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[–]pedanterrificDragon Army 31 points32 points  (3 children)

Here's another hypothesis for Quirrell's [untranslatable] incantations: the Interdict of Merlin. Not only does Harry not recognize the language, he sometimes doesn't seem to even recognize the sounds:

Professor Quirrell raised his wand and said something that Harry's ears and mind couldn't grasp at all, words that bypassed awareness and vanished into oblivion.

(That's the Sphere of Stars spell.)

If we assume the Interdict is a magical force, and that some of the powerful magics it governs are the sort of thing that can be cast by waving a wand and saying some words, it's a pretty obvious vulnerability if merely using the spell in front of someone counts as "teaching" them the incantation. It doesn't seem much of a leap from "their notes are unintelligible" to "their words are unintelligible".

[–]iMissMacandCheese 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Interdict of Merlin and its restrictions on acquiring knowledge are based on how the Jewish Talmud works. Originally, the knowledge in there was supposed to be passed down verbally, teacher to student. During the diaspora of the second temple, the rabbis decided to write it down in case some of it got lost because Jewish society was split up. But to maintain the requirement for a teacher-student relationship, they wrote it down cryptically so that you couldn't just open one of the books and access the knowledge within. It was preserved, somehow, but not easily accessible. The plan was that a teacher still has to teach you how to interpret and understand what you're reading.

EY makes many references to Judaism and Jewish ideas throughout HPMOR. I'm actually annoyed with myself that I didn't realize the parallel with the Interdict of Merlin until reading your post.

[–]reginaldshoe -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Wouldn't a simpler explanation be that Quirrell has a spell that obscures others from hearing spells he casts? You don't want anyone learning your super-secret magic stolen from an ancient basilisk.

The interdict doesn't seem to explain how, if it blocks people from learning spells, Quirrell could have learned it in the first place.

[–]pedanterrificDragon Army 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Interdict has never prevented anyone from teaching powerful magic, it merely prevents people from gaining powerful magic they weren't taught. (That's why I don't think the Interdict is necessarily magically enforced- no powerful wizard we know of is actually inclined to try to write their secrets in a book for anyone to read. They don't even seem inclined to take apprentices, really.)

The evidence against it being a spell of Quirrell's- a thought which did occur to me- is that it seems to directly affect Harry. It's not just that Quirrell silenced the sounds before they got to his ears, it was some weird mental effect.

[–]pedanterrificDragon Army 27 points28 points  (4 children)

The first Battle Magic class introduces the Sumerian Simple Strike Hex, incanted "Ma-ha-su!":

Somewhere Professor Quirrell had dug up a spell that was incredibly easy to pronounce, and had a ridiculously simple wand motion, and had a tendency to hit wherever you were currently looking at. Professor Quirrell had disdainfully proclaimed that real battle magic was far more difficult than this. That the hex was entirely useless in actual combat. That it was a barely ordered burst of magic whose only real content was the aiming, and that it would produce, when it hit, a pain briefly equivalent to being punched hard in the nose. That the sole purpose of this test was to see who was a fast learner, since Professor Quirrell was certain no one would have previously encountered this hex or anything like it.

[–]TarhishBayesian Historian, Sunshine Regiment[S] 16 points17 points  (3 children)

Perfect! This puts a smile on my face; a spell that is not only non-latin but clearly based on a foreign language and not just gobbledygook! This says a lot. A VERY rough search puts MAHASU as meaning

Mahasu: wound, fight, strike

I'm not certain how old this spell would be because the name may not date it well if the wizards who live there still think of their magic as Sumerian, but we know from Harry talking with the portraits that beginner magic, at least, was of a comparable level in Britain in the past as far back as near Hogwarts' founding. Makes sense to keep students reined in until they're less likely to hurt themselves.

[–]A_Rabid_PieChaos Legion 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Mahasu: wound, fight, strike

Whoa, it's formatted just like a shout from Skyrim.

[–]pedanterrificDragon Army 2 points3 points  (1 child)

It's one three-syllable word with (at least) three meanings.

[–]dspeyer 23 points24 points  (5 children)

IIRC, it's canon that Voldemort spent about a decade wandering the world picking up other styles of magic, and this didn't strike Dumbledore as strange. It seems likely that MOR!Quirrell did too, whether he actually is Voldemort or not. Presumably each culture has its own version of magic, and you can learn another's, and the most powerful thing is to know lots of them and use each as appropriate.

