Harry Potter 🪄 Latin in Magic Spells 🧙‍♂️ 

- ACTUALLY, Hermione, It's 'rèparo' not 'repàro'. - But the spell worked. - I DON'T CARE.

I don't know if you've ever played the game, but I would like to see you review the Latin language setting in Minecraft.

the use of pseudo-latin jargons, also known as "dog latin" has been staple between real life magicians for centuries, Hocus Pocus for instance.

Luke hating Anglicized Latin pronunciations is showing his inter Romanization, he is truly a champion of culture that we've needed

It is also interesting that Japanese wizard children first need to learn ancient japanese to be able to speak their spells, so apparently there is some power to the ancient languages

0:57 JK Rowling lived in Portugal while was writing a part of first book, so think that "Oculus reparo" is portuguese trying to look like latin, "Óculos" is actually glasses 🤓 in Portuguese and "reparo" is pronounced in that way in Portuguese 😅😅😅

Gryffindors - do not care about correct Latin usage. Slytherins - only care about correct Latin usage to feel superior. Ravenclaws - definitely care about correct Latin usage and will let you know it. Hufflepuffs - enjoy both correct Latin and Latin-inspired words and make videos about them on youtube.

some spells later on in the books get closer to correct latin, like "vulnera sanentur" expecto patronum first appeared in the 3rd book, but those are only two examples.

Kinda dissapointed that even Hermione doesn't know the penultimate stress rule. My day is ruined But in my opinion, for the spells not to be real latin is rather smart. Just imagine how much havoc it would have created if a roman peasant shouts something and suddenly his goat turns into a fine venetian glass cup. Or a roman client would call upon his patron, and suddenly his warthog-patronus appears and scares the shit out of everyone. Let's rather stick with the wannabe-latin please.

Cmon Luke...it's LEVIÓSA, not LEVIOSÀ

Harry Potter's "Latin" looks like my grandparents' ecclesiastical Latin. As the great majority of Italians, they were Catholic and attended the weekly mass, but they were almost illiterate (as many Italian peasants used to be). Until 1960s the mass was in Latin and they tried to reproduce the wordings: "ra prenobbi" for "ora pro nobis", "l'era pru veja" (in Piedmontese dialect: "well, she was old", praying for a dead woman...) for "ora pro ea", "benedittu fruttu ventu tu Iesu" for "benedictus fructus ventris tuis Jesus", etc. In Italian popular wordings for a magic spell (in children tales, of course) is "ocus pocus" from "hoc est corpus meum". As far as I know, in Russian magic is "fokus" for this reason

Another word that also derives from "grammatica" is "grimoire", which means "spellbook" and came to English from French. It looks like the same exact association happened at least twice.

Alternate title: A Latin scholar spends 13 minutes trying to convince himself (and us) that it doesn't matter that Harry Potter's Latin is so bafflingly bad. 10/10 would watch again. I love this stuff

It's a book written for Muggles, so obviously she wouldn't reveal the actual Latin spells.

Honestly, the spells in Harry Potter just sound A LOT like Macaronic Latin. Probably not new information to anyone, but it basically is a code language. It is simply regular modern languages (each modern language builds a Macarronic Latin of its own), adapted to sound like Latin (by randomly adding typical Latin sufixes/case endings to words, using loose Latin syntax and by pronouncing it somewhat like Latin, all while being complety based in regular modern languages). Through the centuries, all through Europe, it was very popular in universities and used in plays and satires for comedic purposes (the goliards are probably some of the first well known users of it). JK Rowling is notourious for having taken a lot of inspiration from Portuguese university traditions when writing Harry Potter. Of course the fact that Latin is viewed as this "mystical" language stands on its own, but I wouldn't be impressed if she was at least a bit influenced by university traditions on that too. Might be just a coincidence but "oculus reparo" sounds a lot like how we could say "repair glasses" in Portuguese Macarronic Latin ("óculos" meaning "glasses" in regular Portuguese). Macarronic Latin based on Portuguese is everywhere on traditional university student groups here in Portugal. There is this "institution" (it's really just the students of each university that stablish it) we call "praxe" [from Latin praxis] that mOsTLy tries to integrate new students (it's polemic...). It comes down to senior students bossing arround freshmen collectively to do the most stupid/comic things all while setting a ton of rules, and making the freshmen pay them huge respect (almost like royal respect). The irony of the amount of rules and respect that is set, all while asking to do stupid things (and the seniors themselves being super bohemiam in all aspects that go beyond setting the rules and the respect) is part of the fun. Latin being the traditional language of institutions of power, law, doctors, religion etc., makes fake Latin immensely fitting with the mood of it all. And it is used in the "praxe" in everything from the written announcements/posters used, to chants, motos, etc. Dvra Praxis Sed Praxis

