learn this spell before attending.

Now all we need is something that can do this for writing and we're all set!

— Overheard at the Circum Academy

What About Writing?

Sadly, no easy spell of this sort exists for textual forms of communication. While it is possible to interweave a version of this spell into the pages of a manuscript so that it can be read by anyone (see Universally Translated Books), it is a much more involved and monetarily-taxing process that involves an expert in the language of the book and many months of careful focused work to function properly.