Potter pronunciation WAS:Re: Etymology of "Occlumency" and "Legilimency"

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 160799

Charles wrote:
<snip>
> 
> Of course this has given over to a pet peeve with the movie: the 
> pronunciation of the "accio" spell. They give it the sound "ACK-ee-
> oh". That thing on the Scholastic website pronounces it "ASS-ee-oh". 
> Fry pronounces it with the much more sensible "AKS-ee-oh"
reminiscent of the word access (wherefrom I think it is possible the
spell came).
> 
> Charles, who cringes every time that spell comes up in the GOF movie.

Carol responds:
No need to cringe. My high school Latin teacher would have had us
pronounce "accio" (an actual Latin verb meaning "to summon") with two
hard C's, exactly as Dan Radcliffe does in the GoF film. 

The Latin alphabet had no "K," which was added to the Latin-based
English alphabet later to transliterate Kappa for certain words
borrowed from Greek. To my knowledge, the "S" sound in Latin was
always spelled "S," never "C." Hence, if there's a C in a Latin word
word, it's a hard C.(Church Latin is influenced by Italian and does
not represent the pronunciation of the ancient Romans as deduced from
the available evidence.) 

Also, I think JKR based the spell directly on the Latin verb "accio"
and not on its English derivatives, such as "Access." Although I
haven't conversed with any ancient Romans lately, I think it's safe to
say that the movie had it right and "that thing" has it doubly wrong.
Nor do I know of any evidence that the Romans ever followed a hard
with a soft one. Had it been pronounced "AK-see-oh," it would surely
have been spelled "acsio."

Carol, not sure how JKR pronounces "Accio" but perfectly happy with
"AK-kee-oh," which fits what she was taught once upon a time about Latin