Didn't know this until recently, but J.K. Rowling has a BA in classics.

Me, a Potterhead and language enthusiast (with bias to Latin): Who has summoned me?

I remember hearing those words in the movies specially expecto patronum, Spanish is my first language so what I hear is "espero/esperando al patron/jefe" basically "waiting for the boss" a very confusing spell and "oculus reparo" sounds like corrective eye surgery.

Knowledge of Latin could perhaps provide an interesting new understanding of expecto patronum. It may imply that, unlike most wizard spells where one waves a wand and makes something happen through one’s own magical ability, the spell potentially relies upon an external entity that you call and await its aid in a form that best suits you, like an ancient deity or spirit in real life magical rituals. Harry Potter is a warlock.

Interestingly one of the few spells not based on Latin is Avada Kedavra; which is actually Aramaic.

I was actually just thinking about this the other day after hearing a random Harry potter spell. It didn’t sound natural at all to me haha

In fact as it had been mentioned J.K.R. is well educated in Classics and it is all quite a lot deliberate. And there are in fact a Latin and an Ancient Greek translation of the first book of the series which were made after her request. Thanks for your videos.

5:12 I think Lockhart is actually saying “volat et ascendere” which could translate to “he flies and to ascend”

Just found this gem of a channel and have been hooked for several hours non-stop! Thanks for the great content. Love everything that you do.

Can you make a video on attempts to modernize Latin so that it can be used in the modern day to talk about modern items, like cars, telephones, and computers?

Awesome as always!

I randomly watched a video from this channel the other day. Somehow, one video turned into many. Unexpectedly won me over. Had to subscribe.

Stumbled upon your channel a few days ago, you really make me want to start learning Latin.

luke you should really consider doing more linguistics-focused vids, like e.g the different variants of spoken latin that diverged into the modern romance languages, or proto-italic -> latin evolution, or the purported link between celtic and italic languages, or the different variants of "standard latin" in the european middle ages. with your amazing expertise and presentation i think tons of people would love that - there's a big audience on youtube for deep-dive linguistics videos. i really enjoy your work!

GOTCHA!!!!! Fantastico un video su Harry Potter ed il latino. STUPEFICIUM per adesso e alla prossima volta, Luke. 👍😁😁👋👋

I have quite the obsession with Harry Potter, and this was a very interesting and informative video to watch. Thank you!

Your videos put a smile to my face 😄👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 🐉✨❤

Nesciebam originem verbi "glamour" . Gratias, magister, tua doctrina.

What a fun video! I’ll have to check out your other movie Latin episodes!

Actually, "vertere", or better, "verti" in the mediopassive mood, in the meaning of "to change shape, to transfigure", has a certain poetic tradition. "Vertere, vertere/Formose Proteu" is found in the Enthusiasms of Iacobus Balde (Ode 39). Not classical, I know, still it IS possible, and I am pretty sure that Balde himself picked up that line somewhere.

I love these videos.

I was just wondering this, and yet here you are.

Great costume Luke.. Great review of my local school students (it was filmed in my city of Glevum) ...

YESS!!!!!! I've always wondered this!

