Hi again and welcome back to Happy Hour. Today we have in our studio again.

Hi.

Hello, everybody.

Today Anlan and I were going to talk to you about something very, very special. First of all, let me ask you a question, have you noticed that the cinema is back in business？

Yes, I’ve seen all the adverts and I’ve seen some of the movies that they're bringing out as well, quite a few older films.

Yeah, for example the very first Harry Potter.

Goodness that I don't even know how many years that's been, to be honest.

I forgot as well. Have you watched all the Harry Potter films or read Harry Potter books?

To be perfectly honest, no. It does look interesting though.

Today's topic you are gonna be interested in it. We are not going to talk about the story of Harry Potter, but rather a specific part of the film and the books.

Have you noticed that in Harry Potter, a lot of the spells the curses, they're not English, they are Latin.

Yes, I’ve noticed. I believe that you can actually buy a copy of Harry Potter in latin.

Don't think I’ll be able to read it. So as you might be able to guess, today our topic is going to be the Latin words in Harry Potter.

Okay!

And the reason why I’ve invited Anlan to the studio is because Anlan you studied classics in university.

Yes. Just the same as J. K Rowling, the author of Harry Potter. She studied French and classics at university. I studied classics.

So when you say you studied classics, what do you actually study？

When we say we study classics, that means you studied Latin and ancient Greek. So you studied the two languages and also you might study maybe another ancient language as well like Hebrew. But most of the time it's your study in Latin and ancient Greek.

So you study in the language, the culture, the history and also the literature as well.

Sounds like one of those field that's going to make you very cultured and wise.

Yeah, unfortunatley it doesn't make you very rich.

It's one of those subjects that is becoming less popular nowadays，unfortunately！

So let's get back to Harry Potter. Why Latin？Yeah, like you said Rawing she obviously got a background in classics, but what else? Why did she use so much Latin in her books？

Latin is pretty much everywhere, even though it is quite an old language and people don't really speak it nowadays. It's the basis of many European languages. So for example, Spanish, French, Italian and other languages as well. They all come from Latin. English has lots of latin influence.

We talked about that before.

Yeah.

And I have noticed something else. I watch a lot of horror shows. For example, I watch a lot of supernatural, when they are trying to call for the demon, summon the demons or when they try to drive the demon away, they will always speak Latin. What is that about？

It's linked to the church. So for example, Roman Catholicism, they use Latin as a working language. So lots of prayers, lots of texts are still written in Latin.

Even till now?

Even till now.

I guess it's also because Latin just has that air of mystery linked with magic.

So for example, it's the language of alchemy as well.

Alchemy? Ah, turning things into gold.

Yeah. But it's also the language of the intellectuals. Up until the 18th century, if you were an intellectual you spoke and wrote and read in Latin.

Speaking Latin in the past and now shows that you have a lot of knowledge.

Yeah.

That's the background of using Latin in Harry Potter books. Now let us actually focus on some of the real examples. Let's look at the names first, names of some of these characters.

I don't know if you have noticed, many people have very peculiar and Latin sounding names.

Yes, I’ve noticed there's a few Latin names there.

For example, the head of Hogwarts school, Albus Dumbledore, Albus, what does that mean in Latin？

Elbus means white.

Perhaps it’s the white beard.

Yes.

Or maybe the fact that he is a good person and he's in white magic.

Yeah, it could be.

And then the Maggie Smith character Minerva McGonagall. Minerva if I remember correctly it's a goddess.

Yep.

Minerva is the goddess of war and also the goddess of wisdom. The idea of someone being called Minerva is somebody who's very wise, ultimately nice, quite powerful. Minerva is the Latin Roman name for Athena.

Minerva. I think professor M definitely deserves Minerva. And a slightly scarier professor Severus Snape, his name is Severus.

Severus yes, Severus means severe or serious or stern.

That perfectly describes his character, I think.

But the funny thing is in Latin that's actually seen as a positive thing. If you call someone Severous or Severe, it's actually make them sound like they're very righteous, they're very upright.

So they liked that sort of character.

One thing that always amuses me is professor Remus Lupin.

Lupin actually means wolf in Latin.

And in there he's a werewolf isn't he？

Yes, so I thought that's a bit obvious. And Remus, that sounds familiar that name.

Yeah. Remus is also linked to wolves as well. It's the story of Romulus and Remus. So the two brothers that founded Rome.

One of them is Remus. A Remus Lupin wolf.

Yeah.

Other very interesting names include Ludovic or Ludo Bagman?

Is he has something to do with games by any chance？

He is the head of magical games.

That's because Ludo means “I play all games”.

Very obvious. Another person always makes me laugh is Pomona Sprout.

She must be something to do with plants.

She is the professor of Herbology, Pomona Sprout.

Pomona was the Roman goddess of fertility, abundance, fertile things like fertile crops.

That's why she's doing herbology, planting things.

And also sprout as well.

