Language of instruction at Durmstrang

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 28615

It occurs to me to wonder---do we ever find out what the language of
instruction used at Durmstrang Academy is?  At Beauxbatons it would have to
be French, but although "Durmstrang" sounds German, the Durmstrang students
we meet are all of Slavic ancestry as far as we know.

On the one hand, German continues to be sort of a "lingua franca" in a lot
of Eastern Europe; this is a relic of the days when most of the cities and
towns were mainly German-speaking, and Slavic, Romanian and Magyar were the
dialects of peasants.  For a long, long time, up till the end of WWII, a lot
of the professional classes and middle-classes in Eastern and Southeastern
Europe were German-speaking, and I'm told that to this day, German is a good
language to know if you don't know the local speech in these areas---still
more widespread than English.

On the other hand, the only Durmstrang types we get to meet have
Slavic-sounding names (although this, in itself, doesn't necessarily mean
much; there was a lot more movement between countries in Eastern Europe than
most people are aware of in the US) so the language used may be one of the
Slavic tongues.  Since many of these languages have high default rates (for
example, if you know, say, Polish, you have a big leg up on learning Russian
and Czech) they could require that students coming in from backgrounds that
do not speak the language of instruction must first master at least enough
of Durmstrang's language of instruction to be able to follow along in
lessons, even if they speak with horrendous accents.

Durmstrang could well have been founded by German-speaking wizards about the
same time Hogwarts was founded, but now, thanks to Muggle politics, be
dominated to such an extent by Slavic-speakers that the language of
instruction itself has changed.  Hogwarts might have had similar problems
far in the past, since it was apparently founded before 1066; when you've
got students who speak Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon dialects, Norse and Norman French
all in one school, you've got to pick out one language and stick with it,
however, in those days, the default compromise would certainly have been
Latin, as it was in monastic schools.