Thank you for the video. My students knew the expression "Expecto Patronum" from the Harry Potter movie. That was the only expression that they knew from Latin, beside "Et pluribus unum" that's the words for Benfica, a football portuguese team. Gratias tibi ago.

I did classical secondary school , studied latin and ancient greek - and I really enjoyed your lesson ! gratias tibi ! ( thankyou ! ) Grazie ! 🙂

I grew up with Harry Potter franchise, starting with the movies, going deeper with the books. This made-up Latinised spells really fascinated me to the point of going to study Latin and Ancient Greek by myself as a hobby, which gave me a rich perspective on my native language (Portuguese). I don’t know if the author had this aim at first but it turned out this way for me, this Dog Latin served to me as a door to new knowledge.

Even if it was for just a brief fraction of a second, it made me happy to hear you just mentioning the word “conlang”. Have you ever delved into the world of conlanging at all? Great video as always, and as we say in conlanging: Fiat Lingua!

When I listen to your videos, you remind me of a Spanish professor I had who was an Augustine friar. He was a polyglot who spoke Spanish, English, French, Italian, Latin and Greek. I can attest his Spanish was even more elegant and beautiful than any other person from Spain, and his English was absolutely perfect. He sounded like a lord out of Kensington Palace (with a title bit of a Zorro accent.) I am still curious to know how fluent he was in the other languages he spoke, but he passed away a while ago. Anyway, native speakers of Italian and French said he sounded like a native from Southern France (in French) and La Toscana (in Italian.) I had not met anybody from Greece by that time, and nobody spoke Latin anymore, So, no way to know how good he was in those languages. But we all could assume he was pretty good too. In any case, he used to say the first mass of the day at 5:00 am in Latin (just because he liked it), and people used to attend only because everything sounded absolutely beautiful.

Η μεγαλύτερη μαγεία είναι η γλωσσοπλασία. Τhanks for your videos, they are all great.

It is not rePAro. It's REparo u.u XD

The Hermione Granger in me couldn't be happier for this video! Sectumsempra is my favorite sounding spell, it is pretty straightforward and the meaning easy to guess as well, even if it is not proper latin ☺

This video brought back really weird memories...I used to have a proffessor in latin, in university, who loved Harry Potter. So, in the final exams the test, which was supposed to be a small passage that we had to translate from latin to greek and vice versa, was a chapter from Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone (Harrius Potter et philosophie lapis)...Dark days, those were dark days...

It is so interesting how our demeanour changes when we switch languages - I know I sound and even look different when I speak Italian or Spanish than when I speak English or Swedish, for example. But even the voice changes, and Luke is showing it very clearly - you get a totally different voice when you speak Latin! :D That said, to be nerdy: the words for the spells aren't really necessary. They're just a sort of crutch, to "verbalise" the spell and to enhance the intended effect of the spell. Same thing with the wand: it wouldn't really be necessary but is a good thing to have when you want to focus the force of the spell. A good sorcerer would be able to do stuff by just "looking at it" :) So therefore, the words have during the years become garbled while having been handed down by more or less thorough teachers. :) And it looks good on film :D Arvëdse 'n autra vota! :D

Excellent video! May I offer another explanation for using Latin in magical spells? Nowadays, Latin is still used in medicine, law and religion, three areas where the lingo can be intimidating or confusing to an outsider. Additionally, practitioners in these areas are typically well educated. If you're going to cast a spell, wouldn't the spell caster be someone from one of these backgrounds, people who in their everyday jobs already use a secret language? (I'm a nurse, but I swear I've never intentionally cast a spell 😉). I enjoy your videos! They're extremely well researched and enjoyable to watch!

Speaking of films & franchises: a dive into film soundtracks that use Latin would be fascinating. I know that “Kingdom of Heaven” (2005) employs a bit of Latin = e.g. Burning the Past is a choir singing: ‘Ave regina caelorum/ ave domina angelorum/ salve radix salve porta/ ex qua mundo lux est orta.’

