Playing Elden Ring, you might be forgiven for thinking, "Wow! Some of these soundtracks have super cool chanting. I bet that's some amazing Latin or some other ancient, dead language and the meaning really adds to what's going on." You'd be wrong, however, as one student of languages has discovered: It's just gibberish manipulated to sound like real words in an ancient tongue.
A dedicated Elden Ring fan who goes by Magister-Organi on Reddit and Antonius Tertius on YouTube has spent more than a little time tracking down information on the Elden Ring soundtrack bits that sound like Latin. After speaking to some people involved in their creation, Magister-Organi has confirmed that they're nonsense syllables.
"The composers and other music producers used phrase builders and vocal libraries to create most of the song lyrics of Elden Ring. Then the lyrics were later revised in order to look like Latin in several songs. Finally, last minute changes were made in the recording process to facilitate the choir's singing," says Magister-Organi in a video on the theme for Mohg, Lord of Blood.
There's one exception, however: The harpy's song of lament. You've probably found those creepy, singing bat-women around the Lands Between. Well, their song is real Latin—which people have known for months—and can be translated into modern languages. Magister-Organi was able to track down the original singer and get a copy of the lyrics to confirm. His translation tracks with my dusty four years of Latin classes, so you know it's right. You can find more on that on YouTube.
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