HP CoS (Scholastic) p. 195-6: Then Ron pushed Harry into an armchair and said, "You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?" "I'm a what?" said Harry. "A Parselmouth!" said Ron. "You can talk to snakes!"

JKR offers that this rare gift is not one that you'd like to have.

Why not? Wouldn't it be great to be able to talk with the animals? People talk to their pets. Many talk to their plants. Treat 'em like family. (You'd be surprised how rejuvenating "pet therapy" can be to an isolated elderly person. Look for Eden Alternative in nursing homes, retirement communities, etc.)

Why is "talking to snakes" called Parseltongue?

There is a definite allegorical aura about snakes in general. But holding the story to its simple reading, Harry, still new to the series, can do something else at Hogwarts that nobody else can do (there are other seekers at the school). What a surprise!

Oh no! That's not good. Poor guy, he's having a hard go of it. What's more? This rare unfortunate talent is shared by V. Can it get any worse?

It's called Parselmouth!! Oy! (What does Parselmouth mean?) (Is it related to the Golden Snitch?) Hmmm. Maybe we are starting to get somewhere.

Parselmouth = Parsel (package) + mouth (carried by mouth) / tongue
* Allegorical reference to talebearing?

Snitch = ?????

Any thoughts?

not sure where she got the term - parselmouth - parse is a place in Iran - I believe in tranlsates to "for Persia". Doesn't seem to apply.

We know Harry's ability to speak parseltongue is a function of his connection to Voldemort - it is actually Voldemort who is the speaker - Harry loses the ability after the horacrux in him is destroyed.

I don't think it has anything to do with tale bearing - rather - since snakes have a fearful meaning to most - would think the ability to speak it would inspire fear. Obviously it comes from Salazar Slytherin's affinity for snakes - but how did he did learn it ??? Sounds like an interesting if not creepy story there. Perhaps because Slazar identified with the snake - he observed them and learned to speak their language - but then - how is that knowledge passed down to his heirs??

Ssss, Ss Ssssss Ssssss, ssss ss sssssss sss sssss. Ss sss ssssss ssss?

Ssss, ssss sss sss s ssssssss. Ssss ss sss sssss?

Now that we've all read DH, it is rather nifty to see that a Parseltongue and a Snitch have someone in common--too coincidental is that the person is Harry Potter.

However, JKR already revealed in an interview that "parseltongue" in an old term that was given to someone with a problem of the mouth, such a hare lip. Interview can be read here.

As for davidenglish, I'm very interested to know where he took up study of Parseltongue 1001.

Perhapsss sssomeone in the Potterverssse needsss to ssspeak like Gollem? Yesss, yesss, my precioussss.

well, i have to disagree, and i dont see what ice cream has to do with anything.




its not a bad thought, but apparently...

oh geez - of course - as in lisp"! I do like the analogy between a parselmouth and Gollum - althouogh I don't like it as it applies to Harry and Gollum !

*Modly note*

Any posts in Parseltongue or any other language such as mermish or gobbledygook must be translated into English so that all of us commoners can read it.

Even in Parseltongue you need to stay on topic too.

Fawkes28
LL Mod

Thank you for the quote, Azk. Dietitian!!

The quote appears as follows:
J.K. Rowling at the Royal Albert Hall 26 June 2003 (Accio Quote!, the largest archive of J.K. Rowling interviews on the web), Fry, Stephen, interviewer:

(SF) ". . . Snakes feature a lot – is a Parselmouth a real thing or did you make that up?

JK Rowling: Parselmouth is an old word for someone who has a problem with the mouth, like a hare lip.

Stephen Fry: So it is a real word again – very clever.

END OF QUOTE

Herpetarians might offer that the lower jaw of many snakes are "hinged" to permit the serpent to consume a creature many times larger than the size normally allowed.

LOL, David! Did you mean to say that . . . or did it just ssssslip out?

cobhome, Persia, or Paras, might factor in? In many Semitic and Indo-European languages the letter combinations: "PR", "FR", and "BR" (vowels being interchangeable) suggest "dividing the whole", e.g. "Break", "Fracture", "Fraction", "Pare", "Part", "Separate", "Paragraph", etc. (Parseltongue = "Broken Speech"??)