I loved you almost gagging on the expelliarmus spell ... priceless!

I am going to expect these videos every week 😂 your sense of humor gives me life

Going out on a limb: expecto patronum could mean waiting for your patron (patronus - the animal that saves you from the dementors)

Gran canal. Y con un poco de Mozart para aderezarlo. Gracias por tu trabajo y buena suerte.

3:57 loved those facial expressions Lol 😂.

Fun. It did weird me out sometimes. I shared this video with my old philosophy professor, who taught a philosophy class inspired by the series years ago, though, haha. Good stuff.

OMG!i started re watching the movies and I started with the books for the first time a couple weeks ago and now this 😍

Magic spells always have been one of the most exciting and mysterious topics in HP world! Really great video, with cool examples of the spells & brilliant explanations. Yet some of the spells remained unexplained :( In particular, I`ve been always wondering what is the meaning of the spell, used by Gilderoy Lockhart (The Chamber of Secrets), when he tried to cure Harry`s hand after the quidditch match. One of my favourite scenes!

That was fun!

As always Mr. Luke Sir a funny and informative video

I have to point out that for "Fera Verto" she might have meant "Beast Cup". In French 'Vert' means cup/glass and I think that might have been what she was going for seeing as he was turning the "beast" into a "cup"? That's just what I always took from it since I was young.

Another epic video. Being a huge Harry Potter fan I always thought lumus was correct Latin, Lumen it is, thanks hahah

Buenísimo, no sólo por la temática, también por tus gestos! 🤣🤣🤣

It feels like Rowling lazily appropriating the language. I say this because there are other instances of this in HP.

Oh my god. Thank you so much for the "monk's reward" at the end. 🤣🤣🤣

2:45 "fera verto" in Esperanto means "an iron top".

I definitely like the idea that J.K. Rowling intentionally referenced the subjunctive mood for spells. Like a hope or wish then becoming reality, which seems to reflect the concept of magic in both the franchise and the real world. Thanks for the video!

6:20 That reminds of how spell names change in Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games to be more powerful, e.g. Fire → Fira → Firaga, Blizzard → Blizzara → Blizzaga, Thunder → Thundara → Thundaga etc.

There's an interesting connection between glamor/grammar and magical spells. The English verb to spell (as in to write a word with the correct letters) is related to a spell (a magical incantation). Medieval English speakers seeing latin, or even the vernacular written down would have called it spelling for the same reasons that glamor got it's vampire meaning.

I would love to see a video just like this but with Supernatural spells instead!!! Love your content!

You should do all the Latin in Terry pratchett some time. Like the legal terms in the wee free men or the motto of the city watch.

I love this video!!!!!!!

Great music!

Just fell in love with this amazing guy!you are a living motivation to go on with latin...

Brilliant!

Watching your videos makes me realize how much Latin words we have today in my native language, Polish. And I don't mean only the obvious ones related to science. We call glasses "okulary", quite similar to "ocularia" if you ask me. Also we use the word "bestia" for a "beast".

I still like that they do take inspiration at the very least

Hey, Luke, thank you for the amazing content -- it's been truly a great discovery for me lately. 🙏🥰 I'd like to share my observation about the spell, which is raising a snake in the air at 5:11 . I glanced quickly over the comments, and I haven't find anyone mentioning. I clearly hear the actor saying: "Volate ascendare", which would make it quite logical then, right? Based on my humble knowledge of Latin, it would make an almost proper imperative (though in plural) "fly up ascending!" -- "Volāte ascendēns!" "ascendere!" could be something like "be lifted!", perhaps. I don't know anything about the universe, and I haven't watched the films, nor have I read the books, so I don't know how this spell is spelt correctly (oops, no pun intended), but maybe it will help to clarify this for someone. 😊

As I recall, the fantasy movie Dragonslayer (1982) used a lot of Latin. I always wondered if it was accurately pronounced. I caught one passage in particular in which the main character enchanted a spear: "Nunc, per Potestatem Hermeticum, ex flammis, ferrum sanguinarium!" There were many other examples of spells chanted in Latin though.

