#language and magic

[sublimegentlemanalpaca]

What are some Dead Languages...besides Latin?

Fellow Scowlers and Cottagers! I humbly ask, what are some Dead languages with known writing systems? Think as old as you can (something a certain Master of Tamerlane House would know). It’s for a ....thing I might be writing. Excluding Latin. It involves writing in the ‘oldest language’ he might know. Then continue writing that in younger, and younger languages until reaching Latin and then eventually English. As for what’s written. Basically something to Signal that certain students are present so The class can begin. Now that I think about it...I might need to think more on the reasoning behind this....still. The thing which may be written (and it may not be..) may be....of some interest. Concerning an idea of brought up quite a bit recently... Never mind. Need to give it more thought. Though feel free to mention some Particularily interesting ones if you know. Would be neat to know about besides. Make of this what you will. Al, the Chronographing Cottager.

[thepostmodernpottercompendium]

Can you speak a little toward your thoughts about the intersection of language and magic? Rowling chose Latin based words for her spells, but obviously that can't be true world over. Do certain languages harness certain magic? Could a bilingual witch perform more spells, or the same spells but called by two different names?

Okay, so you should deffos have a look through my tag on language and magic and magic and language (I need to merge those two tags, I know, will do ASAP). Some of it is meta oriented, some of it is fics I’ve written, and some of it, fics that others have written. All of them reflect my thoughts on magic and language. There’s also this post I made on my personal blog at a much later date, which more closely reflects my thoughts atm on language and magic.

To answer the easiest question first - do certain languages harness certain magic: no. I think all languages have spells that cover a range of particular activities - your ‘base’ spells, I guess. Things like levitating spells & featherweight charms, shield spells etc.

Some cultures create magic that has particular effects. In the context of HPverse, Greek spells are all linked with healing & Anglo-Saxon ones with more ‘common’ functions, mostly to deal with the homespace etc. There’s a certain amount of class violence in the way the spells are ranked, I guess, in HPverse - which I’ve toyed with here, in a piece on Beauxbatons (you’ll see that if you look at the tags I’ve linked above). It’s also the crux of the pureblood-muggleborn conflict in this ‘verse. Muggleborns are excluded from really realizing their magical potential because of a lack of access to resources, which could have better shaped their understanding of magical theory - which like, if you grasp theory, then you can reasonably surmise what would happen if you tried to do x new thing and this makes spell creation a lot more easier, I think. 

In this ‘verse, I’d say that cultural peculiarities/preoccupations influence what kinds of magic are specific to particular languages. The Norse, for example, have particular magic pertaining to divination - which involves not just reading the future but also being able to manipulate it - and martial magic - both shield spells/protective runes as well as berserkers. themonsterblogofmonsters has a piece on berserkers on their blog - I highly recommend you check it out. A lot of the martial spells from canon are in Latin, which I hc being the result of the Roman preoccupation with the military and battles. 

So when people want to reproduce these very particular effects of these spells, which would require a p long time to invent from scratch in their own culture, I assume that they would borrow those spells - which is where you get spells like Avada Kedavra crossing over from Aramaic into wizarding Britain. Some of the older cultures obviously have a wider range of spells for certain effects (and hand in hand with that, a greater tradition of dark magic) compared to younger cultures - which would rely more on borrowing from other cultures.

So to answer your other question, a bilingual witch might be able to produce the same effects using two different ‘spells’ altogether. I think even within canon, there are spells which have several incantations for the same effect, so its not unreasonable to see something like that happening. I’m still fond, however,  of the idea of bilingual wix producing their own syncretic form of magic bc it sits more easily with their willpower? I headcanon magic as being controlled more by the expression of willpower than merely language, pronunciation and wand movements - which means that if you know how to better express your will, then you’ll be better able to perform magic which produces the effects that you want it to. A bilingual witch, allowed to perform magic in a language they are most comfortable with, would be more powerful than wix forced to perform magic in a language alien to them.

That, again, is a conflict I’ve worked with wrt imperialism & colonialism in the wizarding world. You can check my independence/resistance week tag for more fics that deal specifically with that. There’s some great ones on the conflict between Latinate magic & South Asian magic & traditional Irish magic & ofc, the whole problem with the Statute of Secrecy - which works in times of peace, but really isn’t helpful in conflict situations.

TL;DR: if wix think language is important then yes, language is important in magic - because their practice of magic has been shaped by the way they imagine it works and in turn, how they associate/relate to magic. If they approach magic as willpower first and incantation as a means of expressing will, then language becomes considerably less important. It’s kind of the movement, as I see it, from being able to do verbal spells to non-verbal spells & even wandless magic in canon.

