quendi clans?
Chris Hoelscher
elves? fror example - what made an aboriginal elf part of "the kindred of
Ingwe"? (or Finwe or Elwe for that matter?
was it proximity to one of the "kings" at waking? was it a physical
resemblence - or an ideological matching? or some other criteriia? - or did
they just "know" ?
thanks
Chris Hoelscher
Stan Brown
The best we have on this question is in HoME XI, /The War of the
Jewels/. On page 380 in "Quendi and Eldar" we read "According to the
legend, preserved in almost identical form among both the Elves of
Aman and the Sindar, the Three Clans were in the beginning derived
from the three Elf-fathers Imin, Tata, and Enel (sc. One, Two, and
Three), and those whom EACH CHOSE TO JOIN HIS FOLLOWING." (emphasis
added).
There's an Appendix, "The legend of the Awakening of the Quendi", on
pages 420-422, which expands on the allocation into tribes.
Essentially it seems to have been chance. The three Elf-fathers,
after waking their destined wives, go exploring together and find
groups of Elves. Each father claims more than one group to be his
followers.
Let me just give another plug to /The History of Middle-earth:
Index/, just a few dollars at Amazon. All I could remember of the
answer to Chris's question was the odd name "Tata", but the index
immediately directed me to the right place.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
NY Teacher
"Stan Brown" wrote in message
news:MPG.27992e375...@news.individual.net...
On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:19:50 -0500, Chris Hoelscher wrote:
>
> how was the membership of the 3 "kindred" determined among the aboriginal
> elves? fror example - what made an aboriginal elf part of "the kindred of
> Ingwe"? (or Finwe or Elwe for that matter?
>
> was it proximity to one of the "kings" at waking? was it a physical
> resemblence - or an ideological matching? or some other criteriia? - or
> did
> they just "know" ?
The best we have on this question is in HoME XI, /The War of the
Jewels/. On page 380 in "Quendi and Eldar" we read "According to the
legend, preserved in almost identical form among both the Elves of
Aman and the Sindar, the Three Clans were in the beginning derived
from the three Elf-fathers Imin, Tata, and Enel (sc. One, Two, and
Three), and those whom EACH CHOSE TO JOIN HIS FOLLOWING." (emphasis
added).
There's an Appendix, "The legend of the Awakening of the Quendi", on
pages 420-422, which expands on the allocation into tribes.
Essentially it seems to have been chance. The three Elf-fathers,
after waking their destined wives, go exploring together and find
groups of Elves. Each father claims more than one group to be his
followers.
[snip]
Interesting.
We must assume that not all the elves were "claimed" by the elf-fathers.
Most of these were probably simply not found by the trio.
But would it also be possible that some elves were not deemed worthy to be
claimed (akin to being picked last for gym class)?
I wonder because it seems likely that these "unclaimed" elves would be the
ones twisted by Morgoth into the first orcs.
Could it also explain the origin of Tom Bombadil, i.e. an "unclaimed" elf or
an elf who refused to be claimed?
NYT
Troels Forchhammer
"Chris Hoelscher" <chrisho...@insightbb.com> spoke these staves:
> how was the membership of the 3 "kindred" determined among the
> aboriginal elves?
I think that the only account we have of the Awakening is the rather
late _Cuivienyarna_ which is published in _The War of the Jewels_ as
an appendix to part 4, 'Quendi and Eldar'. This text Tolkien himself
described as 'Actually written (in style and simple notions) to be a
surviving Elvish "fairytale" or child's tale, mingled with counting-
lore'. This qualifier, in my opinion, is so different from the usual
'some have said' that Tolkien uses that I think we should be careful
how we treat the events therein described.
With this qualification in mind, the process as described in this
tale is this:
The three fathers awoke first with a short time between, and they are
called Imin, Tata and Enel (basically 'One', 'Two' and 'Three'). 'And
the next thing they saw was their destined spouses lying asleep on
the green sward beside them.' This is destiny, fate -- the Music:
strong forces that should not be meddled with! :-)
After a while the three fathers -- with their spouses -- go for a
walk and find six pairs of elves sleeping.
Then Imin claimed to be the eldest and to have the right
of first choice; and he said: 'I choose these twelve to be
my companions.'
Next time they find some Elves it is the second-oldest, Tata, that
claims second choice, and then Enel has the third choice. The story
goes on a bit further until the 144 original, 'unbegotten' Quendi are
accounted for, but the essence is that they come in pairs (these
pairs seem to be appointed by Ilúvatar), and that the first three to
waken get to choose, so that it is more or less random which Elves
get to belong to which tribe, though of course this could also be
seen as Fate -- that this is ultimately appointed by Eru.
