Fantastic Beasts director David Yates has revealed the French for ‘muggle’.
And it’s not as cool as you want it to be.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the director of the upcoming Fantastic Beasts sequel revealed the Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald will be jetting off to Paris… and the French have their own word for muggle, too:
“Non-magique.”
Hang on… what?
Obviously, this is almost exactly the same as the American version – No-maj – to indicate a person without magical ability. But while you can understand the American language using such an obvious derivative, the French version just seems a bit bland by comparison.
“[The wizarding world in Paris is] quite glamorous, it’s quite beautiful,” Yates told Entertainment Weekly. “There’s a community that lives alongside the muggle community, it’s much freer than in New York, where there’s segregation. Paris is a bit like England, actually, not so hung up about the differences between the two. Magical people can freely move into non-magical communities as long as they’re discrete about their talents…”
Freer, sure… but not exactly more imaginative.
It’s certainly interesting to think that Fantastic Beasts will essentially give us a tour of the complete wizarding world – heading to a different city with each new movie. But I definitely hoped there would be more of an individual identity to each wizarding culture.
Perhaps that will come across on the big screen. But the French word for ‘muggle’ doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“Magizoologist Newt Scamander joins forces with young Albus Dumbledore to prevent the devious Gellert Grindelwald from raising pure-blood wizards to rule over all non-magical beings.”
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald stars Eddie Redmayne alongside Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Claudia Kim, Zoe Kravitz, Callum Turner, Jude Law, and Johnny Depp.
David Yates directed the film, based on a script by J.K. Rowling.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald heads to cinemas on 16 November 2018.
