Help me, LJ-wan Kenobi!

[stillsostrange]

I need a gender-neutral respectful address suitable for mages. (In the same setting as The Bone Palace, if you've read it.) Greco-latinate roots are acceptable, as are Turkish or Persian, but plain English is fine too as long as it sounds cool.

I don't know what I'm going to do about the damn pronouns.

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

My detail-brain is apparently turned off--have you done Wisdom or Learned? "Yes, Your Wisdom, the Learned Isyllt told me so."

[ian james krohn (from livejournal.com)]

Surprisingly enough the root of the word Mage is a proto-greek/persian word Magi, which refers to a Hellenized follower of Zoroaster. Most often associated with the above scholars observation of the heavens.


in Bengali the word for scholar is Pandit, sounds gender neutral to me.

[http://users.livejournal.com/jane_drew_/]

According to Wikipedia (yes, yes, I know...), Zoroaster (the legendary founder of the Magi, inventor of astrology and magic and so on) was reputed to be Chaldean, which leads to the Greek "Chaldaia," Akkadian "māt Kaldu," Hebrew "Kaśdim," or Aramaic "Kaldo." I would say "Kaldo" is probably out, but what about something based off of one of the others?

The Akkadian might be fun, although I'm not sure whether a "u"-ending would read as male for native English speakers. Possibly replace the "K" with a "Ch"?

(Okay, going to stop frolicking about the Interwebs and get back to work now...)

[miladygrey.livejournal.com]

Are there subschools of mage, so they could be addressed by the type of mage they are? Summoner, Conjurer, Necromancer, etc?

[curgoth]

Variations on "illuminati"; Illuminated, Luminous, Lux. Luminari?

Or; "The Otherwise Karjean of Kilaparos", "Yes, Otherwise?" (which might be potentially confusing)

[defectivewookie.livejournal.com]

"Alim" would be short and sweet (and Turkish).

[mmaresca.livejournal.com]

Are you thinking like a "Your Eminence", or something more like a title? I've always used "mage" as a gender-neutral, but maybe that isn't strictly correct.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

If mages are part of the society's general protocol ranking, then they could properly be addressed by the protocol courtesies due to their equivalent administrative civil and military ranks.

'Your Excellency' covers a variety of sins in the real world.

[magpie49.livejournal.com]

One of the things magic users do )in every written universe I can think of at the moment) is make light.

"There's someone at the door, Your Brightness. I've been requested to announce the presence of the Bright Isyllt."