Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Magic/Parseltongue
| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Magic | |
| Parseltongue | |
|---|---|
| Type | Language |
| Features | The ability to talk to snakes |
| First Appearance | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (first appearance); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (named) |
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Parseltongue is the language of snakes. A wizard capable of speaking Parseltongue is called a Parselmouth.
[edit] Extended Description
The ability to speak Parseltongue is usually inborn; a wizard is born being able to speak Parseltongue, and those who are not born with the ability cannot normally learn the language (although, according to the author, Dumbledore may have learned to understand it, and in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Ron has learned one word of it, though it is questionable whether he knows what it means). To date, the ability to speak Parseltongue has been almost entirely associated with those who can show direct descent from Salazar Slytherin.
Harry, it turns out, can speak Parseltongue, though he was apparently not born with that ability. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Professor Dumbledore suggests that when Lord Voldemort, who is Slytherin's last descendant, tried to kill Harry, some of Voldemort's powers were transferred to him; one of those was Parseltongue.
[edit] Analysis
Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue is first described in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; it is only there that we discover how rare this ability is and how it is linked to Voldemort. However, this is not the first use of this ability; in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry speaks to a snake while visiting the zoo with the Dursleys.
The fact that Harry is a Parseltongue plays a major role in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, as it is his ability to understand Parseltongue that allows him to hear the Monster in the Chamber when it is prowling through the school, and because it allows him to actually open the Chamber. It also plays a lesser role in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince where it allows him to understand the conversations between members of the Gaunt family as viewed in Dumbledore's Pensieve. It also plays a small role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where it allows Harry to open the locket Horcrux, and allows him to understand the false Bathilda Bagshot, and to understand Voldemort's instructions to Nagini.
[edit] Questions
- In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Morfin Gaunt apparently refuses (or is unable) to speak anything except Parseltongue. How is Dumbledore, who is not a Parselmouth, able to understand what happens in the Pensieve memory where Morfin is talking to Tom Riddle?
[edit] Greater Picture
We learn in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue is actually related to the soul shard that Voldemort lost when trying to kill Harry. That soul shard had attached itself to Harry, and was the source of this ability, plus the ability to see into Voldemort's mind. The soul shard was destroyed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue went with it, according to the author.
The reason that Dumbledore can speak Parseltongue is never made entirely clear, but it is mentioned that he could speak some hundreds of languages, including Mermish and Gobbledegook. Having him understand Parseltongue as well would be relatively simple; apparently the ease of learning a language increases with the number of languages learned, even for Muggles.
