Destiny Hagenow
Linguistics Final Project
Ramthun
12/7/15
Hogwarts:
The School of Witchcraft, Wizardry, and Linguistics
According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics. Most people would read this and yawn. Why on earth would anyone care or need to know about linguistics? Well, linguistics is everywhere. From the slang we use in everyday conversations to the accents we hear when we travel, linguistics cannot be easily avoided. Linguistics is embedded in our favorite books. For example, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, a widely beloved book series, teaches the importance of linguistic awareness and importance through slang and dialect. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is riddled with slang, dialect, and other linguistics concepts.
For readers who have lived in a cave for the last couple decades, Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The series chronicles the life of a young wizard, Harry Potter, the main protagonist, and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's struggle to kill the Dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who aims to become immortal, overthrow the Ministry of Magic, subjugate non-magic people, and destroy anyone who stands in his way. In a study commissioned by Scholastic, Yankelovich, a market research firm, reported that 51 percent of the 500 kids aged 5 to 17 polled said they did not read books for fun before they started reading the Harry Potter series. A little over three-quarters of them said Harry Potter had made them interested in reading other books. According to the New York Times, the series has sold over 450 million copies worldwide. Why is this series so popular? J.K. Rowling had a flare for making up new words for her new world, paid attention to detail, and used several linguistic techniques.
First off, Rowling is a British author so her setting and characters are English. Therefore, British slang is everywhere. Ron Weasley liked to use “blimey” as an expression of surprise or contempt, and he also liked calling people “mental” (meaning crazy or insane) or “thick” (meaning stupid.) Rubeus Hagrid used words like “codswallop” (meaning nonsense or untruths) and “rubbish” (meaning nonsense, craziness, or worthlessness.)
Secondly, Rowling loved making up words for her new world. She not only references mythology through the inclusion of creatures such as centaurs and hippogriffs, but follows in the footsteps of such authors as Tolkien by creating a number of innovative new words for her world (Pulford). Rowling would often blend existing words to make up new ones. For example, ‘Mudblood’ is a made up word for a witch or wizard who is born to non-magic parents and this is a simple combination of two common English words. This is a racial slur in the world of Hogwarts, as opposed to ‘pure-blood,’which is reminiscent of Hitler’s Aryan ideal. The harsh plosive endings of the two syllables allow the word to be spat out with distaste, making this term immediately understood as an insult, before its meaning is ever explained. One of Rowling’s most famous creations is the word ‘muggle,’ or a non-magical person. Muggle has now gained its own meaning outside of Harry Potter as ’a person who lacks a particular skill’, and is included in the Oxford dictionary. For an invented word by an author to reach this status is a great achievement, and a clear indication of the impact of the language within her novels; readers have transferred the language from her world into our own vernacular and lexicon.
Rowling also liked to use alliteration, assonance, and Latin in the Harry Potter series. She used alliteration and assonance to make many of her characters’ names more memorable and appealing (Pulford). For example, Rita Skeeter and Severus Snape. Also, the formidable sounding Bellatrix Lestrange was created by blending the names “Bella” and “Beatrix” to strengthen the character’s unpredictable and cruel nature. However, Harry Potter, the protagonist, does not follow this pattern, because he is our link to Rowling’s magical world. By using an average name, she is providing a character we can relate to as he experiences the weird and wonderful things in his new life in this crazy wizarding world. Rowling also liked to use Latin for various spells and potions in her fictional world. For example, “Protego” is a protection spell and “Felix Felicis” is a potion for luck.
Dialect is important to the cultural relevancy to Rowling’s magical world. The reader is immediately immersed in the British dialect and feels as though they are actually in the British setting. Whenever one thinks of dialect in Harry Potter, one immediately thinks of Rubeus Hagrid, the Hogwarts gameskeeper. Hagrid had a way of speaking that was rougher and more disjointed than the smooth accent of the other characters. For example, here is a brief excerpt from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:
“ Harry- yer a Wizard… an a thumpin’ good ‘un, I’d say, once yeh’ve trained up a bit. With a mum an’ dad like yours, what else would yeh be?”
The Harry Potter series has been translated into 67 languages worldwide (Pulford). Translating Harry Potter gets tricky because publishers didn’t want to lose the culture from the story but wanted readers from all over the world to enjoy it. Slang and dialect constitute a real challenge to translators due to their intricacy with cultural aspects expressed through language marks. Without the mediation of the translator, the text may not have achieved its communicative goal or could be rejected by its target readership (Davies). For example, the translation of Hagrid’s dialect into Brazilian and European Portuguese, regardless of the fact that dialectal marks have been drastically reduced in Hagrid’s speech, the maintenance of these marks might have given the wrong idea of Hagrid’s origins. For example, supposing that the translator had chosen to translate Hagrid’s speech using a country dialect, this may cause in Brazil an undesired comicality due to its artificiality. The translation could also threaten the reading skills of the younger reader that may not understand the translator’s attempt to print dialectal marks in the written mode. (Santos)
Of all the magical powers wielded by Harry Potter, perhaps none has cast a stronger spell than his ability to transform the reading habits of people of all ages. Readers all over the world became enthralled by the twisting plotline, the interesting characters and creatures, and Rowling’s clever usage of linguistic concepts. Readers may not have consciously noticed the linguistic concepts, but the dialect and slang make the story culturally relevant and all the more interesting.
Works Cited
Davies, Eirlys. "A Goblin or a Dirty Nose?: The Treatment of Culture-Specific References in
Translations of the Harry Potter Books." The Translator 9.1 (2014): 65-100. Taylor & Francis Online. UK Limited. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
Pulford, Adam. "Harry Potter and the Linguistic Innovator." Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford
University Press, 13 July 2011. Web. 7 Dec. 2015. <http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/07/harry-potter-linguistic-innovator/>.
Reis Vieira Santos, Caroline. "SLANG AND DIALECT IN HARRY POTTER: THE
TRANSLATOR AS MEDIATOR OF MARKED LANGUAGE." Cadernos De Linguagem E Sociedade 13.2 (2012): 143-62. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
Rich, Motoko. "Potter Has Limited Effect on Reading Habits." The New York Times 11 July
2007. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. 1997. 50. Print.
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