Why Latin?

[Haggridd]

No: HPFGUIDX 21357

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., eccleston at c... wrote:
> > 
>
> It's funny, isn't it, how we want our words to have a power and 
> potential beyond that which we know they have. Perhaps thats why we 
> so readily accept latin-esque words and want them to be "magic". I 
> think it is the same with Tolkein, Ursula Le Guin etc. Why is it, do 
> you think, that it tends to be Latin that is used in this way?
> 
> Steve
> 
I suppose it is due to the Fall of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, 
and the various renaissances (Carolingian, English, Italian).  The 
Romans could do things completely out of the realm of possibility for 
medieval Europeans.  It was, to coun a phrase, "like magic"  and Latin 
was the common tongue of all educated Western Europeans for hundreds 
of years, whatever country they lived in.  It was the "lingua franca" 
before there even was a lingua franca.  It seems inevitable that those 
seekers of lore and knowledge would use the language of that 
civilization that had already performed what were in the present day 
of the seekers, miracles.  Hence, Latin as the language of magic.

Haggriddus *heh heh*