We say plants sprouting. So Pomona Sprout is like a double whammy of a word play. I’ve noticed that Rowling is very interested in wordplay and I'm sure she thoroughly enjoyed writing the books she's doing all these wordplays.

Yes, there are kind of inside jokes.

So maybe for kids they focus just on the magic, but as an adult especially if you have a bit of knowledge in latin, reading these books, it probably tickle you a little bit. And then the main baddie Voldemort, Voldemort is not Latin though.

No, but it's quite close. It's actually from French.

Voldemort, fly from death. Perhaps it's because he's so hard to kill.

That could be, but it's always like mort, any anything that ends in mort is always about death, it's about things that are dangerous.

One of the Harry's school mates, I'm sure a lot of you remember and dislike, Draco Malfoy. What is the origin of his name Draco Malfoy?

Draco is the last word for dragon.

Dragon. In the west dragon is not necessarily a good thing is it?

No, far from it. And Malfoy, I think that's actually probably also from French, Mal Foi

Mal Foi, bad faith. Basically, this is not a well meaning person.

Yeah.

Enough from names and characters, let's move on to actual spells.

There are so many spells. But let's focus on a few very commonly used spells in the book and in the movies. The simplest one that I remember is Accio, whenever you need something, you don't need to go and get it. You just say Accio something, Accio a book and then you get the book.

That's from Latin. It means I call or I summon or I send for.

I summon. Don't you want to have the ability to cast that spell？

I have to admit that does sound pretty cool.

A cold winter morning and then you don't want to get out of bed and then you say Accio clothes or Accio remote control/coffee.

I think you have to be quite lazy if you're kind of trying to summon your remote control.

And another very simple one is when they try to put up a shield, they say Protego.

Yeah. Protego is the Latin word “I protect”.

I could have guessed that, Protego.

Now rewatching the very first Harry Potter movie I noticed the very first spell they have learned is Wingardium Leviosa. I like the sound of that, the so called levitation charm. How does that link with Latin?

Leviosa is related to lift. So levitate or Levi is levy. So I should say is Latin for “to lift”. Wingardium is a bit of a mashup. It's what we would call pig Latin.

It's not real.

It's not really that real. No. So wing obviously like bird wings is English.

So trying to add things towards the end to make it sound more ancient.

Yeah, as I say, it's what we call pig Latin.

Let's move on to some attack spells.

Okay.

Like Petrificus Totalus, can you guess since you said you didn't read that much Harry Potter.

Petri- is stone, so -ficus that sounds like it comes from Facio which is make, Petrificus Totalus is to make someone into stone. Totalus means total.

I noticed that the way you pronounce Latin is very different from my way of pronouncing it. I pronounce it in the English way I guess.

I pronounce it in kind of a slightly older version. So this is how Latin probably would have sounded 2000 years ago.

Let's try the difference. Petrificus Totalus.

Petrificus Totalus.

You can see the difference. What about Sectumsempra ? When I was watching the film, I found this to be really scary curse.

That's also quite easy. Sectum is cuting and sempra is always.

Cutting always, like forever maybe?

It can be forever or can be always as or it can also be often as well sometimes.

If you know Harry Potter, this is kind of like an invisible sword cutting you from inside.

Yeah.

It’s a really vicious spell.

Sounds pretty horrible.

Yes, well Harry used it on Draco once. The next one is an even scarier curse. It's Crucio and this is what they call the unforgivable curses that really extreme.

What does that have to do with crucial or the Latin roots？

Crucio is the Latin word for torture. So I torture or I crucify.

So it's from crucifixion, crucify. So it actually has a religious background.

Not just a religious background, in this context crucifixion was seen as a torture. So they just have the same word.

So for example, if someone says that they’re in pain, they say that they are in excruciating pain, it's the same word.

Excruciating, crucio, very interesting. And of course, one of Harry's favorite Expelliarmus.

That's quite an easy one. Let's see if I can guess. So Armos or armus that would be weapons or arms, and expelli- means to drive or force out.

So what would you say this would do?

It sounds like a spell to get rid of someone’s weapons?

Exactly.

To disarm someone.

Yes, this spell is used to disarm your opponent. And in Chinese it's translated into Expelliarmus.

That’s a pretty good translation.

Very good! After all of these, it just makes me feel like if you learn a little bit of Latin, then not only can you learn more English words, but you can also perhaps understand more the world of magic.

Yeah, pretty much. Even though, as I said before, there are not many people speak Latin anymore. It really is the basis of a lot of our culture. It's a bit similar to Chinese that if you really want to understand China, having a bit of a knowledge of classical Chinese is really really helpful.

So all you big kids out there practice your Latin. Maybe you can become a wizard yourself.

Absolutely. If you get a pronunciation just right, let us know if they work.

If those spells, hopefully not curses work, and if you are Harry Potter fan or if you know some Latin words or if you remember some of the other spells and curses in Harry Potter series, leave us a comment in the comment section.

See you next time.

Bye for now.

Bye.

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