Monday, July 23, 2007

Harry Potters Knows -- or Knew -- Latin! (Spoiler Free Zone!)


Nota Bene: To find out whether or not Harry lives or dies, you're just going to have to read the book. I'm not telling.


I finished reading all 759 pages of the Deathly Hallows about 24 hours after I started. I'm not giving away any spoilers though! But I thought that you all might be interested in Harry Potter's Latin connections. Many of the spells Harry, Hermione, Ron and the rest of the wizards use in the series have Latin derivations. J.K Rowling taught herself Latin and uses the language extensively in the series.

Here are a few resources for those of you who would like to find out more.

Wikipedia has a hyperlinked compendium of spells in Harry Potter.

Mugglenet maintains a comprehensive list of spells and charms as well as an index of name origins.

Veritaserum also has an online dictionary of spells and charms.

Children's BBC has a teacher's lesson plan based upon the Latin used in spells in the series.