My personal theory is that each spell was created by a wizard at some point in history. The creator picks the incantation. Most post-roman European wizards use Latin, or something close to it. This does mean that there are probably homophone collisions occasionally, which may explain some of the weirder incantations.

[–]TarhishBayesian Historian, Sunshine Regiment[S] 14 points15 points  (2 children)

I was wondering about this, but a couple points confuse me. First is that this would mean that anyone transferring/being transferred to another school (Hermione and Draco?) could suffer academically as their old spells don't fit the curriculum. Not insurmountable, though, especially if Lucius were willing to pay for tutors.

The thing that really makes me wonder is why the only times we've heard Quirrell incanting really powerful magic it was in this sort of unknown tongue. It's possible he learned a whole bunch of high-level spells in Asia or Albania or whatever, but it seems more likely to me that they came out of Salazar's secrets.

It makes sense to me that other countries would have their own spells, but we never hear of any of the foreign students (I assume certain students are from abroad) using any spells they learned from their parents over the Summer Break.

[–]dspeyer 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Well, "Salazar" is a Basque name. So if the spells were in proto-Basque, no wonder Harry didn't recognize the language!

As for transfers, the only schools we actually see are Beauxbatons and Durmstrung, both of which are inside the use-latin-for-anything-important cultural sphere. And a hint of Salem, which from the name must have been founded by Hogwarts Alumni some time in the past 400 years. A transfer in or out of Asia would be more interesting.

[–]etiepeChaos Legion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd love to see the Patil twins (explicitly named as foreign students who moved to Britian specifically so that they could attend Hogwarts) use something interesting. Also, Sanskrit is beautiful.

[–]RMcD94 -1 points0 points  (1 child)

My personal theory is that each spell was created by a wizard at some point in history.

Two wizards independently make different spells using the same incantation.

Assuming they only choose incantation.

If they choose wand movement too then what the fuck are they thinking? Just have a jab for everything, jeez.

[–]Indon_Dasani 12 points13 points  (5 children)

On the japanese side:

The fic introduces the Lagann spell, which shoots a spiral blast designed to break shield spells (and is seen during the battles). The anime the spell references is heavily themed around spirals and achieving the impossible by breaking through stuff in your way.

It also introduces Elmekia, which fires an Elmekia Lance from the anime Slayers, so at least that spell is extant in the fic. Amusingly enough, Harry doesn't comment on the fact, despite making an intricate Slayers reference in the form of the fake dark ritual he invented, which draws from a different spell in the Slayers universe, the "Dragon Slave".

That means that the anime is both demonstrably fiction in that universe and simultaneously at least some magic from that anime works.

[–]TarhishBayesian Historian, Sunshine Regiment[S] 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Yes, I was very happy at all of those references. I'm a big fan of both. Unfortunately, neither were in existence at the time so it seems to me it's probably just a reference.

Similarly, I snerked a little bit at:

The Headmaster was frowning, his fingers drumming soundlessly through the inky black surface of a plate inscribed with the word Leliel.

Which would be one of the angels in Evangelion that existed as a flat, black extradimensional circle.

[–]a_clever_funny_nameChaos Legion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wasn't leliel already a reference to lialah, the herbrew angel of the night referenced in the talmud?

[–]flamingspinach_ 4 points5 points  (1 child)

By the way, "Lagann" is thought to be a fanciful romanization of 螺巌, a non-word which could be deciphered to mean something like "whelk rock".

Of course, pop culture references in HPMOR are mostly anachronistic. For example, Fate/Stay Night didn't exist until ten years after the time of the story, yet Quirrel supposedly visited Huyuki City...

[–]pedanterrificDragon Army 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not only does Scrimgeour make up a reference to Fuyuki, Harry goes on to quote Emiya Shiro's philosophy. So apparently FSN exists (and Harry was sufficiently unsupervised that he was able to lay hands on it, despite it including porn) and is either partly based on reality at least to the extent of the setting being a real place, or Scrimgeour is a fan and dropped a reference for the hell of it.

[–]AustinCorgiBart 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, the anime could be similar but not exactly the same. Technically, it hasn't been explicitly stated.

[–]QiranChaos Legion 10 points11 points  (0 children)

For whatever it's worth, Dumbledore seems to also say scary non-Latin spells at least once, Chapter 79.

With this instrument he began tracing rune-like patterns on the Map, muttering strange incantations that sounded not quite like Latin and echoed in their ears in an unusually creepy fashion.

