InfoMofo
How to Conjugate Final Fantasy Spells
May 04, 2009
an excerpt from my unpublished book: 101 Final Fantasy Spells.
Final Fantasy spells are a synthetic language with a moderate-to-high degree of inflection which shows up mostly in the spell conjugation.
The Final Fantasy spell system is separated into 3 distinct inflections indicating the degree of the spell. Final Fantasy spells represent a pro-drop language, as the object of the spell is generally limited by the intention.
A large number of spells are irregular. The rest fall into one of three regular conjugations, which have -rx endings (where x represents any vowel or affricative consonant sound.
The basic -rx ending typically indicates a single target, while the advanced ending -ra typically indicates a more powerful single target (formal). The multiple target ending is -raga, and the most powerful (although uncommonly used) suffix is -raja. If a spell name is longer than 8 characters then the -raga and -raja endings are frequently shortened to -ga and -ja.
| yó/tú | usted | nosotros/vosotros | ustedes | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BasicSpells | ||||
| Fire | Fira | Firaga | Firaja (uncommonly used) | |
| Cure | Cura | Curaga | Curaja | |
| Blizzard | Blizzara | Blizzaga | Blizzaja | Irregular Spells |
| Thunder | Thundara | Thundaga | Thundaja | |
| Esuna | N/A | Esunaga | N/A | As Esuna has no qualitative measure,only the single target and multiple target versions have any distinct inflection. |
| Break | N/A | Breakga | N/A | As Break has only a binary reaction, there are no qualitative modifiers for it. It should also be noted that “Breakga” is a stupid name. |
| Quake | N/A | Quakega | N/A | The augmented power inflections for quake were never established, probably to avoid offending quakers. It should also be noted that “Quakega” is a stupid name. |
If I ever create a pop song that will have a corresponding dance craze, it will be called “Do the meteo now”.
Written by Will who lives and works in New York. You should follow him on Twitter.