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

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

I think it has to do with "iacta" (which, by itself, would be the perfect passive participle) more than the "est." I mean, it would be like--"the die *is* in the state of having been cast." But that essentially means "has been cast," so you just throw "iacta est" together, call it the perfect passive form, and translate it as "has been cast."

[conuly]

Like I said. Third principle part + is (est) = has been. If you switch is with was, you get had been. And so on.

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know that. I'm just saying that that's how I think it came about as such.

[conuly]

Oh, okay! I thought you misunderstood me. But in reality (and a twist of really boring irony) I was the one misunderstanding you.

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

lol!! It's ok. ;-)

[grammaravenger.livejournal.com]

I always wonder about the Latin, too. Like, clearly the Chinese, for example, must've had magic before any of them learned Latin, so clearly the magic isn't in the words. So why do you need it at all? Couldn't they just will whatever it is to happen?

And the different spell thing is interesting. Would they just have the same spells with different names - is there a discrete set of things magic can do, so that every culture would have the same spells (except maybe for ones they hadn't discovered yet), or are there more possibilities (like the almost-Reparo you suggest) and wizards limited by the accepted range of spells?

It's fun thinking way too hard about this stuff. :D

[conuly]

I have a theory on the need for spells, though it's backed up by very little.

Magical kids have a *lot* of potential. Harry can blow up his aunt, make his hair grow, apparate (or fly, I'm not sure which) to the top of a tall building... with no training or apparent effort.

Then they go to school, and learn spells. They need wands to do spells (look at how "wandless magic" is a common sue-trait!). They can *only* do the spells. Spells are difficult.

It seems to me that maybe the spells help them focus, so their magic is predictable - but it has the not-necessarily-unintentional side effect of limiting their capabilities - we certainly don't hear of wandless magic from adults.

[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.

[innerbrat]

Because mangled latin is the fantasy-spell-writing language of choice. I mean, Pterry's spells have been mangled latin for decades.

Personally I think it's aesthetics. Mangled latin sounds pretty, sounds important, and because most people have a tiny spattering of it, makes it fun to figure out.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

*sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Don't wake up conuly

this is all quite irrelevant

[griphus.livejournal.com]

having not read, nor planning to read, the HP books, I can only comment on the general idea of casting spells in fiction.

In an issue of Planetary, one of the characters referred to magic as nothing but signal: cheat codes for the operating system of the world. Just like cheat codes for video games, you have to get into the system SOMEHOW. From what I can tell about the HP universe (from, uh, watching the first film under the influence of god-knows-what) the kids there have something in them already before they come to Hogwarts, they've got access to the system but no tools.

In Planetary, Drummer (a pretty interesting quasimagical character) uses a pair of drumsticks to rap on pieces of tech and access them. Zatanna from the Justice League spoke english backwards, although in the postmodern continuity claimed it was just a way to focus her attention.

So it might all come down to just that. Like Grant Morrison says, magic is all around us and it's up to us to name it. In an issue of the Invisibles, Jack Frost blows a wall out of a building by uttering "Tot'p", which is just an acronym for "Top of the Pops", as he saw a commercial for it right before casting the "spell".

The spell language, the magic wands, etc. are all just there to focus inherent skill. In some fiction anyway; if Rowling is ambiguous about it, the theory might be as valid as anything else.

[appadil.livejournal.com]

I knew that this link (http://www.cjvlang.com/Hpotter/spells/spellsall.html) would come in handy eventually. It might not exactly be how Chinese wizards cast their spells, but it's at least how British wizards cast when translated for Chinese (and Japanese and Taiwanese) readers.

The wordplay section of the site is also fun.

[deceptica]

Latin has a really messed up tense system.

Hey! Be careful whose grammar you diss... mainly because I think German works the same way. I.e. "er ist gegangen" doesn't mean "he is gone" but "he has gone".

And I think the question of the importance of the spells is an interesting one. I don't really have an answer to it either, though. I used to think that actually saying the spell out loud was essential to doing focused magic, but then that Death Eater in OOTP came along and cursed Hermione while he was silenced, so... *shrugs*

[grammaravenger.livejournal.com]

English used to be like that too, actually - for certain verbs like "to go," anyway, essentially the same ones that are sein verbs in German (which are generally verbs involving motion - to run, to go, to drive - or being or a change in the state of being - to be, to become). In Jane Eyre they're always saying that someone "is gone" or "is come."

[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.

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Because in the Western world, Latin is the most common root language?

My theory is that the spells themselves are nothing more than a focusing agent. Look at Snape - all he has to do is wave his wand, or make a vague guesture and shutters and windows close. And Harry inflates his aunt without even knowing what it is that he's doing - not to mention, he "willed" a snake free in the first book.

The more adept the wizard is at the use of magic, the less spells he or she uses.

And in other areas of the world, I would imagine they use their native tongue. In fantasy work in Asia, Sanskrit is the most common (that I've seen) "spell language", being used freely there much like Rowling uses Latin. Again, it's more a focusing agent than anything else, though.

[conuly]

Pterry's Latin at least makes sense, even when it's not completely correct.

[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.

[conuly]

Ooh, thanks.

[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.

[l33tminion]

I just figured that JKR took a Latin class at some point...

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of Latin in the spells in your books Do you speak Latin?

Yes. At home, we converse in Latin. [Laughter]. Mainly. For light relief, we do a little Greek. My Latin is patchy, to say the least, but that doesn’t really matter because old spells are often in cod Latin—a funny mixture of weird languages creeps into spells. That is how I use it. Occasionally you will stumble across something in my Latin that is, almost accidentally, grammatically correct, but that is a rarity. In my defence, the Latin is deliberately odd. Perfect Latin is not a very magical medium, is it? Does anyone know where avada kedavra came from? It is an ancient spell in Aramaic, and it is the original of abracadabra, which means “let the thing be destroyed”. Originally, it was used to cure illness and the “thing” was the illness, but I decided to make it the “thing” as in the person standing in front of me. I take a lot of liberties with things like that. I twist them round and make them mine.

http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/news_view.cfm?id=80