okay so demonic languages, right? demons speak them. there are a bunch. warlocks learn them for spells. shadowhunters learn them to... tell demons off? do research or something? honestly idk. there are a bunch of different languages but only five that we've heard of — Abyssal, Chthonic, Purgatic, Gehennic, and Tartarian.
so, because of a fic I'm writing right now (here if anyone's interested), I was thinking about Princes of Hell and their connection to demonic languages.
What if different Princes use different languages, and therefore the demons from their realms speak their language?
this is a very random headcanon. but for some reason I felt it was important enough to research (ish) a bunch of etymological stuff and words for hell in different languages. so now I have a list of the Princes and which languages they speak.
as we only have five in canon, I made up several more, using the same basic formula as CC did — [word for hell] + [adjective suffix], as in "Gehenna" (hell in Hebrew) + "ic" (suffix) to make "Gehennic" (demonic language).
my conclusions are drawn from the etymology of the Princes' names, so each Prince's language's name comes from the same root language as the Prince's name. e.g. Lucifer is from Latin, so his language is Purgatic, since Purgatory is from Latin as well.
the problem is that too many of the canonical demon languages come from Greek and most of the Princes' names come from Hebrew, so there's a bit of a stretch in some places and I'm declaring Chthonic to be a common demon language that several different Princes speak, which is why it's one of the few that Shadowhunters know.
without more ado, here is the list, formatted as [Prince's name] — [language name] ([explanation]).
Asmodeus — Duzakhi (Avestan/Persian roots for Asmodeus; Duzakh is a Perian hell, I added the -i suffix)
Belial — Abyssal (from Greek, although the Greek for Belial was originally Hebrew; Abyssal is a canonical demon language)
Leviathan — Tophetic (from Hebrew; Tophet is a Hebrew word for hell, I added -ic suffix)
Lucifer — Purgatic (from Latin, Purgatic is a canonical demon language)
Sammael — She’olic (from Hebrew; She’ol is a Hebrew word for hell and I’ve added the -ic suffix)
Astaroth — Kigala (Sumerian roots; Astaroth was originally from Sumerian Inanna, Kigal is one word for a Sumerian underworld, I added the -a suffix)
Belphegor — Avalonic (from Hebrew; Avalon is a Hebrew word for hell, I added -ic suffix)
Mammon — Tartarian (from Greek, Tarterian is a canonical demon language)
Azazel — Gehennic (from Judaism, Gehennic is a canonical demon language)
this has been done completely at random but I now consider it to be canon. ~~~worldbuilding~~~~~~~~~
if there are any insensitivities/errors/other things I should fix in any of the above, please tell me! (for example if somebody speaks one of the languages and I've made a translational mistake, corrections would be great). Also, if anyone has some canonical context to the demon languages that I'm missing and that contradicts and/or adds to this very random and pointless headcanon, that would be much appreciated.
(disclaimer that all this is based on some pretty basic googling so like. no in-depth research. no academic sources. etc.)
