![]() ![]() Francis Nolan, to construct phrases of a real Parseltongue language 2, with distinct phonemes 3. The films, or at least Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows: Part 1 actually bothered to hire Cambridge linguistics professor, Dr. ![]() But Parseltongue gets a much broader treatment in the films, where we actually hear Harry speaking it on several occasions. Although I agree that this is a bit inconsistent (why is this a hereditary trait if any idiot can learn to speak and understand it?), there is a certain amount of logic to it.Īs far as I'm aware, the above quote is the only time Parseltongue is described - every other time we hear it, as previously noted, Harry automatically translates and we read English (or whatever language you're reading in). Wait, what? So you can speak Parseltongue without speaking Parseltongue?Īpparently. It would appear that the entrance to the chamber isn't coded to accept Parseltongue, per se, but rather to accept a spoken password that just happens to correspond to the phrase "Open up" when spoken in Parseltongue. This suggests to me that, unlike non-magical languages, there's a difference between Parseltongue's phonemes 1 and the language itself otherwise Harry would have unconsciously translated, and we would have read "'Open up,' Ron said" instead of "Ron made a horrible strangled hissing noise". Note that Ron's "strangled hissing" isn't translated into English, while every other occurrence of Parseltongue in the series has been the fact that Harry never actually hears Parseltongue when it's spoken is a fairly major plot point in Chamber of Secrets. Where Ron acquired these skills is not discussed, but it's clear that he's not actually speaking the language - he doesn't know what he's saying (although he assumes it's something like "Open"), he's just recreating the sounds. "I had to have a few goes to get it right, but," he shrugged modestly, "we got there in the end." "It's what you did to open the locket," he told Harry apologetically. Ron made a horrible strangled hissing noise. "But how did you get in ?" asked, staring from the fangs to Ron. ![]() From chapter 31, "The Battle of Hogwarts": This is explained in the book, although not very well: Ron uses a heretofore-unknown talent for mimicry to exactly duplicate the sounds Harry made earlier in their adventure. Granted, he could have tried Apparating, but then he wouldn't have needed to fake Parseltongue to begin with. Other baffling issues somewhat related to my question are thus even if Ron had somehow unlocked the gate, how did he make his way down? In the second novel, Lockheart's foolery demolished the main tunnel to the Chamber, making it impossible to access or leave the fact that the teeth are still there also implies that the Chamber wasn't excavated and the rubble cleared in the interval. Without linguistic knowledge nor inherent ability, the chances of making any kind of coherent sentence (let alone the right one!) would be incredibly slim even in the case of mundane languages it would be like gibbering at a Filipino in the hope that what you said was fluent Tagalog and didn't insult their mother. This is firmly established by the fact that even Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of all time and a polyglot, is completely unable to speak it despite understanding it perfectly. First and foremost, Parseltongue is not just a language, but a magical ability that can only be learned through hereditary or magical means (Potter being the sole example of the latter). This is, by itself, a shockingly slapdash deus ex machina, but even worse is how it is completely inconsistent with the guidelines Rowling herself set. For me, the lowest point was when Ron gargles at the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets- and succeeds!- so he can get some Basilisk fangs to destroy a Horcrux (which are conveniently vulnerable to this venom). Although 'The Deathly Hallows' was overall an excellent conclusion to Harry Potter's saga, there were moments within the book that felt infuriatingly lazy, like Rowling was whipping the plot along regardless of the holes she tore in it. ![]()
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