It baffles and infuriates me that Hogwarts students don’t take Latin or Greek. Accio? Literally “I summon.” Lumos? Fucking “light.” Expelliarmus? Expel weapon!! Ooooh I wonder what Levicorpus does– you Dumb Ass Bastard. You ILLITERATE. It’s called Levicorpus, it lifts someone’s body, it LEVIES your goddamn CORPUS-
Hermione ghost wrote this
Ok but this is Hogwarts. You can’t have kids practicing Latin all over the place. One mis-conjugated verb and you’ll have a hole in the castle wall where the classroom used to be!
@hisnamewasbeanni real counterpoint to this thought though.
Canonically, Hogwarts only appears to teach wand magic, and therefore students only practise magic that must be channelled through a focused instrument (i.e. their wand, though this is also true for things like Moody’s staff, the Sorting Hat, Marauder’s Map, etc.). That magic only also occurs through the intent of using said magic, rather than just speaking the incantation (such as first years attempting spells but not really grasping how they work).
Any magic that is done outside of channelling is only done under extreme mental or physical stress, in which the conscious or unconscious mind of the magic user steps in to protect itself (re: Harry using magic to blow up Aunt Marge, various outbursts of magic from underage wizards/witches).
Wand magic has been shown to work without having the wand in contact with the user, but again, these have generally only occurred under mental or physical stress by the user, and has occurred with the intent of using magic (such as Harry using a Lumos incantation when trying to find his want in pitch black that time).
Therefore, it stands to reason that as long as Hogwarts offers these classes from a theoretical, wands away kind of class that poses no serious mental or physical harm, then teaching etymology of Latin and Greek would be a low risk boon to the school, as long as you stick to the mid level spells (as Latin spells are generally mid to high level spells in the arcana. Greek would be fine, as they’re healing magic spells). Imagine how much faster students would get a grip on spells if they had that training.
Then again, I am a Ravenclaw and I would 100% find a way to blast someone through a wall over an argument on the etymology and pronunciation of incantations using said incantations, so I’m definitely not the person to be arguing this counterpoint.