We do know that there will be Native Americans in the movie, so I fully expect to see some cool stuff from them.

 

Someone just watched National Treasure.

 

If I had to guess at the plot, I'd say Newt is a well-meaning, albeit eccentric, young magizoologist who is down on his luck and thinking about giving up. His dreams of being world-renowned in his field of study are fading right before his eyes, as all attempts to find and name unknown beasts are usurped by other, more financially-stable wizards or those with more experience. But, just as he's about to give up completely, he finds a book that leads him to America, where the natives have supposedly found the most wondrous animals, though none have yet classified or studied them. Teaming up with a reckless crew of adventurers, far wilder and braver than Newt, it takes a while until he believes in their efforts. The group begins to quarrel as hunger, greed and genuine distaste for each other start to tear them apart. Initially distraught with their lack of success, things change swiftly as Newt soon finds himself in a world of trains, natives and gold, trying desperately to hold on to his morals, his head, and, inevitably, his new love...

 

All of these proposed synopses sound a little too 'adventure novel' for something JKR is penning herself. Say what you will about her worldbuilding and literary choices, the woman doesn't do generic storytelling even when she's using tired tropes.

 

New stills from the movie: Here

 

Heh. Magical Congress of the United States of America. Look at that giant gold seal... looks like the MACUSA certainly has a good amount of cash.

 

Aww, they finally get to make a Harry Potter movie and use American actors. They must be thrilled. :3

 

Is anyone reminded of the Eleventh Doctor when they look at his costume? I remember when Matt Smith was rumored to be casted. Still, Eddie Redmayne is an amazing actor, hope the movie turns out good.

Will this be considered canon?

 

I imagine we can consider the worldbuilding involved to be like book canon. Movies will probably take some creative license with magic and stuff, like the original series did.

I predict a surge of USA based fics building on top things like this Magical Congress.

As for the pic, the coat is quite dashing. I can kind of see English Wizard Indiana Jones there.

 

I never even considered the amount of fanon Americana sank that will pour from this. Alexandra Quick will probably get rewrites.

 

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/04/fantastic-beasts-american-muggle

Turns out there is new slang as well.

Muggle in the USA is called No-Maj.

 

That's it.

I'm out.

 

"No-Maj" looks pretty bad in written form, but actually it sounds fine. Rolls off the tongue quite easily. Luckily, the movie is audio-visual media not text.

 

Blergh. Didn't we read this back in '06? Or was it something else?

Okay, it's just one detail, but seriously. Someone, somewhere was actually paid because he said "I think americans have different slang for nonmagical people. We need something properly american-sounding. I propose nomaj. You know, from 'no magic'?"

Blergh.

 

Uh... Compared Rowling wrote the script, it was probably her.

 

"Jes luk at those nomajs," Sabrina said, applying some Ever-Shiny Nail Polish to her toenails. "Totes basic."

 

Is the etymology of Muggle ever explained? I would have been fine with some non-explanation about how muggle was from the 500s bc and the american settlers just never stopped using english slang.

 

The heavy nasals, the implied Midwestern twang, that massively sonorous affricate word-finally - this my friend is what a Brit from Edinburgh thinks American slang sounds like. For best results, hit that first stressed syllable with a white-girl falling tone, and you've got something no American would ever be caught dead saying. It's more American than America will ever be, which in itself is the most American thing imaginable.

 

Sounds kind of dumb, but so did "Muggle" fifteen-ish years ago so maybe it'll catch on.

 

Here's one for you: following verbs of a similar paradigm (struggle, snuggle, juggle etc.), muggle was incorporated as a frequentative of the verb "to mug" in the 17th century. Probably this is due to the same political factors which lead to the statute of secrecy, as many Wizards were "muggled" in the streets at that time. Soon this was gerundized into "done a muggle", at which point it quickly went through morpho-syntactic reanalysis to become the pejorative noun "muggle"; the verb form died out.

^Proud of this one because all words of the *uggle paradigm appear to have descended from Old Norse, and all turned into frequentatives in the 17th century. Mug descends from Old Norse as well. There you go buddy, you wanted an etymology, there's your fucking etymology. BOOM.

But it won't stop the degenerate Americans and their flat, toneless "no-maj"