this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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[–] charonn0@startrek.website 8 points 5 hours ago

I once experienced an episode of sleep paralysis with auditory hallucinations. I heard a deep masculine voice speaking in a guttural language that seemed just on the edge of being comprehensible to me. As if it were the primeval language from which all others sprang. The feel of the language in my ear was as familiar as my native tongue. I recognized the cadence, I could discern where one word ended and the next began, whether a sentence was a question, and so forth. But the words themselves were somehow alien.

I strained my senses trying to hear the voice more clearly. What horrible prophesy was I being given? What dreadful task have I been appointed? Am I the keymaster? The antichrist? Am I dying? Oh shit, that's it, isn't it? I'm dying and going to hell. Fuckfuckfuck. Um. I accept Jesus as my savior? ...Buddha? ...Joe Pesci?

Then I snapped out of it and the voice turned out to be the muffled sound of my neighbor's TV. Praise be to Joe Pesci!

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Uhh, billions of years?

The Bible is centered around just 10,000 or less years of total universal history, from what I've seen.

I don't believe that, I'm just explaining the dogma here.

[–] nieminen@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

To be totally fair, Satan and the whole pantheon would have existed for essentially infinite time before earth came about, so I think the point still stands

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 10 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Why not, worked for the church

[–] UPGRAYEDD@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

Satan cant be billions of years old if the universe os less than10,000 years. Latin or something similar was around when Christianity was invented, so it makes sense god and satan would speak it?

[–] Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Latin is the best language though

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Which is why it's spoken all over the world today!

I mean yeah, it is spoken all over the world today!

[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 106 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (2 children)

I kinda thought of it as, "My native tongue is as ancient as the seas, as foundational as the mountains, as incomprehensible to you as the stars are to ants. Anyway, 2000 years ago I had to hire a guy to translate that into one of your languages just so you people could sign a fucking contract. It was a huge mess, guy took twice as long as he quoted me, legal department rejected it three times before it got approved, the whole thing went way over budget. Long story short, I'm not updating the paperwork. You can Google it if you want the fine print."

[–] GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 15 points 12 hours ago

His legal templates are all in Latin, his production code is all in COBOL, etc.

[–] dragonbringerx@lemmy.world 29 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

...and using that for my next dnd campaign! Thanks!

[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 9 points 14 hours ago

LOL, I'm honored, thanks!

[–] BoJackHorseman@lemmy.today 11 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Satan speaks Hebrew in our world.

[–] YesIAmHoomanNoCat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 16 hours ago

Hey, aren't you that horse from horsing around?

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 62 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Honestly, I think Sumerian or Akkadian would be better but Latin does have its charms.

[–] bunkyprewster@startrek.website 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Aramaic seems like it was a big deal for a while

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 hours ago

It was, more in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods in Palestina and Judaea. It takes almost all of its vocabulary from Hebrew. Even at its height, it was basically just a regional language and never had the reach and depth that Greek and Latin had.

It's important if you're studying intertestamental or early Christian texts, but, even then, many were translated to Greek

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 59 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Ehh honestly, can't something as powerful and as long lived as Satan just... Know all spoken languages?

Imagine Satan trying to seduce you, but unable to buy your soul because he can't speak your language fluently. Would be a funny setup, but kinda lame

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 42 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

So if you were like a terminally online furry would Satan be all uwu *buys your soul*

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 27 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

*notices your soul* OwO what's this?

[–] wraekscadu@vargar.org 7 points 1 day ago

That would be kinda hot ngl

[–] BucketBong@p.hobo.social 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Satan: vende mihi animam tuam pro maximo desiderio

Me: what's this about my verandah?

Satan: vende mihi animam tuam pro maximo desiderio

Me: Sorry, I... I got to get going, I got an appointment, hope you get help with whatever the fuck you need.

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[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, for the Western world, classical Latin has a kind of mystique or vibe that other languages don't. People fear the grammar and classical pronunciation is just different enough (all c's are pronounced as "k") to make it sound familiar and foreign.

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[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 6 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yes but how many Sumerian or Akkadian grimoires survive today in their original language?

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Nowhere as many as Latin. As far as ancient languages, Egyptian magical texts definitely outnumber Akkadian and Sumerian.