But then what's the connection with snakes? Can't be the snake-jaw thing. Must be something more about it.

ByRichard, thanks for the vote - ELC

DavidEnglish gives us a curious hint to the "sounds" one might hear when Parseltongue is spoken. Lots of S's. The WB CoS, however, seemed to portray the sounds as a combination of "hisses" and "raspy, stressed, half-swallowed, singular syllables" (somewhat gutteral in nature). Harry and Vmt must have gone around with an aching throat after all that!

And what sound does the snitch make? Less menacing than a bludger I'd wager. But certainly no harm comes from one (unless you swallow it; or you play for the Chuddley Cannons).

But this is it, I think. The allegory is not so obvious, but I think it in ways is intended for both Parseltongue and the Snitch: "The tongue is mightier than the sword (Griffindor or otherwise)."

Relationships: Harry was all but completely bereft of friends when he was found to be a Parselmouth. What did he do wrong? Rather the harm that talebearing causes, and precautions against it, banishes the talebearer. Harry pleads his innocence; he even questions his own veracity - could be the heir? And who listens to him? Who believes him? "Is there something you wish to tell me, Harry?" (Prof DD). He has been found out - even before he knows it himself!

What's worse than trudging around the Common Room in a rut - friendless, or sneaking down to Hagrid's hut only to find him sent back to Azkaban because somebody's SNITCHED on him? Hey, it's easy to do. Riddle makes it look so easy, so tempting.

OK, off my soap box.

Well, we could try to apply it.

Persia could suggest something Indo-European, as in a lost language. After all, the serpent spoke to Eve and she understood him. Was that 'parseltongue'?

"parse" also refers to the grammatical break down of language into categories--parsing a sentence for its parts of speech. It could imply a language which breaks things to know them. This is a no-no in Tolkien--Saruman's kind of knowledge--and Voldy isn't so very different from the dark wizard of Middle earth--a bright lad gone bad.

Haha! OK.


Parseltongue also reminds me a bit of the word "parsimonious" defined as:


Collins Pocket English Dictionary Colour Edition 1998

So maybe you have to use extreme caution to speak the language, or to learn it?

I was think that those who could speak Parseltongue could fully dislocate their jaws like snakes do.

Well Mrytle did state in CoS that it sounded like a language so I doubt it was just "ssssss". I actually found it facinating to see little DR voicing that hissing language.

Let me clarify I mean to say that if it is a language it needs more the one Letter. Even in Binary Language you have two "0" and "1". So there are other sounds or syllables that are hard to hear to the untrained ear. It's like how some people make fun of some African languages by just making "clicking" noises. It may sound like gibberish but it is not.

parcel is also a verb meaning 'divide into parts' which is interesting concidering LV and his horocruxes.
most likey, i think this is conincidence.

Isn't tabulaxrasa a Parseltongue word? I could have sworn that was what Harry said in the CoS movie when he was speaking to the snake during the duelling club scene.

There would most likely be a grammar too, though I doubt there would be few wizard linguists who could study it.

i dont know about 'tabulaxrasa' but i swear he says something like 'sythe' and that just reminds me of a pokemon.

I thought I heard "sythe" as well something like "Hysythe hisypth", I need to go watch the movie..

Harry said a whole sentence in Parseltongue before Snape vanquished the snake. Maybe if I put the subtitles on next time I watch CoS it will show what he truly said.

that would be weird...
"hello mr snake, please dont eat that toff kid, come over here...lets work things out eh?"

Well in the book we know he said "Leave him alone! Get away" so I figure we just heard the Parseltongue side of that line.

You know we could look into what sort of sounds and sylables are in the language, I'm not a linguistic but I think every letter in the word "slytherin" probably is in the language. I'm sure there are variations on Hissing sounds as I know there are on a Cats Meow, they have mews for when their hungry or lonely and then full roars when they are annoyed.

I would imagine that the letter 's' would be predominant in the language, but letters like c, z, e, l, ph, th, and any letter or sound that doesn't require teeth to make. All the letters would invaribly be made using lips and/or tongue. I've never anaylsed how a language could be created so this will be a fun thread I think.

