Watch Your Language Blog

Potterese

Like many others (is "many others" an understatement, or what?), I spent the weekend devouring the latest Harry Potter book in two sittings. You wouldn't think I could get a language post out of this, but you'd be very wrong. The Harry Potter series has always been filled with an amazing scope of linguistic enjoyments, some obvious, some deeper beneath the surface.

These gems are everywhere; so much so that at times you forget to look. Once you stop to think about the names of characters, though, for instance, you realize that author JK Rowling has considered not just the power of her prosaic language, but the power of language itself to convey deeper meaning and mask riddles. I wonder how many children were able to figure out without a Google search that the name of Harry Potter's greatest enemy, Voldemort, meant "Flight from Death" or "Death Stealer" in French. And I wonder which Rowling intended? Possibly the latter. His lackeys are called "Death Eaters," which could be a similar translation. Another character is Remus Lupin, whose later-revealed secret might not have been so secret to those who know Latin (or Roman mythology, for that matter).

Latin in particular is very important to Rowling's magicians — all of the spells taught at Hogwarts and embraced by wizards everywhere are Latin-inspired. Levicorpus. Accio. Evanesco. Though I never studied Latin in school, part of the enjoyment of reading the series was trying to determine what the spell might do before the results were visible in a unlatched lock or a levitating wizard, simply by taking apart the language.

Rowling isn't afraid to make up languages of her own, either. Harry, for instance, speaks Parseltongue, the language of snakes. I don't think you can take an Intensive Parseltongue Course at your local college, but if you were able to, I can imagine it must sound like a leaky steam pipe if you were to press your ear up to the classroom door.

In addition to invented languages, Rowling, as most children's authors do, invents many, many words. Few children who grew up reading Harry Potter will grow older without knowing what Quidditch is, or who might be considered a muggle. Nor will most of the rest of us.

To me, though, the most interesting linguistic aspect of the Harry Potter books comes out in their translations. The books have been translated into 67 different languages, and to accommodate the invented words and the riddles (literally) hidden within the characters' names, the translators have been forced to get a bit creative. To tell the truth, though, I'm not sure how scared I'd be of some guy called Tom Elvis Jedusor. But kudos to the French translator for that one. (SUZANNE)


July 23, 2007