I hope this helps!

[thepostmodernpottercompendium]

I think it's safe to say I can answer these very interesting questions now.

To answer notyourexrotic's questions first:

c) No, firstly, ESL students would have their own languages in which they practice/perform magic - so they wouldn't necessarily be impaired by not being able to speak english. Two, even if they were, for some reason, practicing spells in a tongue other than their own, IF they knew/had understood the intent of the spells - in relative terms to their own native tongue - then it's only a matter of mimicking the incantation to get the desired result.

Of course this could be a problem if you have terrible professors who don't bother explaining what the spell you're doing is supposed to do in terms that you can understand.

d) accents and nitpickings: yes it probably matters, but only in HPverse!magic, which we'll assume for convenience' sake applies only to magical Britain. It probably matters because they've come to place language so high above intent that spells have become warped into such a form that minor variations in incantations can alter the strength and effectiveness of the spell. Maybe even what the spell does. Cue erasure of accents, often a strong part of immigrant identities. If they've been living in England for some time, this would probably be something which their parents try to drill out of them from a young age. Which would explain third-culture wixen banding together to create their own forms of magic as a way of holding on to some part of their identity.

So yes, Hermione is right but she is also wrong.

e & f) covered more or less in this thread here.

To answer essayofthoughts' question: you’re quite right, the closer a word approaches intent, the more accurate its likely to be. The age of the language + language used/actual language probably has very little to do with how powerful the spell is, but if wixen have grown up in a magical cultural milieu which believes that magic is something special only a few special people have – possibly because they were chosen – then its likely that they believe that languages that are closer to the proto-human language spoken at the time that magic was “given” to them. It’s less of an actual belief system as much as it is a myth used to reinforce class structures and the supremacy of the ruling classes of the time – and has probably been divorced from the original myth and replaced with a science-y sounding explanation, concerning root languages being purer languages than those which are hybrids of root languages.

But that’s what you get when you divorce magic from intent and nitpick with language and incantations – which is also where the dodgy classification of “light” and “dark” spells stems from IMO, because if intent really mattered then most spells would fall into a grey area.

[thepostmodernpottercompendium]

Oh look I guess I'll have to create a theory of magic

I have received two very interesting asks from notyourexrotic and essayofthoughts:

And I'm afraid I don't have answers to these questions right now! I have some rough ideas, but ideally both these questions call for a formulation of a theory of magic, going back all the way to its origins - because if we understand its origins we can understand its mechanics.

Which is a problem because according to JKR no one knows where magic comes from.

So I'm going to take some time off of this subject to formulate my own theory of magic based on a few rough ideas/facts we have:

"Wild magic" or accidental magic, exists in children and is strongly linked to intense emotional states.

Wandless magic is a practice, but only a highly trained/skilled wix can use this form of magic

The key seems to be intent - i.e. both are using raw magic, but one group has learnt to intentionally manipulate this magic to their will, while another hasn't.

Children are sent to Hogwarts to learn how to control their magic and they do so by using verbal spells

In their sixth year they begin learning how to use non-verbal spells, which is the first stage of learning to wield magic with intent

Therefore, we can infer that intent is an incredibly important part of magic and that the power of spells lies not only in their incantation but in their intent (e.g. Harry trying to use the Cruciatus curse on Bellatrix and failing)

And then some conjectures of my own:

Root languages allowing for more powerful magic

This assumes that there is a source of magic, or that magic, if transmitted genetically, was a genetic mutation (or something) that happened while humans were still coming out of Africa -> root languages spreading from a proto-human language -> root languages closer to original languages used for magic.

I'm rejecting the HP wiki's article on the magic gene because it literally makes no sense to think of magic as a dominant gene - expressing itself in wizards but not in muggles, because it doesn't adequately explain squibs or muggleborns - why, for example, would a muggleborn whose parents do not have the magic gene, because if they're not showing magical ability we can infer that both their genes for magic are recessive (dd, dd), end up with a genetic pattern that allows for magical ability (Dd)? So magical ability is a recessive gene, or even a co-dependent gene, i.e. a gene which shows itself only in the presence of other genes. Which could adequately explain the whys and hows of squibs and muggleborns.

If we're going with the Out of Africa human origin theory then that means one set of humans developed magical ability and the others didn't. This, however, does not explain why the humans who developed magical ability did not end up becoming the dominant race, but in fact ended up being a minority?

Soooooo, I'm going to mix science and myth here and posit three ideas:

Magical ability as the result of humans breeding with humanoid creatures with magical powers - e.g. as shown in Genesis 6:14 

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

And also mentioned in Greco-Roman mythology and, to some extent, in Norse myth. Not to sure about Egyptian myth, Hinduism and Islam and well p much every single indigenous religion ever - could you guys pitch in if you are aware of something?