I also said "th" and "ph" are letters because in the Japanese language the often have letter combinations to form a sound and consider it one letter.

i cant imagine it would have any hard sounds in it.
also i think f would be used, possibly ch too.

That makes sense I suppose!

Doesn't the German language also do that with the letter 'ß'? It represents a double-s sound.

true, otherwise some of there words would have 3 s' in a row.
a lot of germanic languages though have quite hard sounds like d and b so i dont think they would be used so much in parseltongue.

Spanish however has a 'll' going for it and I think that one is a much better flowing language. It has its hard stops occasionaly but nowhere gutteral like German or Russian. French may be even better flowing though.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we could get a Parseltongue language going, like the Trekkies have Klingon.

interestign word be the word for it

Certainly, bilabial fricatives--voiced or unvoiced or both--and plosives would likely predominate.



Would it most probably use an uninflected form for the possessive form?

Let's see: standard nominative inflections for the word 'sythe'

sythe sythes
sythallum sythallas
sythez sythezz

just for the singular. Perhaps their plural would be called the jugular?

i honestly have no idea what your talking about.

A pity then and a darned shame, as you must miss a lot of the humour in the pseudo-Latin spells.



Here, have a

hahahhaha, this made me crack up!!!!!
ByRichard, i think she is talking about plural and singular words (correct me if im wrong, Figgy Pudding!!). anyway you know, like:

boy-singular
boys-plural

as in plural=more then 1 and siingular=1

and this would be awesome if we had a parseltongue thing on LL, like a thread where we could only speak parseltongue... but we have to make up the words first lol

I can just about fathom what Figgy Pudding is saying.

Talking of boys would Parseltongue have masculine and feminine aspects?

Saiaxra (f) saiaxre (m) - first word in Parseltongue that Harry said in CoS movie I think as in Saixra, havky hisky esk (thats how it sounded to me, OK!).

I just grabbed some sound bytes of both Daniel Radcliffe and Chris Coualson speaking parseltongue in the CoS movie.

The part where Harry says what I assume is Parseltongue for Open both at the faucet and Door sound the same, so let's hope when DH finally roles around they can keep that consistent.

LL Parseltongue 1001 - Draft Syllabus?

1. Alpha-Numerics?
2. Diction? (consonants, vowels, dipthongs, accent, pauses, gutterals, etc.)
3. Syntax?
4. Conjugations/Declensions/Gender/Singular-Plural?
5. Body Language & Gestures?
6. Etymology/History of Parseltongue?
7. Parseltongue Legends, Songs, Culture?
8. Salazar Slitherin and Parseltongue (OK, where did he pick it up???)?
9. Parseltongue and the Sublime/Supernatural?
10. What not to say in Parseltongue?

I am really amazed at how far this thread's gone (particularly in such a short period of time)!

* Adios Amigos (Spanish/Portuguese?) in Parseltongue might translate as "Slo'hchorinsszs Hcha'ehrinhe" with a knowing wink (HP PhS/SS)? What do you think? - ELC

Were those both Dan's and Chris's voices? Either way, were they altered? Did they add some other voices, sounds? And yes - did you get the English subtitles on those?

Let's Get Started with P.T. Vocabulary!!

1. Yeehsessehh(!) = "Jo Rowling Rocks!"
2. Wrohthsshowss = "I don't like pea soup."
3. Hhrhhmmthss = "I have an itch, and I can't get it!"
4. Mmhroouvess = "Ravenclaw is a Bird of Prey - and they eat Snakes"
5. Ihnarosss'uhs = "I just ate something to big. I don't feel good."

OK. Who's next?

I have Dan speaking it in the Duleing Club, Bathroom and Main Chamber Door and yes it does sound altered. I have Chris's voice which goes from Altered to Normal for some reason. The last word sounds like he's just saying it. So it sounds like someone stopped the echo on his audio track before they were supposed to. There were no subtitles So we can try to figure out what they are saying by ear.

