The language of the Harry Potter series is rife with clever wordplay that includes terms invented by the author, alliteration, spells, and names with underlying meanings related to the characters (take, for example, Xenophilius Lovegood, whose name means “lover of the strange or foreign” or the Malfoys, whose surname comes from the French “mal foi” or “bad faith”).

The author – J.K. Rowling uses very vibrant and well-thought British English, full of humor and words that she has invented herself to fit into the wizarding world she has created.

Included in the five adaptions are American English, Spanish in two adaptations, Montenegrin (of Serbian), and Valencian (of Catalan). There are two transliterations, which are translations in a different script. Serbian and English Braille are the two existing transliterations.

Not surprisingly, the Big Six is currently comprised of six Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone translations: Asturian, Greenlandic, Gujarati, Macedonian, Malayalam, and Nepali.