Guest Article: Latin Runewords

Im surprised no one mentioned Zod, Most take it to be a reference to General Zod from <whatever -- the name escapes me>

Mmm. I should probably not post here, Ill get sucked back in ~_~ I spose no one remembers me either ;)

Interesting info about the runes though, I didnt realize that the first letters in runewords usually spelled something O_o

ROT -- heh, thats great.

-Neo
 
Homunculus means "Little Man". You would think it would have bonuses to Summoning Skills.

Pelta Lunata has something to do with the moon. Off the top of my head, I would say "skin of the moon", but then the bottom of my head says that would be "Derma Lunata". Visceratuant = "Gut Killer"?

Something nobody seems to have pointed out: Chaos=FalOhmUm=FOU (French for crazy, which chaos is).
 
Ama-SOY said:
Hi all !

About the 'Shael' case :

The Hebrew word 'Shaal' (or 'Shael') means 'to inquire'.
It is also the base word for the name 'Saul', who was the first 'King' of Israel according to the bible.

More info here :
http://www.midtermpapers.com/view/Religion/1_samuel.shtml

Greetz,
Ama-SOY

PS : Nice article :thumbsup:
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1. I doubt that Shael has anything to do with inquiries. With all the forms of "Shaal", "Shael" does not come up, and I doubt that it would be pronounced as "Sha-el" in DII.
2. As for Saul, that's a load of crap. Saul's name is the root of Solomon, which uses the hebrew letter samech instead of the hebrew letter shin (which is what is in the root for "Shaal")
 
Yavanna said:
Homunculus means "Little Man". You would think it would have bonuses to Summoning Skills.

Pelta Lunata has something to do with the moon. Off the top of my head, I would say "skin of the moon", but then the bottom of my head says that would be "Derma Lunata". Visceratuant = "Gut Killer"?

Something nobody seems to have pointed out: Chaos=FalOhmUm=FOU (French for crazy, which chaos is).
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I already pointed out Pelta Lunata and Homunculus in a previous post...including a lot of other items...I'm so glad to know you read through before you posted.
 
Ferrous said:
Well, like a lot of figures in physics, greek letters (like Ohm) pop up...so the classical reference is there as a greek letter, but as you said, nothing more than that.
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Ohm is indeed term in physics, meaning a unit of electrical resistance. It is named after a German scientist, Georg Simon Ohm - the author of Ohm's Law.
The Greek letter is Omega, and its use as a symbol in this connection would appear to be a sort of learned pun.
 
Jugalator said:
In relation to this, there's a little known hidden feature in Blizzard's runewords. The first letter in each rune of the runeword have a relation to what the runeword does. This doesn't apply to *all* runewords, but some of them:

Maybe these are coincidences, however the following definitely aren't:

1.10:

Bramble: Rose (RalOhmSurEth). Don't need any explanation :)

Breath of the Dying: Vheeze (VexHelElEldZodEth). From wheeze.

Call to Arms: Armio (AmnRalMalIstOhm). Note: this one was changed for balance reasons. The original was, as you may imagine -- Armi. Most likely from "Army".

Eternity: Abiss (AmnBerIstSolSur). Probably from "abyss". As when you're sent to the abyss / hell, you stay there for an eternity.

Exile: Void (VexOhmIstDol).

Famine: Fooj (FalOhmOrtJah). Might have been "Food" in a 1.10 beta and changed for balance reasons.
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I think you can also include "Hand of Justice" (Sur + Cham + Amn + Lo) or SCAL (scale, without the e for some reason). This would, of course, be some sort of reference to the personification of justice, which always seems to be blindfolded and holding a set of scales.
 
Suggestions...

Hello everyone! I've tried to figure out the roots of the runes for a while too...

How about lum->lumen=light(lat.) like in 'lumen mundi' = light of the world or lux mundi said someone abot somebody in the bible.. would that be energy?
Elektron(greek)=SHINY/mix of gold and silver used in coins.. light radius(el)?
Thule(gr)=northern regions like scandinavia, propably has somethin to do with cold? at least it feels like cold...:)
Pul:'pulvis et umbra sumus'=we are dust and shadow, would this earthly thinkin help against demons?
Elements:tallium used on ratpoison..
helium- the lightest, low reg..
From the sky? Zodiacus? pretty old, maybe not indestructible..
Chamaelon? another animal above... 'cause it changes color maybe it cannot be frozen???
 
psuedoenviro said:
Checked up on shael and hebrew. Closest thing I could find was Mishael that breaksdown to mesha which means "freedom".

Maybe "freedom" from attacking really slowly since shael adds to ias.

Note: I've never taken Hebrew course, just ran a quick Hebrew dictionary search. In fact, I'm Roman Catholic and have never been molested by a priest as far as I can remember.

Oh yeah, mal could just be spanish for bad.
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There's a star called Shaula, propably has a story too..
 
