Assyrians still exist

[Liz Muir]

No: HPFGUIDX 99154


Sea Change replied:
> Perhaps Uncle Algie is more progressive than we think.  In real 
life,
> smack dab in the center of California is a city called Ceres, and a
> decently large proportion of the people living there call themselves
> Assyrian. They think they've still got a homeland and are probably
> interested in the current events in Iraq.  It's not much of a 
stretch
> for me to suppose in the Wizarding world this feeling is much 
stronger.

Sounds interesting and pertinant.  It brings up a lot of questions 
for me.  Can I find any information about this on the net somewhere?

> It's also possible that Uncle Algie is a Great Uncle Algie, and was
> around pre-WW1.  Many muslim empires had semi-autonomous regions 
with
> names that we either recognize, or which were called by that name by
> our diplomats. The Mimbulus Mimbletonia Neville has could just be a
> cutting or a meristem of the original plant. 

I've run into the problem of Europeans not knowning proper Middle 
Eastern names before WWI as well.  Got any specific instances I could 
use, or do I need to do the searching?  As for the plant being a 
cutting, the way Neville phrases it makes it sound fairly recent, as 
in over the summer.  Algie brought it specifically for him (implied: 
because of his aptitude for herbology).  You don't usually bring 
someone a gift from a trip and not give it to them for years.  If it 
were a cutting, Neville might have said, "My Uncle Algie gave it to 
me.  It's part of a plant he got on a trip to Assyria."  Slightly 
different meaning there.

Rowen