A large number of surviving Akkadian texts are commercial or official records. The most famous is probably the complaint against Ea Nasir.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

Unfortunately we know what latin sounds like (though most of hollywood has only a vague concept), and nobody speaks ancient Egyptian of Akkadian.

From what I gather even reading either is a nightmare..

[–] Tonava@sopuli.xyz 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah hieroglyphs don't record vowel sounds, so on many accounts we don't actually know how something was pronounced. There's good guesses made based on later phonetics, but there's unavoidably also stuff that's just forever lost. Latin is way easier because we can just use the church latin pronunciation that still survives, don't even need to go for the classical one. It's not like average people know the difference anyway

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago

We also have latin rhymes and even pronunciation guides from many different times, because the romans ended up teaching latin to quite a few people for uhm... less ethical reasons.

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[–] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Have you seen Akkadian? Shits got like 300 letters. Latin was definitely the upgrade.

[–] harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

One of my professors could read Akkadian. He had to master Biblical Hebrew before being allowed to begin studying Akkadian. He said he had hundreds of flashcards and spent at least an hour every day studying them - aside from doing his regular coursework.

I took 25 credit hours each of Biblical Hebrew and Latin, and I am quite content never having attempted Akkadian.

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[–] IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf 14 points 21 hours ago

this is because Satan tries to mimic God and the lsnguage of the Roman Catholic Church is Latin.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 20 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I have a wall in my head that won't accept this as funny because it entirely misses what Satanism is.

It's a response to Christianity, and in its oldest forms, Catholicism. So, the Latin bit should be the default. There wouldn't have been Satanists that were using Aramaic or whatever. Hell, anyone engaging in the equivalent of satan worship from before the creation of satan in the form religious Satanists do worship could have spoken anything from their era anyway.

It's not like there's a ton of examples of satan dictating holy (or unholy) books, but he/she/it would still have spoken the the dark prophets in their own tongue. Why the fuck would you speak Enochian to some random Babylonian? You'd speak Babylonian.

[–] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 11 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (5 children)

I mean (many of) the earliest Bibles were in Coptic (which is still used liturgically by some of the oldest Orthodox churches). Christianity also really inherited that form of dualism more from the Zoroastrians so Avestan is another great option. But if you want to come from the Judaic roots yeah babylon was the origin of the major opposing deities in Judaism's early monolatrist perspective so especially if you're fighting the Abrahamic God with Baal that would be your main pick.

Side Rant: It really cannot be overstated how much the Catholic church really fucked up Christianity. It was originally a syncretistic anti imperialist death cult (in that you would martyr yourself by publicly accepting death over imperialism). If I ever got a time machine Athanasius of Alexandria is much higher on my list than Hitler. It's not even that I'm specifically opposed to trinitarianism—the number three does seem significant to some universal truth across numerous cultures (Plato's chariot, Taoist three elements of destiny, even Freud to name a few)—but killing people en masse over it is unspeakable. And to have subsequent traditions who were supposedly otherwise anti-catholic in any other respect still specifically follow in the tradition of murder for some reason is ridiculous.

[–] tomenzgg@midwest.social 1 points 1 hour ago

If you're talking about the time of Athanasius, Catholicism doesn't exist; The Great Schism hasn't occurred, yet.

[–] toynbee@piefed.social 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Reading this comment finally helped me understand why new lemmings complain about the prevalence of Linux users here.

[–] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I have no idea how to take this comment.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 3 points 19 hours ago

I was thinking more that Satan, as we know the entity is largely a product of creation grafted onto older things all hodgepodge.

No reason said entity couldn't adopt older languages if it was real, obviously.

But, in terms of Satanists, they're such a comparatively modern thing that them using Latin makes sense for multiple reasons

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 3 points 20 hours ago

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew.

The New Testament was written in Koine Greek.

The Copts speak a descendant language of Egyptian.

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[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

Same with Enigma.

[–] ledasll@lemmy.wtf 1 points 15 hours ago

What if he thought that language?

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 10 points 1 day ago

Well it’s the ecclesiastical language of Christianity, and the Satanic cults depicted are typically couched in Biblical mythology.

[–] pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I expect that the idea is to be a dark mirror of Catholic masses (Black Masses, etc.) but this somehow brings to mind the mental image of a Satanist Martin Luther nailing a list of 95 grievances to the door of some wicked temple and translating the Black Mass into German for the accessibility of the common Satanist folks who don't know Latin.

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