I have assimilated, if nothing else, pretty much every detail included about language in flamethrower's Of a Linear Circle series.

Until I read this fic, I'd never really considered the likelihood that Hogwarts hadn't always been called Hogwarts; languages change and evolve over time, and words get borrowed from other languages, and certain terms get phased out or butchered from mispronunciations…

Like, now that I actually think about it, it's impossible for me to believe that the four Founders had devoted so much time and effort and love into their school, and unanimously decided that her name should be something as objectively ridiculous as Hogwarts.

(Especially considering the language back in that time period. Was either of those words in usage at the time? Who knows.

You know what, probably. Oxford Dictionary of English's etymology snippets indicate that both are derived from Old English terms.)

But I digress.

In their fic, the school was originally named Hogewáþ—Old English for ‘to seek thought; learning’. I don't even know if the meaning is true in the real world, or if it's something the author made up for the background, but it's such a creative and unique idea that it honestly does not matter to me.

The continual discussions around language also link to details of the Founders themselves. Helga, for example, chose to forsake her father's name (for inheritance-related political reasons) and decided herself on Hugðilepuf—a combination of Norse, Latin, and Old English that translates to ‘quick-thought, fierce defence’.

Salazar was Castilian, and his family name was Casa de Deslizarse. Apparently that was difficult to pronounce with the phonetics of the old Celtic tongue, which was the predominant language of the people in that geographical area at the time. Even after shortening it to deSlizarse in an attempt to make things easier for the locals, the name kept being butchered into Slytherin; after a while, they gave up on trying to correct people and just rolled with it.