{"id":4784,"date":"2016-01-06T16:41:32","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T16:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=4784"},"modified":"2019-12-11T10:04:28","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T10:04:28","slug":"learning-latin-with-harry-potter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/learning-latin-with-harry-potter\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Latin with Harry Potter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/harry-potter.jpg\"><img src=\"https:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/harry-potter.jpg\" alt=\"Harry Potter\" class=\"wp-image-4830\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Just before Christmas, I helped our language producer record Latin, which will be coming to uTalk later in the year. Whilst listening to the Latin speakers I found I recognised some of the words (although I have never learnt Latin before). And then I realised this was due to my love for\/slight obsession with Harry Potter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a child, I would read every Harry Potter book that came out (this could take some time, as my mum would read it first, followed by my sister, then my dad and then finally me; by which point my mum would have already disclosed a summary of the book including 100 different spoilers!). The extremely clever use of Latin has helped to allow the Harry Potter stories to become even more accessible worldwide, as Latin runs through many modern romance languages, such as French and English. It is also a language that isn\u2019t as widely used or known in modern society anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few examples of J.K.Rowling&#8217;s use of Latin:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>\u2018<em>Protego<\/em>\u2019, which is a shield charm that creates a magical barrier, literally means \u2018protect\u2019 in Latin.<\/li><li>\u2018<em>Lumos<\/em>\u2019, which produces a burst of light, is related to the Latin word <em>lumen<\/em> \u2013 which directly translates into light.<\/li><li>\u2018<em>Crucio<\/em>\u2019 one of the \u2018forbidden curses\u2019 which causes a lot of pain, means \u2018I torture\u2019 in Latin.<\/li><li>\u2018<em>Expecto Patronum<\/em>\u2019 which is used to produce a spirit animal to shield you from dementors, translates into \u2018I wait for a patron\u2019 in Latin.<\/li><li>&#8216;<em>Levicorpus<\/em>&#8216;, which is a&nbsp;spell that suspends&nbsp;someone from their ankles in mid-air, is a combination of&nbsp;two Latin&nbsp;words:&nbsp;<em>levare<\/em>, which means &#8216;lift&#8217;, and <em>corpus<\/em>&nbsp;translates as &#8216;body&#8217;.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These spells are pretty self-explanatory when you know Latin!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, the Latin theme can be found across names used in Harry Potter, often describing&nbsp;their personality or role in the books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Remus Lupin &#8211; his surname means wolf (which Hermione worked out early on in the third book).<\/li><li>Draco &#8211; means dragon although the character&#8217;s surname, Malfoy, is actually French for &#8216;bad faith&#8217;.<\/li><li>Severus (Snape) \u2013 means &#8216;stern&#8217;&nbsp;in Latin, which is an appropriate&nbsp;word for Hogwarts&#8217; meanest teacher!<\/li><li>Sirius Black &#8211; it&#8217;s no coincidence that this character&#8217;s named after the Dog Star.<\/li><li>Ludo Bagman &#8211; he&#8217;s the head of the Division for Magical Games and Sports, so it makes sense that&nbsp;his first name, Ludo, means &#8216;I play&#8217; in Latin.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Can you think of any more examples of Latin in Harry Potter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alex<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just before Christmas, I helped our language producer record Latin, which will be coming to uTalk later in the year. Whilst listening to the Latin speakers I found I recognised some of the words (although I have never learnt Latin before). And then I realised this was due to my love for\/slight obsession with Harry &#8230; <a title=\"Learning Latin with Harry Potter\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/learning-latin-with-harry-potter\/\" aria-label=\"More on Learning Latin with Harry Potter\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,3,1688],"tags":[61,32,48,326,227,942,265],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}