Magic/Languages was:BIll Weasley as DADA?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 116024


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Christopher Nehren 
<apeiron at c...> wrote:

Christopher Nehren:
> The "language of magic" seems to be (for the most part, anyway) an
> amalgamation of Latin, pseudo-Latin, and Aramaic. Consider all of 
the
> different languages in just the areas surrounding Hogwarts: various
> types of English, numerous Celtic and Gaelic dialects, and so 
forth --
> even some Teutonic influences in the earlier forms of what I'll call
> English for lack of a better term. All of these different people 
have
> collaborated and devised the usage of mostly Latin and some Aramaic 
(as
> seen so far, of course -- no one can predict what will come in 
books six
> and seven) for the purpose of using magic. Why Latin / Aramaic? 
That's a
> whole thread in and of itself, though I believe that it has 
something to
> do with the "ceremonious" nature of those languages, both from a
> real-world perspective and from a literary perspective. 

Geoff:
I think that there are real world parallels in this: the Roman 
Catholic church is one of them. From the earliest days, the language 
of this church has been Latin and much of its service structure is 
still in Latin. Again, in times past, scholars and scientists have 
corresponded and collaborated using Latin as a "lingua franca" to 
overcome language barriers. So it seems quite reasonable that the 
Wizarding World would have a common tongue to cover situations like 
this.

To give a very personal example, many years ago I was involved in an 
annual school exchange with a school in Frankfurt-am-Main. On the 
first occasion in which I was involved, my German was a lot worse 
than it is now and one of the German staff spoke very little English. 
I have a memory of us standing in Trafalgar Square holding a 
conversation conducted largely in French and Latin!!

Geoff
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West Somerset Railway steam at:
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