The Life Cycle of Dangerous Words | Worldbuilding

[@sam_12845]

This makes me wonder what advanced staged of magic might be like in this world. As there are agricultural innovations and populations grows, more and more sirksey can spend their time perfecting their lies and manipulation skills. You could take a dark turn, as they could eventually brainwash the goddess into accepting everything they say, with doublethink and gaslighting breaking her mind. That could backfire, as she loses grip on reality and even the sirksey lose control over their world. But maybe they eventually come to understand her, and build a more mutual relationship with the goddess rather than an exploitative one.

[@jimothyworldbuilding3664]

"Goddess please don't set my stuff on fire I just want to explain how to cook this thing to my daughter." "Huh? Daughter? *Fire?* Well, if you say so."

[@azutheboredcat2441]

This makes me think of another, signed language being formed so they wouldn’t have to speak when talking about fire. A language used in medicine, to discuss health more freely. Maybe this leads to a writing system based on the signs, but maybe the language never forms at all, out of fear that silence itself would become dangerous.

[@summertilling]

This is great. It reminds me of people avoiding words that a dog or small child might have learnt, except now the dog is a great and powerful goddess.

[@Mysteri0usChannel]

W A L K

[@foodstuff]

Feels like certain enterprising might start using gestures as opposed to words - the goddess can't hear what's not being said! However, taking that to its logical conclusion, the goddess might start interpreting short breaks in sentences as signals to start fires... So maybe they say a completely unrelated word and the gesture overrides the meaning to "fire". This *might* defeat the treadmill... or start loading all sorts of unintentional words onto it!

[@sleepy.timaeus.arts.]

oo i love this idea!

[@lipamanka]

This magic system is actually genius! I wonder if the goddess can understand any language, or just one?

[@KenHilton]

On one hand, I would think it'd be just the one - if she could understand all languages, then she has some power to understand any language without learning it, so how could inventing new words obscure the meaning? On the other hand, if she only understands one, then what makes that one so special? On the other other hand, there might literally only be one language, considering so far there seems to only be one people who seem localized enough that new languages would have a hard time forming.

[@NakariSpeardane]

She can't magically understand multiple languages. If new words (or whole new languages) appear, she has to learn them from context.

[@lipamanka]

@@KenHilton That makes a lot of sense. I was thinking that in books like Eragon, there's an ancient language that makes magic possible, and this would be a perfect way to depict that - an ancient goddess who speaks the old language and only understands that. But it's genius no matter how it's depicted.

[@davidjoffe-hunter7016]

I really like this relationship with the goddess - both needing her for food and fire, and in an ongoing struggle to stay one step ahead of her. It's a very interesting dynamic to explore further

[@mattricks21]

If their goddess forgets the name they used for flame 9 months ago, they could develop a seasonal language system, with diffefent words for things like fire depending on what season it is. :)

[@AHealthyDoseofFran]

I love seeing new people's studies and explorations of magic systems. Also, so random but, your voice is really calming - great video! Can't wait to see what else you do

[@chrysolite2842]

This video is FIRE!! wait...

[@shadowsfromolliesgraveyard6577]

Gaslighting gone literal.

[@Alice-gr1kb]

Oh I love this! That’s a cool take on the euphemism cycle!

[@theskeletonposse6432]

Good stuff, glad I subscribed. Keep up the good work.

[@vipza72130]

I truly like how magic works in your world and you twisted the concept to get unexpected cultural results ^^

[@disgruntledbob2812]

I’ve watched your vids over a few times now and your magic system has always fascinated me. A recent thought that popped up was if the goddess ever learns to distrust certain people’s voices who use magic too much and starts believing them less often, impeding their magic? Could be one of those ‘limitations’ magic system videos keep talkin’ about. Adds a consequence to relying toooo heavily on it. But that was more of a question than a suggestion anyway, I’m already in love with the Sirksey and their magic. Some quality WBing!

[@GilTheDragon]

Your magic system has been bouncing in my head so much. Like how does it deal with homophones or long term linguistic drift? or does the magic only work within certain variance of a given language; giving rise to "mundane" languages for things like names? culturally how do the sirskey deal with speech impediments? Do they just go X can talk for a while until the person can speak? Could it be used to alter someone's appearance "X is handsome" or "X is ugly" or physical ability "X can run fast" is talking about the dead as if they were still alive an extreme taboo bc then you get those soulless ghosts? & likewise talking of someone as if they're dead is also frowned upon bc it might kill them... so euphemisms like "X who isn't here" arise; maybe they're dead, maybe they're not, one doesn't say so as to not affect things

[@drflohimflow]

this conlang sound very very nice

[@KenHilton]

Is lighting fire toggle-on, toggle-off? e.g. "this torch is now burning", "this torch is no longer burning"? or is it on while saying? e.g. "this torch is still burning, this torch is still burning, this torch is still burning" If the former, how does the goddess remember the states of everything? or does she just not, and that's part of the challenge of using magic? If the latter, some things must get pretty inconvenient - they'd have to conjure flint & steel, light the torch, then allow the flint & steel to vanish.