I can definitely see how "Zod" would be related to the Zodiacs and how the constellations are indestructible....well...maybe on second thought, that could be a bit farfetched...
 
Yavanna said:
Homunculus means "Little Man". You would think it would have bonuses to Summoning Skills.

Pelta Lunata has something to do with the moon. Off the top of my head, I would say "skin of the moon", but then the bottom of my head says that would be "Derma Lunata". Visceratuant = "Gut Killer"?

Something nobody seems to have pointed out: Chaos=FalOhmUm=FOU (French for crazy, which chaos is).
Click to expand...
As for Homunculus, the D2 use of the word is not in line with the 'dictionary definition' but with another use of the word. A homunculus is in sorcery a manufactured familiar, generally made from the owner's blood or tissue, etc. This is backed up by the reference to the blood golem in the Summit skills section as being a homunculus. You people just try too hard sometimes, when the answer was right there all along:P
 
Ferrous said:
I can definitely see how "Zod" would be related to the Zodiacs and how the constellations are indestructible....well...maybe on second thought, that could be a bit farfetched...
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maybe zodiacus is based on some zod-like word in ancient latin meaning 'ageless' or somethin..maybe.
 
You guys probably know this but Ohm is a unit of measurement used to measure electrical resistances. You can abstractly get why they would put 50% Ed on Ohm since it is related to power. Another relation I think I've figured out is Io. Io is also a moon of Jupiter. Many years ago scientists thought that Io might have supported life. Therefore +10 Vitality on the Io rune is justifiable. Hel on the other hand is related to Norse Mythology.Hel was the goddess of death and the Underworld, daughter of Loki. I have no idea what other relation to the rune you can think of. Well there's my two cents, hope you've found enlightenment.
 
ya...i know some latin too, in honors latin 2, and it really is a weak argument and the latin is horrible.......so bad.........i cant say nething else cuz theres nutin to describe it....know whats better than carpe diem....carpe praedam...seize the booty....
 
kimahri112 said:
ya...i know some latin too, in honors latin 2, and it really is a weak argument and the latin is horrible.......so bad.........i cant say nething else cuz theres nutin to describe it....know whats better than carpe diem....carpe praedam...seize the booty....
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If I may, (I've already showed my standpoint, but in case there be any confusion), I'm a latin student myself, and I am currently in the midst of translating the "Aeneid" (Book for, Dido gets jiggy with Aeneas for any interested). Anyways, clearly Diablo has influences from a lot of different cultures, the classical Roman/Greek being quite significant. I think Blizzard tried to play that up in some of its runewords - so I think that in terms of the connection, it's certainly there, but Blizzard might not have presented it so well, for your own tastes. (I think Blizzard has done some rather clever things, especially in DII. Given their other more popular games, Blizzard is good at putting in little tidbits....sheep going "Ba ram u" etc., for instance).
 
kimahri112 said:
ya...i know some latin too, in honors latin 2, and it really is a weak argument and the latin is horrible.......so bad.........i cant say nething else cuz theres nutin to describe it....know whats better than carpe diem....carpe praedam...seize the booty....
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As to the argument being weak, that point was made in the very first post in this thread, and my reply may be found in the third post.
When you say the Latin is bad - yes I agree, I even admitted it in the article itself. However, I note that your implied concession that what I wrote was indeed Latin (albeit bad Latin) not gibberish, which is all I have ever claimed myself.
 
Well since 'lumen' can be translated 'the light of life' or 'life' it pretty much looks like source for 'lum'(+10energy). Btw, cause findin basewords for runes is pretty much waste of time and goddamn frustrating I can see the temptation to make 'em up..
 
i thought it was a funny play, i guess if u'r taking latin then u won't find it funny...

alma negra means black soul
it could mean dark soul but dark = oscuro (in spanish) and black = negro (but since alma is a female noun then adjective becomes negra, sorry for the lesson in spanish)
but i thought it was a bad name for the pally shield
maybe if it gave 100% chance to cast lvl 1000 lightning on striking it'd make some sense (yeah u all remember the first week of patch and swearing it was lvl 1000 those black souls were launching)

and about zod, someone sorta mentioned it earlier but was vague about it
i think it might have some roots in japanese folklore
that's my guess cuz it's used in an anime (japanese of course) called beserk
the hero takes on Nosferatu Zodd (Zodd The Immortal) just google for "Zodd Immortal" and u'll see tons of hits about Berserk episodes 6-9) and this dude is indestructible... it could be the anime creators stole this from non-japanese folklore also

LOTS of games/books/movies/etc. have allusions to latin/mythology/other civilizations (not necessarily defunct) and obviously diablo had to grab names from roman and medieval times (e.g. ballista, u know this if u played warcraft 2, sounds lots fancier than ur generic catapult or large-projectile-launcher)

for you who take the author's take on the latin connection way too seriously, remember that he posted cuz he thought it was funny not because he wanted to win the nobel prize for research in literature
 
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