It gets even more interesting when you check the spells used in the books and videogames. Carpe Retractum, Glacius, Avifors/Draconifors/Lapifors, Incendio, Diffindo, Expulso, Confringo, Protego, Depulso.

Hi, Luke. Thank you for this! Could you also do the examination on Netflix's Sabrina incantations? Many of them, surprisingly, are in Latin. *Edit: Many of them...

Rowlings classics degree influenced the plot more than the correctness of the "latin" in Harry Potter. Still the mythological references were the ones that got me interested in Roman mythology that eventually ended up in my current obsession with actual latin. Thanks for the video! Brilliant as always.

I've just started working on a sort of conlang based off of Latin for my cats (Specifically my black cat who definitely looks like they could speak Hebrew or Latin if they were human) I call it emprum cattum which means cat empire. I only did this because I recently started learning Latin, got really interested, and then made the conlang. It doesn't sound exactly like Latin in some cases, and then a lot like Latin in others. (From what I know) I really like Latin and if I wasn't already learning Spanish so I can at least have a language on my plate, I would totally learn more!

When I first encountered the patronus concept in HP, I immediately thought of the ancient concept of patron deity, which was modified in Xianity to apply to patron saints - protectors of sort, which is what a patronus in HP is - a protector of sorts. To me, the expecto patronum spells in HP is the one that rings most true as not only a Latin language phrase, but something conceptually authentic to an older world, which the wizarding world is supposed to be more closely tied to than the modern Muggle world.

Feeling weak? Hold on, I'll cast a spell to wake you up and make you energized... *waves wand* "Enervate!!"

🤩finally!

Great video!!! Anyone knew that the spells in HP are in Latin but no one ever searched about it! You hear endings like -us -um and you’re sure that’s Latin😂😂😂 Yeah, I think JKRowling said that she just used the very veryyyy basic from what she remembered form the Latin courses in school! All the others are just made-up for her magic world! She searched in Botanology texts for botanical terms and also, she studied the mythology of several countries to create all those magical creatures! I think she used two Greek terms as spells! Anàpneo / αναπνέω: to breath underwater Epíski / επισκευή: to repair something

I thought this was Pseudo Latin, and was told it was "Real" Latin. I didn't know enough to argue. Thanks for the clarity.

When I first saw expecto patronum, I figured it meant “I hope for a protector”. Referencing Spanish esperar to wait or to hope, but as you say, it’s all fun.

I'd love to see an examination of the Latin spells used in Charmed. I know some of them were definitely pretty off.

Never thought of an occasion where Expecto Patronum fits perfectly like that...

HAHAHAHAHAHA ! It never occurred to me that the HP series had any Latin in them! But thank you a million times. It really sounds funny!

I might be totally off, but with "fera verto" I was thinking of the french verb to do or make which is "faire" (or in its conjugation fera is "will make") and the word for drinking glass "verre" equaling "to make glass/will make glass"

I think it's not "alarte" in 5:11 I instead understood him saying: "volate" so I guess it was intended to be derived from the latin word "volare" for to fly and therefore in context with "volate ascendere" to be meant as "to fly up/ hurl up" as we can see happining in the scene. So much about my explanation^^ Huge fan, nice content as always, keep it up. I am looking forward for the next one :)

I didn't know glamour comes from grammar! Thanks!

Your millenial is showing, Luke.

There were some few spells (usually one-word spells) that were actually correct latin, like e.g. "nox" ("night" - the spell to switch off the magical light) and "confringo" (I break, I destroy), the explosive spell Hermione uses against Nagini in Godric's Hollow, accidently destroying Harry's wand in the process.

Γραμματική -> grammatica -> grammar -> glamour Really interesting in my opinion, I wouldn't have guessed that 😂 Great video as always!

Hey, could you perhaps talk about medieval Latin pronunciation?