[@NakariSpeardane]

It's the second one! You can turn the torch on by saying it's burning, then use it to light *another* torch. That way, when you stop saying the torch is alight, the original torch will go out but the one you just lit will stay on. There's no need for flints (and they've probably forgotten that flints were ever needed).

[@osuf3581]

Your ideas and videos are so creative!

[@MRCOLOURfilld]

Similar to the Bear euphemism treadmill. Its hypothesized that fear that saying the name Bear would summon the bear a la “speak of the devil” so in areas with more/more dangerous bears the words for bear got recycled faster.

[@Den-dd5pp]

This magic system is so cool! Way more creative than anything ive ever come up with for sure. I do have a question, though. If the godess only hears/rarely ever watches, would people not very quickly learn like a hand movement/symbol to "say" fire without making a sound? Its what I'd default to if presented with this issue.. Sorry for commenting on such an old video lol

[@NakariSpeardane]

When I made this, I was thinking that while the Sirksey do use signs in their language, that would run parallel to spoken language entirely rather than having some words spoken, some words signed. So while they would have some signs for fire, they'd also need a way to talk about it. Since then... yeah, I have changed my mind a bit on that, but this was fun linguistics so I want to keep it :P (Also, if you don't mind me asking, how did you find my channel? Quite a lot of new faces recently which is cool but I'm curious :D)

[@Den-dd5pp]

@@NakariSpeardane kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKm6ZZh5qcirbqs im pretty sure it was this video which mentioned your channel name and i went "oh boy more worldbuilding content lets investigate!!" and here i am! (its at about minute 26!!)

[@Aziza-Roo]

What if people started mouthing words as euphemisms? And gradually it evolved into like a facial sign language, with no advanced or complicated grammar. Only for these dangerous words, and the most dangerous wolf have very obvious facial moments. I don’t imagine there would be a ton of words using this method and it wouldn’t Be its own language but it would be used in tandem w the words from the video!

[@vanivanov9571]

Very interesting. They might want to consider sign language.

[@jjthepikazard212]

v cool. i love the idea of magic coming from belief

[@PhilosoShysGameChannel]

This goddess in the sky is REALLY cool! Can't get over her! Excellent soft divine magic system!

[@iknowthetruthindeed1307]

that was super cool!!!!! damn!

[@xenomorph6599]

Would doctors perhaps be people who pinpoint exactly what's wrong with the person's body, and then specifically point it out as healthy to make it so? Example, broken wrist --> "You wrist is unbroken and strong" or a cough -->"Your lungs are clear and healthy"?

[@NakariSpeardane]

Yes, though this would only work temporarily - with visible things like the broken wrist, you could always cast magic for long enough to make it look unbroken, leave it like that for a while, and it'll be unbroken sooner than normal. That only works for visible things, though. The cough would have to heal naturally.

[@voidify3]

this kind of treadmill reminds me of like the whole “unalive” thing

[@voidify3]

Where the goddess is the algorithm

[@laylawinter]

this is rad

[@naltlan7651]

what if everyone begins screaming its summer?

[@NakariSpeardane]

Good question! For a little while, it would be summer. Some people would be standing on ice, and fall into the sea when summer came and melted the ice - so some voices would be lost quite fast. Plants would blossom in seconds. But soon enough winter would return, the plants would blossom, and people would be trapped under a new layer of ice. Maybe this could be used in battle... but it would take an incredible amount of people.

[@naltlan7651]

@@NakariSpeardane maybe their armies are simply people screaming abouth how the batlle is going like, "whe killed a thousand enemies" or for a less powerfull way, they use simple tools made out of bones and leather,and keep saying its a "shiny weapon of great quality"

[@AnkhAnanku]

@@naltlan7651 this sounds like how children argue while playing make-believe, but decidedly more deadly

[@voidify3]

@@AnkhAnanku like that scene in sandman

[@ihavenocreativeideasforach5530]

What would happen if someone said something like “the goddess stops listening”?

[@dododojo905]

Does this magic system imply that the world exists in a sort of state of solipsism? That is, only things that people are currently observing and/or talking about actually exist?

[@Kay-ql2wl]

I wonder whether the goddess can forget, and they can recycle old words? Or perhaps she remembers for so long that the language has changed by the time it would be safe to use a word again

[@jojotanner4761]

[@6es282]

If she's blind, then they should just use sign language when talking about fire.

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Have they invented sign language?

[@6es282]

@@Ggdivhjkjl If they haven't, then I am confused because it seems pretty obvious that they should find a way to communicate without sound. If they haven't invented sign language, they could try drawing a symbol for fire in the snow or something.