CAN WE TALK ABOUT MIDDLE EASTERN WITCHES AND WIZARDS THOUGH. AND HOW THEY’RE SPELLS WOULD OBVIOUSLY NOT BE LATIN, GREEK OR ANGLO SAXON, BUT INSTEAD LIKE ANCIENT PHOENICIAN, OR SOMETHING. AND THAT THEIR TIES BETWEEN SPELLS AND MAGIC WOULD BE STRONGER SINCE THEIR WORDS ARE MORE ANCIENT AND FAR OLDER SO THEY’D BE WAY MORE POWERFUL???? SORRY FOR THE CAPS?????
irrelevanseas-deactivated201605:
NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR CAPS. PHOENICIAN SPELLS. ARAMAIC SPELLS. LANGUAGES MUGGLES DON’T KNOW ANYMORE THAT HAVE BEEN PRESERVED THROUGH WIZARDING SPELLS IN LITTLE POCKETS OF THE WORLD. SOURCE LANGUAGES NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO ADAPT OR CHANGE ANYMORE BECAUSE THE LANGUAGES HAVE DIED AND PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO CAUSE LIKE, A NUCLEAR FALLOUT. IM SO EXCITED THANKS FOR THIS.
#WOOOOOO#literally all i wanna do is write a wizarding series set there#and to explore the prejudices of not only class difference and blood difference#but also religious differences and how that affects their magic#and instead of a ministry theres the monarchy#and djinn instead of ghosts#and just ARABIC FOLKLORE /throws rainbow sparkles/#im gonna die#harry potter#language#linguistics#ARAMIC SPELLSSSS#headcanon that bc they use the older/oldest languages middle eastern witches and wizards have no need for wands to channel their magic#bc it’s so pure and strong#ANOTHER HEaDCANON#pets allowed to be brought to school include and are not limited to: sphinxes. fennec foxes. golems.#desert wolves too#basically go big or go home with school pets (the-writers-ramblings)
Witches in secret pockets of Morocco who’ve been casting spells with ancient spices long before wands came about. Warlocks in Egypt who knew the double, magical, meaning behind hieroglyphics. A dead language? Latin and Ancient Greek have NOTHING on hieroglyphs. The veritable cacophany of ideas and spells and magic that the trading routes brought in. The Phoenecians with their many-striped sailboats proudly displayed Persian potion ingredients alongside spelled fishing nets woven by Palestinian wizards. Syrian magical folk meet Greek ones, and realize they can best communicate in the Ancient Greek all serious magical students learn. Curly heads bent over ancient spellbooks, and people stare as they converse in a language not spoken for hundreds of years.
Excuse you but can we not forget the jewish lore masters, poring over their tomes in hebrew and aramaic, preserved from their exiled homeland into the diaspora.
And the development of a syncretic magic in yiddish that mixes the subtle lore and subtle word power of the exiled levantines with the raw brute force of germanic magics. — how else did the golem?
DIASPORA SYNCRETIC MAGICS
jewish wizards offering house elves clothes in accordance with the slave laws
jewish wizards using golems as grunt labor
JEWISH WIZARDS
Yes to the Yiddish spells, too 😉
Jewish wizards offering clothing to house elves and then constantly debating among themselves whether using a golem or other magically-created entity with some semblance of sentience for manual labor for years or decades is essentially the same thing as keeping a magical being for the same purpose.
See also: endless debates about whether one can use magic on Shabbat, and what sorts of magic qualify as “work”. Like, does it count if you enchant an object ahead of time?
Also debates over the extent to which Divination counts as the “witchcraft” detailed in the Tanach. Actually, I bet there’d be scholars compiling detailed tractates about which spells are kosher, using extensive biblical commentary.
JEWISH WIZARDS HAVING THEIR OWN EXTENDED TALMUD. HOW HAS THIS NEVER OCCURRED TO ME BEFORE??
Magic is a natural extension of the self; Therefore, one should be allowed to use magic on Shabbos. You might put restrictions on what kind of magic, and brewing potions (even ones that don’t require heat) and using wands…
I wrote a paper for a Harry Potter conference on foreign wizardry and how the systems of magic must have evolved to be completely separate entities that have very little in common. We’re only seen a TINY portion of the wizarding world and for the most part it’s Western European. I like to imagine Bill Weasley had to extensively train for cursebreaking in Egypt, because you can’t just waltz into a tomb, wave your wand, shout Latin and expect it to work.
I also love the idea of foreign magics being a bit wonky in a duel against each other because they’re not quite compatible. Like, it’s really hard to block a spell from a foreign wizard because you don’t understand exactly what you’re blocking against.
God, so many foreign wizard feels.