#finding an alternative term for muggles

As promised, I’ve collected all ther terms people sent me in last night and I’m putting them out here.

1. Nix is an interesting term anon, however, it still defines the non-magical folk in terms of what they do not have - magic. Also it has unfortunate associations with the word “nothing” and could potentially be used to imply that all things that come from muggles (and that muggle themeselves are) of no worth at all.

2. Mundane and magical is certainly how I think it would be classified in anthropological/sociological terms. While mundane couldbe used as a slur, I don’t think it really has as much of a punch as muggle (incidentally, 1920s slang for marijuana users) or nix (association with nothing, no worth). It does kind of imply boring and ordinary so hmmm. Also yes, I can see where everyday spells and the magical frameworks that uphold society (ward magic etc) could be seen as mundane, making it a difficult term for classification - but it has potential.

3. Phantompickles make an excellent, excellentpoint here by noting that any truly positive term for muggles would have to be bymuggles and not by wix and would have to have a certain amount of symbolical meaning attached to it by the muggles themselves.

(Speaking of which, we’re all muggles here - mostly - SO.)

4. I did some thinking on my own and came up with two possibleterms.

One could be to refer to the muggle preoccupation with religion, since from what I gather from canon, the wizarding world is areligious - or at least the Western world is. Possibly, pre-Statute of Secrecy and during the Enlightenment period when I presume the Statute of Secrecy had none of the complex mechanisms to uphold it, wix could refer to muggles as “Fides”. People who keep faith.

Theotherterm I came up with harks back to Linnaeus’ classification system and evolution, which I imagine, even if most wix are not aware of as a concept, wix who work in the DoM or in the Muggle Liasion Office would be aware of (or even Purebloods who maintain casual contact with the muggle world so as not to be taken “unawares” in case of considerable political strife in the muggle world which could boil over into reactionary action against wix).

Wix view themselves as being far superior to non-magical users, so what if there had been a movement in between that asserted that muggles were a different species altogether and that therefore, wix deserved to be classified as a separate species on their own terms – homo sapiens magicus *

Possibly, then, to differentiate between themselves and non-magical folk, they could have used the term “sapiens” to refer to them, which in time could have become sapients or sapient sapiens. The term simultaneously functions as a slur, yet is not entirely pejorative since the translation of homo sapiens sapiens is wise wise man. It would also represent the fact that what really characterizes non-magical folk is the way they can produce knowledge and effectively use that knowledge to enable them to adapt and live without magic – which is something which apparently astounds wix.

It’s just a thought. It is not as pithy a term as I’d like, unless you shorten it to idk saps or sth.

Thoughts?

*If someone who has formally learnt Latin could correct this, I would deeply appreciate it.