Latin and Magic (WAS: Laws of the universe)

[Zorb17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 33771

Christian said:
<<As I said above, I think the words are not part of the magic as such, 
but are a mental method, with the purpose of helping the mind command 
the magic properly.  The wand on the other hand, is an extension and 
refining of the person's actual ability to control the focus and 
amount of magic he is sending out in his spell.  

As such, I do not think that there are any "universal words" of 
magic, and certainly not taht we have seen any so far, even if they 
exist.  The words we hitherto hace seen in spells seem to be Latin or 
pseudo-Latin, while it seems probable to me that magic existed a long 
time before Latin existed.  If there were any such words, they might 
be in proto-indoeuropean, but as I said  - I do not really think 
there are any.  (Of course, according to Murphy, JKR will in book 
five refute everything I have written above :) ) >>

While I agree that the words of the spells are probably just another way of 
focusing, I've been turning over an idea in my mind for a while and thought I 
might share it now.

What if the words don't come from Latin, but the other way around?  Perhaps 
what we think of as Latin/pseudo-Latin is actually an ancient Wizarding 
language.  With that theory, the spells would be more universal.  Those crazy 
Romans, in their classic tradition, borrowed the basics of their language 
from wizards of the time.  Forget a secret, separate wizard world; our Muggle 
world is founded on magic!


Zorb


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