Shard, that's great news! That is so cool you were able to get all that! Dubbing and mixing is not my forte, but I wonder what we could find out from the screen write, effects crew, etc. There was a neat interview with Jo and Steve Kloves (?) who I think had a pretty good working relationship. (I think she said that he knew more about the later books than just about anyone else.) If this is correct, I would (almost) wager a thousand galleans that they discussed Parseltongue spoken as it would be portrayed in CoS. What do you think? By the way, you and the other moderators are doing a smashing job! Keep it up! - ELC (But put in a couple of words in Parseltongue .)

OK Vocabulary:

Hhrvththoocha = "I am tired"
Saix'rasa = "Please"
Hhrxxxmss = "I am in love"
Xmss = "Christmas, Xmas"
Baillllllssss - "basilisk"

There's some great linguistic analysis here, but I'm a little concerned about the supposition of bi-labials (fricatives or plosives). Snake lips??

Yup,yup, you're right tonksgirl. The singular/jugular thing was a joke about plurals--like child/children. The lists of word forms was flippantly rehearsing early Latin lessons but I guess Latin is deader than I thought it was.




Meet me at the plot impasse! Or is that yot impasse?

Certainly Chapter i of Book VII tells us that Voldy has a "lipless mouth" but he does not seem to have difficulty articulating all English sounds with this unusual anatomical structure. At least, when he speaks both normally (directly to people) and in his sound system voice (at in the Battle of Hogwarts), there's no suggestion he speaks English with any kind of serpentine accent. He clearly can say "Snape" and "Harry Potter" and "Dumbledore" and "Bellatrix" without any lisping--there's no "Harry Yotter" in any of his speeches. So perhaps we are to take that line metaphorically to mean skinny mouth rather than totally lipless? (Herpetologists do speak of snakes' lips even if they are simply tight skin covering the teeth rather than fleshy protuberances.)

Of course, Voldemort's ability to sound all the elements of the English sound system without lips does not mean that parseltongue has those sounds. In fact, the anatomy of snake tongues makes for a very interesting possibility of sound production. What effect would a forked tongue have on parseltongue? Perhaps the terminology should be "bi-tongual" rather than "bi-labial"?

In fact, since snakes' mouths are 'double hinged', they can actually move each side separately. (Helps 'walk' the unwilling food in). So perhaps parseltongue can literally be spoken out of both sides of the mouth at the same time, and it is this ability which accounts for "our" English hearing of duplicated ssss sounds, for instance.

Any more vocabulary fails me at the moment. Here, I think we all should have some . It's Friday after all and getting near 'happy hour'.

I would have trepidation over the eating habits of any bi-labials (What do they sup?).

Hisssssssssssssssssssss Lucius uisthtttaa! Mmaasss cha darlingggss woof ss xeraita ssoon? Purrrrhissss lulmoons?



Hello Lucius dear! How is your darling wife and wonderful son? You free tonight?

phiiiiish leassssssss ish shaaaaaaaasssi!

trans lated it means: this looks like fun!

Whhoooooyyyyyyysssss, bsbsbbbsss! = Watcher, bibs the S.P.E.W supporter!! - ELC

faaaisssh h'kaaaahh isssphossssfroooo! hiffffirrrshhha i'raaaath isssphossssfroooo?
i'd like a sausage! anyone got a sausage?
woof woof woof growl! bark woof growl?

lol

kashhhhiiiii wssssssssss ii fosssssssss xhhhh pooooooooooooooooooooozzzzzzzzzzzzzziiiii raazzzzo naaaaassssssssssssshhhh

id kill for a pizza right now

(Still being eaten by the pea soup!)

*hesssssss messsssssssiiii ishish assss suuuhesh xessh isss*

*has mental image of a snake sneezing*

(Citation continued): "I know," said Harry. "I mean, that's only the second time I've ever done it. I accidentally set a boa constrictor on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once -- long story . . ." (End Citation).

Parrots don't have lips either, but I once heard an African Grey say "Burmese Python!" very clearly. (I was holding the python at the time; her name was Sunshine; it's a long story).

Bthiiisssssssyooo! Ss ee tizzuu. (Bless you! Here have a tissue)


*Imagines snake sunnying himself on a beach in Rio next to bikini clad women. *

ssssllllll ossh ssssssssllllll

lol