The Latin and Russian translation thing got me thinking: in the Inheritance books (and to an extent in D&D 3.5, with truenamers) a spell's incantation is literally a description of what you want the spell to do. In Inheritance
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This was a safety feature so that "If you said "Burn that door" while thinking about me, the spell would still burn the door and not me." Incantations aren't strictly necessary, but most people have to use them.
whereas in D&D it's literally telling the universe what to do.

In Inheritance the descriptions could be as long or as short as you like, with longer ones usually reserved for trying to do very complicated things (if you want to set someone on fire you can literally just yell "Fire!" at them in the Ancient Language) whereas in D&D it's implied they have to be unambiguous and full sentences ("Set fire to the closest goblin to the door out of the ones that I can see,") because they're actual instructions.

And, of course, the difference in what an actual true name can do is immense - in Inheritance it provides you with full control of a creature, whereas in D&D it provides you with the ability to use an utterance with a slightly harder save, if the utterance even allowed one (most of them didn't).

If you want the incantations to be in a language you can speak, you can either make them short descriptions of what you want to do ("Burn!" "Break!" "Control!") or make them actual instructions to the universe ("Burn the closest orc to me!" "Break down that door!" "Control the king!"). It'd be somewhat amusing to have a short-tempered mage who treats the universe like a strong but dim-witted ally who needs constant direction in battle.