Rowling Has A Minor In Classics
When JK Rowling was in University, she minored in Classics and used her education to fill her books with Latin.
“It just amused me, the idea that wizards would still be using Latin as a living language, although it is, as scholars of Latin will know. “I take great liberties with the language for spells. I see it as a kind of mutation that the wizards are using.” Expelliarmus, for example, combines expellere, meaning “drive out” or “expel,” with arma, meaning “weapon,” and knocks weapons from an enemy’s hands. Incendio, which lights a fire, comes from incendiarius, or “fire-raising.” And Hogwarts’s motto is Draco Dormiens Numquam Titillandus—“Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon.”