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

[joeno.livejournal.com]

Another reason this is seen so often, both in HP and many other places, is history. Within the Roman church many writings were and are in Latin, and it's what all those monks wrote their stuff in and what was used during religious happenings.

Now, all the miracles and stuff that happen in the church are pretty special, and seem magical. Since they speak Latin before doing that, most people assumed that it was also the language that was important with these things.

So then Latin is associated with the mystical and magical, and so that's the language you've got to use. And since it's a tradition within the genre, you've obviously got to use it.