Why Latin For magic?

[doug rogers]

No: HPFGUIDX 158263

As Literacy spread, so did written language. Ancient spell books  
would have been hand-written, if at all, in Aramaic, Sanskrit,  
Pali... the written languages of the place and time. Magic would have  
been passed on orally  otherwise.

I suspect that as our story is being told from a western European  
point of view, the appropriate language would have Latin roots.

Language is the naming of concepts. Concepts are projected onto the  
world. Rocks and sticks don't care or even know they have a name. It  
is we who project and label it so.

Naming things is itself magic, psychologically. The naming of a thing  
is differentiation, recognition, possession, projection of self in  
relationship to other.

The patronus is Happiness projected outside of self, manifest as  
corporeal. But it needs to be named. The naming is the forming and  
the casting outside of self. It needs to be thought of, then named,  
then spoken.

> Kenneth asks:
>
> But how does magic "know" that a certain Latin phrase means a
> specific magical event/spell? Spells are being created all the
> time - viz. Snape's Septumsempra - so however he created that
> spell and its magical effect, how does "magic" remember this so
> that when someone else, somewhere else, years later (like Harry
> does after reading the book), says the latin word(s)these word(s)
> produce the magical effect? Does this mean that magic is
> conscious? How else could it remember that a certain combination
> of words uttered by a wizard produces a certain magical effect.
> It must also be omnipresent since the memory is not restricted to
> a specific location time or spell sayer.

Magic is then either manifest completely from within the magical  
self, or channelled through the magician from an outside source.

I lean to the internal manifestation projected, rather than  
channelled from the outside.

Conversely, sticks and feathers and willow tree bark can have and do  
have some projected or assigned qualities, or some actual active  
pharmaceutical properties. When we brew up a willow bark tea to cure  
aches and pains, is that channelled-from-the-outside magic?

  There are arguments on either side.

If something of Harry knew Sectumsempra - without Harry himself ever  
having seen it, or been taught it- then the magic comes from what he  
"knows". If magic is from a great something outside and is  
channelled, then merely knowing the proper name for it is enough.

That said, Snape is said to have invented the spell. Does this mean  
he 'discovered' the latent external force, or does it mean he  
imagined it, named it, made it real.

No one, no one is here. We stand in the Atlantic. We become panoramic.
          __________<http://home.golden.net/~samu>__________