Why *are* the spells in HP all mangled Latin?

[conuly]

Is it just because Latin is cool? Or is there some reason for it? Would spells from other countries sound different... ooh! Does that mean that maybe Chinese people have completely different spells, or even that there's some language difficulties - no "translation" for reparo, you have to do something different, but they have a spell that wouldn't exist in England...?

On a tangentially-related note, despite whatever you have heard, alea iacta est does *not* mean "the die is cast". Latin has a really messed up tense system. Third principle part + is = has been. Don't ask me why. So "alea iacta est" means that the die has been cast, not that it is cast.

Comments

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

So, for that matter, why was the Ministry of Magic never down Harry's throat for the magic he performed before he knew what he was doing? Do they not monitor pre-secondary-school age children? Is not illegal if it's an accident?

[robotliliput.livejournal.com]

I think that's just another one of those lovely inconsistencies we've come to expect from HP.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

*sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Don't wake up conuly

[conuly]

I suspect the former. After all, they never bothered Colin Creevey (who was doing lots of things before he got the letter) or that boy who blew up a slug ("you bust slug, you bust slug!") or the girl whose wings grew right out of her romper.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Also, they apparently never noticed that Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort) killed his father *and* grandparents, when, according to the timeline, he had to have been an infant or a young child.

[conuly]

Well, in the books he's written as being a teenager, probably just out of school.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Apparently he was in power much longer than I realized, then.

The opening of book four places the present day 50 years after the murders.

Also--if Hagrid was at school with Tom, and it's now fifty years since Tom graduated/murdered and H. was expelled, H. is much, much older than I'd realized. So is Dumbledore.