#lingustics stuff

Eric Kripke says that he got the name for Supernatural’s first angel character by googling “Angel of Thursday.”  Because the show aired on Thursdays.

Nowhere lists “Castiel” (or anything close to Castiel) as the “angel of Thursday” but the influential 1994 kabbala/medieval grimoire mashup A Dictionary of Angels says the “Angel of Thursday” is Sachiel. 

I am 99% sure that Kripke found this name, flipped the two consonants to get Cashiel (possibly testing the waters, not wanting to use the name of an actual angel case people got mad) then changed up the spelling slightly to make it easier to pronounce.

However, there is a historical angel named Cassiel. Not sure Kripke knew this.

Cassiel exists in both Islamic and Jewish traditions, so the name has about 40 different spellings and half of them start with Q. It also gets translated a bunch of ways - main ones are “speed of god” “anger of god” and (symbolically I guess) “fire of god.” 

Anyway, my point is I think the Supernatural writers began identifying Castiel with specifically Cassiel. This would explain their really, really weird insistence on spelling Castiel’s nickname “Cass” instead of “Cas.” It also helps with translating the stuff Cas writes on Dean’s ribs. He sure seems to be referring to himself as “angel of fire.” [1]

Cassiel is also big character in famous German arthouse film Der Himmel über Berlin (English title: Wings of Desire) and its American remake City of Angels. Both of those films seem to have been pretty big influences on the way Supernatural angels look and work. And the character Cassiel is extremely torn between his angelic nature, and his love for humanity. So I guess the writers thought that was appropriate.  

NOTE:

additionally to this I have odd ways of pronouncing some words that are not related to the lisp. I say thank oddly and I pronounce Australia and because with large emphasis on the au,  so they almost become Awstralia and becawse. I also almost always pronounce your as simply yr, although I'm not sure how that happened? 

I have also noticed that speaking, for me, is often a whole body activity. I use my hands quite emphatically when I talk, and I gesture with my torso, also. As I get angrier I also get more and more British sounding, and I am also not sure when that started happening. 

Something that I have been aware of for a long time is that I am an unconscious mimic. If you have a strong accent and I am talking to you I find myself matching my speech patterns to yours, and I can hear it when I talk but I'm not conscious that I'm doing it and I am largely embarrassed by it.