My brain short-circuited with this Tumblr post, so let’s talk about what language Aziraphale and Crowley speak TO EACH OTHER, a thread [1/x]

I always thought that Aziraphale and Crowley would speak the language of the place where they were, because there’s really no telling whether angels and demons still speak the same language. [2/x]

But with Neil Gaiman’s post, consider: angels speaking the usual angelic tongue, demons speaking a “dialect” of this angelic tongue. [3/x]

Wiki definition of dialect: a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group… dialects of a language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely mutually intelligible. [4/x]

Coming from the same original stock, they would still speak the same language, but demons would have to develop this language into something they could use (I suppose there are some words demons regularly use that angels would not, and vice versa). [5/x]

But it could be entirely possible that despite this, their languages are still more or less the same, the way Heaven and Hell are depicted as being mirror images of each other, two sides of the same coin. [6/x]

In the same vein that good cannot exist without evil, the language they speak must contain elements of both for the language to have any meaning at all. [7/x]

I imagine Crowley and Aziraphale speaking this angelic/demonic tongue throughout the years, with bits from various human languages, because humans have concepts that would not occur to angels and demons and therefore would not exist in their language. [8/x]

For example: humor, sarcasm, metaphors - these things escape them, for the most part. [9/x]

Imagine them speaking the angelic tongue with a hodgepodge of the languages they learned over 6,000 years. They probably have words from ancient Sumerian back in Mesopotamia in their inside language that no living human has ever heard. [10/x]

It’s like how multilingual people speak English and their mother tongue because sometimes one word has a more appropriate meaning in one language that has no direct translation in another. [11/x]

Or frankly, from personal experience, sometimes the brain is just stupid and can’t remember words, so I use words from one language or the other to fill in the gaps. [12/x]

Before: Two different dialects so they sort of understand more or less what the other is saying but they’re not quite on the same page all the time. [13/x]

Now: A language that makes sense only to the two of them, the angelic tongue with bits of French and Spanish and ancient Sumerian and ancient Greek and probably a bit of Chinese and a sprinkling of Filipino thrown in for good measure. [14/x]

A language totally incomprehensible to everyone except the two of them. They evolved their own language just from the sheer amount of time they’ve spent with each other. JUST IMAGINE. [15/x]

Language is also nonverbal, and it is entirely possible that this nonverbal language also makes sense only to them. Makes you wonder… WHAT DOES ALL THIS PASSIONATE GAZING MEAN TO THEM? HMMM WHO KNOWS. WHAT A MYSTERY. [16/16]

Addendum: https://twitter.com/ineffableomens/status/1280513896542060545