The language of the geomancers in Swallow's Compass...

[Shadha]

Is that a real language, or just based on one? I was expecting something more Chinese, considering the cultural inspirations of the rest of the dungeon and geomancy itself (based on feng shui, if you somehow aren't aware).

It's odd, because it SEEMS (to my untrained eye) to look like Sanskrit, or a similar South Asian language. And at first, I thought they might just be repeating what they just said in whatever language it is, but at the bottom, the wind geomancer uses the same line after saying something entirely different, so that can't be true.

It's also interesting that the Warrior of Light can't understand it, so maybe it's not really a communicating language so much as a magical one? Which would make sense, really. I mean, if arcanists use shapes to control magic, using sounds to control magic isn't a stretch.

None shall trespass the Heart of Water!
Nomak samman vanan vâdâyyâ khâ!

All shall surrender to the flow!
Nohm vâdâyyâ khattah!

None shall trespass the Heart of Earth!
Nomak samman vanan khâvîddhi khâ!

All shall surrender to the weight!
Nohm khâvîddhi khattah!

None shall trespass the Heart of Wind!
Nomak samman vanan vâyyâbeh khâ! (same as below)

All shall surrender to the tempest!
Nohm vâyyâbeh khattah!

[...]

Defend the tamate-bako of geomancy!
Nomak samman vanan vâyyâbeh khâ! (same as above)

I'm just curious because I like the South Asian cultural inspirations in the game, like how the Temple of the Fist has a lot of real Sanskrit used in it.

If anyone has any insight, let me know!

[Cilia]

Sounds like Vietnamese or Hindi... well, that's what comes out of Google's auto-detect, though it doesn't translate the dialogue itself.

[Iscah]

It's also interesting that the Warrior of Light can't understand it

Maybe the English version is our understanding of the spoken other-language?

Also the repeated line with a different translation could be an error. It might be worth posting in the Localisation forum about it.

[Shadha]

Also the repeated line with a different translation could be an error. It might be worth posting in the Localisation forum about it.

I get what you mean, but admittedly it seems unlikely to me that they'd go through all the trouble of inventing magic words just to accidentally duplicate the last line.

It was the wind geomancer who repeated himself, so I'm assuming they're words related to the magic of their chosen elements.

[LineageRazor]

It's kind of odd that we detect foreign words at all. Isn't the Echo supposed to auto-translate for us? It doesn't show us the "original" language when we talk with Beastmen or Dragons or whatever.

Maybe the words are not actual words at all, but some kind of mantra of sounds that are chanted with no real meaning?

[Keever]

Beastmen that we speak with from 2.0 onwards seem to be speaking the common Eorzean tongue, as they also communicate with other NPCs. Dragons are the same. (The great wyrms such as Hraesvelgr and Nidhogg, of course, do their special telekinesis-dragonspeak thing.)

[Naraku_Diabolos]

It's Hindi.

[Shadha]

It's Hindi.

Can you elaborate on that?

...I'm kind of hoping it really is an Indian language, because I know that in Journey to the West (the novel the Monkey King is originally from, in case someone somehow doesn't know that), the "west" in question is India, where Buddhism originated, and the whole point of the book is that they're traveling there to retrieve sacred (Buddhist) texts and return to China with them. So that would be a neat little reference, I think.

[Shadha]

Well, I went and asked a language translation subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/translator/...known_english/

The verdict seems to be that it's just a constructed language made to resemble Indian languages. Which is fine! I just wanted to know for sure. So, yay.