Avada Kedavra Meaning

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 84863

Troels wrote:
> Another question that has bugged me a bit is whether there is
> an actual, significant, difference between the phrases 'Prior
> Incantato' and 'Priori Incantatem' - I originally thought that
> the latter was plural, but both are singular.
> 
> Any help on those two would certainly be much appreciated.
 
 
Geoff responded:
> Without having a Latin dictionary to hand, I have a feeling 
> that "Prior Incantato" is bad Latin. Prior seems to lack a case 
> ending. Incantato smacks of a Dative to me. The second "looks" more 
> correct to me though Incantatem seems like an Accusative.
> 
> There are other examples in HP of possible misuse. The curses should, 
> I think have a "-us" (Nominative) ending; Cruciatus, Imperius etc. 
> whereas the command word is a Vocative; Crucio, Imperio etc.
> 
> I'll have to see if I can root out a Latin primer. It's a long, long 
> timne since I did Latin but it was a fine language to learn - gives 
> you and enormous insight into linguistics and other languages with a 
> case structure - like German for example.


My Latin is shaky, too, and it's been a very long time since I read
any, but I was thinking that the -o in "Crucio," "Imperio," etc., was
a verb ending indicating a first-person "doer," as in "amo" (I love).
So "imperio" would be "I command." (A vocative is a noun or name used
in direct address, e.g., "Brute" for "Brutus," which seems
inappropriate here.) In any case, I think we're dealing with two
different parts of speech here, nouns and verbs. In other words, the
spoken form of the curse is a verb, the name of the curse is a noun. I
agree that -em  looks like an accusative form, which seems odd, but
-us in "Cruciatus" and "Imperius" is nominative, as we would expect. 

Carol