Angelspeak

Angelspeak or Demonic is a pseudo-language spoken by angels and demons (and hellhounds and himmelhunde) in Mutt's systems.

Creatures with this ability - and it is inbuilt, not learnable - can understand anything said to them, and can make themselves understood to anybody.

They are usually unable to comprehend verbal languages, but see Keller.

There is no concept of word sounds in angelspeak: a celestial can understand the meaning of what is said, but not the words themselves. A lot of wordplay is wasted on them, and they don't understand concepts such as rhyming or scansion.

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Does that work with writing at all? --Anke

No, or hardly at all. If it was a letter handwritten by someone who poured a lot of angst or joy into it, some psychic traces may remain. If it's printed by machine or a sign painted by a sign-painter who's just doing her job, no chance. Ishtar once stared for ten minutes at the sign to the previous inn before coming to the conclusion that it meant "Surely it's time for my lunch break now"...

Most demons and angels have trouble conceptually with pictures, though they understand the idea of a simple representative symbol (for example: a particular set of stripes on your tunic to signify that you're a celeste penulte).