Magic as a gift - perhaps given to a certain group of people by one magical being. Who then died. Or something. Could make for a nice wizarding fairytale, even if not an actual legit explanation.

Magic as a separate entity, a supernatural entity/force which enters people and gives them abilities they do not possess - a bit like indigenous Manaistic religions. But I'm not particularly fond of this theory because a) it doesn't explain for a magical gene, unless this force stopped circulating at some point in human history, which begs the question why would it do so? (Unless its kind of like a source thing which has been lost - think POTC fountain of youth - and only those who found it received magical ability, which again, makes for nice fairytales but I'm not sure how it would work out as a comprehensive theory) and b) its an idea that's already been covered in the Sacrifices arc and I don't really like going over ideas that have already been done.

My personal favourite is the idea that root languages don't have that much stronger spells, it's just an arbitrary system that has been developed to create a hierarchy of language - esp. say in Euramerica - that simulates the hierarchy of power structures in those worlds; as I mentioned in part 2 of my language based theory of magic, purebloods are the ones with access to Latin and Greek texts on magic and its in their interests to posit this form of magic as being higher, purer and stronger than the English spells in HPverse. But this doesn't adequately explain the mechanics of magic and really, doesn't explain how a person with a speech impediment/learning disability/disability would interact with magic, nor does it explain adequately, the whys and wherefores of wandless magic, non-verbal magic and intent. So that.

That's really all I have for now and I'd like to spend some more time thinking about this in greater detail - which is going to be a bit difficult bc I'm in the middle of university apps and I still need to write my SOP. Would love it if you guys pitched in with your theories - especially if you could talk about other cultural myths and religious references to human-spiritual being interactions. And genetics. Especially genetics. My science is rudimentary at the best.

In the meanwhile I'm going to keep writing about mothers in the wizarding world (esp of those who participated in the wizarding wars) and y'all can contribute if you also have lots of feelings about the mothers in the wizarding world. Besides Lily Evans, Narcissa Malfoy and Molly Weasley. Because OTHER MOTHERS DESERVE LOVE TOO OKAY.

EDIT: Tumblr user cheloneuniverse reblogged this post and linked to this article which explains how there could be a dominant gene which doesn't reveal itself. I remember reading this vaguely some time ago but I'll need more time to look over it because it's quite ... complicated. And it could explain why magical ability is such a rarity. 

(But I really liked the fairytale-ish theories to explain all the root language business.)

[thepostmodernpottercompendium]

Language and magic, a few theories - part 3

Okay but like spells are amazing! Do you understand? It’s like an example of language that allows for no other interpretation, where the illusion of a singular meaning actually stands true. Or so we are made to think. But what if

Changing the way words are pronounced does not cause the spell to fail

But produces a substantially different effect

Ditto wand movements

So the singular meaning which is assigned to the words of the spell is actually the result of non-verbal actions and tone and things like that, signifiers of meaning basically.

So while there is no such thing as the dead author in magical practice, because intent always is effective and really, you can’t misread a spell coming towards you, spells don’t necessarily all have the same effects if you vary the different aspects of the spell.

And of course, if you vary your intent, you can drastically alter the consequences of your spell, especially if you’re using it as a means to and end.

But can you imagine??? The wizarding world is one of the few places where the stress lies on the intent of the spells used, not on the interpretation of how they were used - except in matters of law and justice, where the Ministry decides whether xyz use of magic is dark magic, but even then, when its a “light” spell being used for “dark” purposes the focus is still on intent.

Like the wizarding world is a fantastic parallel for structuralism and post-structuralist theory, yet it is not because so many concepts get reversed and subverted here. Language is such an important part of the wizarding world - it literally is the source of power in this world and it organizes their world on a literal level, far beyond the muggle world - but at the same time, it cannot be divorced from intent here (authorial intent v. spellcaster's intent) because intent is the absolute basis of meaning in the wizarding world.

Though, of course, how the wizarding world interprets what is right and wrong and light and dark is an arbitrary system - so I suppose agency in interpreting magic is given to the end result. i.e. you have freedom to interpret the consequences as you choose (e.g. killing a person v. killing a parasite) but not of the actual spell.

So the actual spell has a singular meaning. Its effects, do not, and they are interpreted differently by different people.

Of course this would be exactly the sort of thing a muggleborn ravenclaw would worry about - being an outsider in the wizarding world and wondering whether all these spells have standard, singular meanings and wondering about intent and magic.

No I'm not thinking about HJPEV and Hermione Granger what gave you that idea >_> <_<