news:Xns93C5956B8F752SCROSS3ncrrcom@24.25.9.43...
> "Piorokrat" <piorokrat@autograf.pl> wrote in
> news:bg0hvm$nes$1@news.onet.pl:
>
> > In the second book, Harry Potter discovers that he can speak
> > parcelmouth, but Rowling doesn't put much effort into showing what
> > this language looks like, [snip]
> >
> > The Potter books have some interesing artificial language words in
> > them, but they are all little removed from English ('muggle',
> > 'Erised') and Latin (most of the wand related commands) but the
> > spider's name, Aragog, sounds a bit Welsh to me.
>
> I love the Harry Potter books. I've read the first four, even though I'm
> neither a kid or a parent. I'll read the fifth one as soon as I can find
it
> at the library. The kids have snatched them up, for the moment.
>
I'm on Book Three, but I buy the audiobooks read by Stephen Fry. I listen to
them on car journeys or when I'm in hotels on business as it helps me get
off to sleep.
> I share you assumptions about the sources of Rowling's neologisms, except
> for Aragog. When I first saw "Aragog," it sounded like somebody's name in
> one of Tolkien's languages, Sindarin (Grey Elvish), for instance. However,
> since JRRT modeling Sindarin on Welsh, that isn't really a disagreement.
It's like a combination 'arian' which is like silver in Welsh and 'goch'
which is red, if I remember rightly, and I only know the Welsh my grandad
taught me when he dandled me on his knee.
But that may not have been the idea at all. I think that Rowling is not
really a formal linguist, and just uses her excellent sense of onomatopoeia
to conjure up these names that sound good but which must be the translator's
nightmare.
Uncle Davey
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