(I've clearly been reading too much Yudkowsky today I think, just this afternoon I reread the last few chapters Methods Of Rationality rereading so I happened to freshly remember that, and the Less Wrong Reductionism sequence)

[–]BaljarDragon Army 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It occurs to me that learning a spell you already know - but in a different language - would be highly advantageous in battle. So they might not be mysterious/ancient/unknown spells Quirrel is casting. He just didn't want the Auror to know what he was casting.

[–]smellinawinChaos Legion 2 points3 points  (1 child)

The heart of the problem here is where does magic come from.

What dictates specific traits such as words and wand will produce magic at all.

If any sound that can be made by the human mouth can be turned into a spell, why not other sounds? clacking the tongue , burping, snapping, hitting your chest, instruments, sound waves. Perhaps you could program a computer with a physical arm attached that could perform wand movements many times faster then any human. Also program it to create sounds replicating human speech, why should that be insufficient to cast a spell.

Why would only humans be able to be wizards, and why only some? What makes magic react to something in your DNA, why can't an intelligent centaur pick up a wand and use spells?

Why even use a wand at all? Aren't there wizards who do not need wands to cast their spells, nor words spoken to cast them? If it is not the wand nor the spoken words... What is the magic reacting to?

I believe the only way i can come close to answering the question would take the form of believing that when a spell is used for it's first time It is given words that correlate with it by whatever language the spell's creator chooses. The magic then attaches itself to those words so it can be taught to others. IT seems a majority of spells in this world were created during a heavy latin based world. However oogely boogely is a example of a spell created much more recently, and thus by someone speaking english. This would also account for the possibility of spells created on different parts of the world and at different times needing other languages. However it would suggest that even in asian schools you must use wingardium leviosa to levitate objects, tho I'm sure they would not use english letters for spells, the sound must be the same.

[–]TarhishBayesian Historian, Sunshine Regiment[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, my fear was that the Source of Magic, the Atlanteans, or someone who made changes to it later, had a linguistic system that favors English-speakers.. This idea coming from the fact that most of the greatest wizards we've heard of were from Britain, including Merlin, and that most of the spells we've heard are either whimsical or clearly devised by someone who spoke English.

Even though it SOUNDS like Atlantis was pre-English or perhaps even pre-latin, since it's out of the time stream it's hard to tell, especially if someone like Merlin made changes to it 'later'. Magic couldn't be used by a robotic arm because it only reacts to those with the Atlantean genetic marker (or so Harry supposes, based on his experiments) This genetic marker necessity could also mean an unbalanced wizarding population if the exodus wasn't uniform to other countries. I suppose a complicated enough enchantment on a robotic arm could cause certain spells to activate like that, but magic also interferes with the controlling circuitry, according to what Harry learned.

We know the Source has access to your mind if it's what's doing the bulk of the magical process, but even an Occlumens can transfigure with all the information solely in their head, so I always thought of wandless magic like perfectly recreating the wand motions and incantation in your head in some special manner. The Source reads that and performs the spell, draining some of your power. The wand and words are necessary at first for sort of the same reason that a lot of voice recognition systems require you to state a keyword first, to let it know you're intending to talk to it. More experienced wizards can hold the intent of the spell, the intent to cast, the motions, and the words in their mind and get along without it just fine.

[–]Sengachi 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Come on conspirators, surely HPMOR has taught us some stuff about mixing up causation? Magic has been around for a long, long time. Wouldn't it make more sense for the languages to be based off of the spells?

[–]TarhishBayesian Historian, Sunshine Regiment[S] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

But here's the thing: Atlantis was supposedly kicked out of time, and that's more powerful time-magic than we have by far. Just looking at the casual violation of cause and effect made by the comparatively wimpy time-turners shows that it is not so obvious.

Atlantis may not have even 'happened' yet. The Source of Magic could EVEN be something made by Harry: an artificial intelligence blending aspects of computing and wizardry after reaching a full understanding of the universe, which allows it to disconnect from causality and become the magical system that allows Harry to study and create it in the first place. Atlantis could be the society of enlightened magi-scientists that Harry wants to build. This kind of causal violation was practically expected from the time-turner.

[–]drgradusSunshine Regiment 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, you. I like the way you think. I do believe that Harry is going to progress in a more Taran-like order and come to rule the world after the end of magic.

[–]MrCheezeDragon Army 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The cause seems to be that Eliezer has absolutely zero interest in linguistics. This has resulted in 1) his spells not sounding like the canon ones, and 2) Harry never even considering looking at the incantations for information as to the origins of magic.
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