Magic Names

[Daren]

The title says it all, I keep asking myself where they took the names of the various magic spells and techniques for all original PS games.
Foi, Tsu, Zan, Wat, etc, are all cool names but what do they stand for and where did they come from?

[LegoMuskCat]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought "Tsu" was mistranslated from "Thu" (if you look at the other techs in that group, they are indeed Githu and Nathu). "Tsu", being a light tech, strikes me as a shortened version of "Thunder" (it is effective against machines in PSIV).

"Wat" could be water (though it looks icy) and "Foi" somehow is some form of...fire? Stumped on Foi. Zan, I have no idea what it could be, but "Gra" may be shortened from "gravity".

Someone else here may be more knowledgeable on this subject than I am, but those are my thoughts.

[Zucca]

I've always thought that Zan is wind.

[BenoitRen]

I don't know where most of the names came from, but a lot of them are unromanised parts of their name in romanji.

Tsu comes from Gurantsu, which is romanised as Grants. What's weird is that in Phantasy Star Online, it is a light Technique, and the lightning Techniques are the Zonde family.

Wat comes from Wata, which I think is the poorly written romanji of Baata, romanised as Barta.

Gra comes from Gurabuto, romanised as Gravt. Could be a weird way to spell "gravity".

Res is Resuta, romanised as Resta. Sar is a type of Resta, called Saresta, but it was shortened in English.

As for magic, a lot of is the same magic as in the original Phantasy Star, but with weird romanisations.

• Flaeli = Fire
• Hewn = Wind

[Tanith]

I like how foi is spelled foie in at least one Sega publication. There's also that action shot of Kara zapping a robot with "FOIE!" written above it. I can only think "liver" when I see foie, though.

Crys: We're cornered by Killers! They'll flail their arms rapidly until we get so annoyed we stab ourselves! Ready yourselves... on my word... CHARGE!
Mieu: SLASH SLASH
Wren: RATTATTA
Kara: FOIE
*Killers are covered in duck liver*
Crys: What the hell is that supposed to do?!
Kara: Uhh... make them tasty?

[Shadowcaster]

Well, according to the Compendium Lutz brought the techniques from a faraway star system.. whatever that star system may be, it is/was most likely the language the people use(d) there.

[BenoitRen]

"Foie" is actually the proper romanisation of the fire Technique. Phantasy Star Online uses it, among other proper romanisations.

[Tanith]

Foie is still awful, no matter how proper a romanization it might be.

[Wing-0]

Foie is still awful, no matter how proper a romanization it might be.

Wh-why does it make you think of duck liver?

It may be because I'm not a native English speaker, but I really don't understand the connection between foie and a duck's liver...

[Tanith]

Foie means "liver" in French, and there's a well-known French cuisine called "foie gras" which is made of a specially-fattened duck or goose liver. It's actually quite delicious, though PETA psychos would probably shoot me in the face for saying so.

[Wing-0]

I am a part of PETA...
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People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

This joke got me banned from another forum...

[skymandr]

Hmm... Hewn is definitely onomatopoeic: Hyuuuu is the sound of a strong wind.

The name "Grants" could actually be "Glanz", a German word that means "gleam", "shine" etc. This would with it being a light technique, and also with the proposition I've seen somewhere that Foie is not a Japanification of "fire" but of the German "Feuer".

[BenoitRen]

I'm a French speaker, but the Foie-liver connection isn't so strong for me. You don't pronounce it the same, anyway. Phantasy Star Foie is "foy-ehh".

[Wing-0]

How do you pronounce liver, then?

[Tanith]

Not a French speaker, so I might be way off, but it's roughly "fwah" I believe. Maybe not so much "ah," but "ay." Somewhere in between those. I suck a French so I try not to pronounce it if I can. And it's only mildly ridiculous (understatement) that you were banned from another forum for a funny PETA joke. Unless it was a PETA forum.

And about pronunciation of any of these magic names: See, the problem for me is that unless you can actually read the Japanese characters and then sound them out, or they're pronounced by a voice actor in a game (which may be the case in PSO, I don't really know), it's up to the translators to use the best phonetic spellings possible and in English, a non-phonetic language, it's really hard. Not to mention the storage constraints of the early cartridges hindered that even further. So I've adopted my own pronunciations based on the available information given when the games were released. "FOY" it is for me.

And I really like the idea of Hewn being an onomatopeia. I see HYUUUU all the time in manga, and it's always been an interesting cultural difference for me, since I would say the common wind sound in American English would probably be HOOOOOO. Not a huge difference, but I still like differing takes on onomatopeias. There was a segment on Marina Orlova's "Hot For Words" blog a while back where she went over some Russian onomatopeias.