Latin (was Re: Creative Hermione)

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 24541

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Alexandra Y. Kwan" <litalex at y...> wrote:

> Do they teach Latin in Hogwarts?  With all the spells and
> so on, I'd expect that they do, but JKR didn't mention
> any Latin classes (I assume Hermione learned it on her
> own or some such).

I think that learning Latin, at least the subset of Latin which forms 
the majority of their spell words, is an important part of each 
class. We don't hear about it in detail, but we certainly hear about 
the loads of homework they have to do. I'm sure that if you'd look 
over their shoulder, you'd see that they're learning Latin words and 
learning how to string them together into meaningful phrases.

There is actually a quote or two from an interview in which JKR 
discusses her use of Latin in the books. I'm too tired to find it 
right now, but I know it's in there.

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon