random lore thing I noticed, can dev clarify?

[♡Bastard™]

this isn't very important at all I'm just genuinely curious because I'm a language / detail nerd and I always find fictional languages and their use very interesting. I like the inclusion of Ethenian and Antahain (even the names sound very Biblical; 'Ethenian' sounding similar to "Eden" and "ethereal" - and 'Antahain' like "Antichrist" and "Samhain") and find their structures pretty cool, even if just for lore purposes.

I noticed that on the letting papers there is writing that mostly corresponds to certain words listed in the night shift database. it looks like "Ei Nayn Osif (or Osit?) Fovim"

The phrase uses words from both Ethenian and Antahain:

"Ei" is the Antahain equivalent of "me or I", or in this case a possessive, so "my"
"Nayn" is the Ethenian word for "name"
"Osit" or "Osif"? doesn't appear in the list, nor is any word close; the only word starting with an 'O' is "Osum", the Ethenian word for 'human', which doesn't make sense in this phrase or context
"Fovim" is the Ethenian word for "Fire" / 'to burn'

So disregarding the unknown third word, 'Ei nayn fovim' being on the letting paper can be essentially translated to something like "My name [brings / creates / is] fire"

Interestingly, there is a word listed that means 'create' already - "Manef" in Ethenian, "Mukef" in Antahain - so that would work here if the dev changed the third word on the letting paper... although I can't help but think that word is there on purpose, given the amount of detail and thought put into the lore everywhere else. So I'm curious what that word is supposed to be... although in the end I suppose it doesn't change anything, the words that can be translated make sense as is, saying that the demon's name (the sigils) bring fire (combusting the paper). Just a neat little detail I felt like sharing. Now wondering if there's more translations to be found...

edit: grammar fixes

[Lord_William]

It is weird that both languages are mixed, isn't it? The meaning behind the phrase may be completely different, such as "My words burn the name [of the demon]" or "I burn to [reveal] the name", or even "Humans burn me to reveal the name", but we don't know the noun/verb/article order, nor if it's actually a phrase (may be like runnes, just concepts).
I do think that the third word must have some specific meaning, as trying to understand a phrase with 3 of the 4 words, so if someone finds out what it means or why is not included (it may be a real word), then we'll have a clue.

[♡Bastard™]

Originally posted by Lord_William:

It is weird that both languages are mixed, isn't it? The meaning behind the phrase may be completely different, such as "My words burn the name [of the demon]" or "I burn to [reveal] the name", or even "Humans burn me to reveal the name", but we don't know the noun/verb/article order, nor if it's actually a phrase (may be like runnes, just concepts).
I do think that the third word must have some specific meaning, as trying to understand a phrase with 3 of the 4 words, so if someone finds out what it means or why is not included (it may be a real word), then we'll have a clue.

at first I thought so too, but then I noticed that of the 3 words with provided definitions, only 'Ei' is Antahain, and because the letting strip's specific purpose is to reveal the name of a demon and not an angel, using the language of the demons rather than angels to refer to a demon in the possessive makes sense lore-wise. for all we know, using the Ethenian version might make the letting strip nonfunctional, since the inscription would indicate for it to react to an angelic name / sigil, perhaps.

what I've also noticed after posting this is the structure of the phrase on the letting strip vs in the database. in all 3 vocalized examples of the Antahain language in the database, "Ei" is the last word, despite its corresponding translation ("me", "my" or "I") showing up in different parts of the provided sentence:

"Koseem Kohtrish ku ei"
['I will drink your blood (of sin)']

"Grav ukain ei"
['Pray in my name']

"Shont Feriskar ei"
['Fear the arrival of my house']

It might just be how Antahain is structured as a language, but it seems odd that the letting strip doesn't apparently follow it, as 'ei' shows up first, not last. and it being backwards isn't the case as the translation wouldn't make grammatical sense, shown by the other above examples where the words follow the left to right pattern of an English sentence aside from 'ei' and 'ku', so it seems to be a rule that all possessives get stacked at end, regardless of where the English equivalent is.

It might be because a human (I'm assuming Raymond or Mr. Salah made the letting strips, I don't remember if its specified in the game) made the strips, they were written in order of English translation, with "me / my / I" first.

all of these are such small things but I'm ever more curious as to the answer...

[bzald]

at first i thought he got the idea from Enochian language

[Lord_William]

Yes, I assumed this was sort of "in-universe Enochian" too; playing the game I honestly wondered why not just use enochian for an interesting easter egg.