As I pointed out above, there is a note by Tolkien that, IMHO, makes
it questionable whether Tolkien actually intended this myth to
express story-internal truth, but I think that some elements can be
trusted. One such element is the idea of the original Elves awakening
as appointed couples: each Elf has an appointed mate. Regardless of
the precise practical manner of their division into tribes, I will
claim that this is no more random than the pairing of spouses: the
division of the Quendi into tribes is, IMO, just as fated as their
division into pairs. Whether this fate was expressed by some
seemingly random choices as per the myth, or whether the knowledge of
which tribe they belonged to was built in into every Elf, or whether
it was built into them by their physical appearance, is, I think, not
so important.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does
knowledge.
- Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
Troels Forchhammer
<nyte...@upstate.ny> spoke these staves:
> "Stan Brown" wrote in message
> news:MPG.27992e375...@news.individual.net...
>>
>> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:19:50 -0500, Chris Hoelscher wrote:
>>>
>>> how was the membership of the 3 "kindred" determined among the
>>> aboriginal elves?
>>
>> The best we have on this question is in HoME XI, /The War of the
>> Jewels/.
You beat me to it (probably while I was busy researching the Music
;-) (between the two of us, I don't think there is anything
substantial to add)
<snip>
> Interesting.
>
> We must assume that not all the elves were "claimed" by the
> elf-fathers. Most of these were probably simply not found by the
> trio. But would it also be possible that some elves were not
> deemed worthy to be claimed (akin to being picked last for gym
> class)?
I rather get the impression that there were none others to find. In
the legend the oldest of the fathers, Imin, is rather dissatisfied
with his small following (he made some rather poor choices), so he
spends a long time searching for more followers, 'But they never
found any more companions, for the tale of the First Elves was
complete.'
> I wonder because it seems likely that these "unclaimed" elves
> would be the ones twisted by Morgoth into the first orcs.
Well -- clearly this gross of Elves had multiplied rather seriously
already before Oromë found them, so I would rather presume that the
later generations provided the raw material for the Orcs (in those
versions where the Orcs were originally Elves -- and I have no idea
if the _Cuivienyarna_ belongs to such a version).
> Could it also explain the origin of Tom Bombadil, i.e. an
> "unclaimed" elf or an elf who refused to be claimed?
I rather doubt that, but then I admit that I think that any story-
internal attempt to explain the nature of Tom should also take into
account his story-_external_ origin.
>> Let me just give another plug to /The History of Middle-earth:
>> Index/, just a few dollars at Amazon. All I could remember of the
>> answer to Chris's question was the odd name "Tata", but the index
>> immediately directed me to the right place.
Funny how the mind works ;) I remembered that it was an appendix to
'Quendi and Eldar' and that there was 144 unbegotten Elves, but I
couldn't remember any of the details beyond that (it's a number --
there's a good reason why I work with numbers profesionally). But
your point is well taken -- I really need to get that index.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
The idea that time may vary from place to place is a
difficult one, but it is the idea Einstein used, and it is
correct - believe it or not.
- Richard Feynman
Stan Brown
> "Stan Brown" wrote in message
> news:MPG.27992e375...@news.individual.net...
>
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:19:50 -0500, Chris Hoelscher wrote:
> > was it proximity to one of the "kings" at waking? was it a physical
> > resemblence - or an ideological matching? or some other criteriia? - or
> > did
> > they just "know" ?
>
> The best we have on this question is in HoME XI, /The War of the
> Jewels/. On page 380 in "Quendi and Eldar" we read "According to the
> legend, preserved in almost identical form among both the Elves of
> Aman and the Sindar, the Three Clans were in the beginning derived
> from the three Elf-fathers Imin, Tata, and Enel (sc. One, Two, and
> Three), and those whom EACH CHOSE TO JOIN HIS FOLLOWING." (emphasis
> added).
>
> There's an Appendix, "The legend of the Awakening of the Quendi", on
> pages 420-422, which expands on the allocation into tribes.
> Essentially it seems to have been chance. The three Elf-fathers,
> after waking their destined wives, go exploring together and find
> groups of Elves. Each father claims more than one group to be his
> followers.
>
Please fix your quoting style. When you use that idiosyncratic
technique, and someone else follows up on it, it looks like you said
what you actually only quoted from me.
I'm aware that the recent updates to Windows Live Mail broke your
quoting style. Unfortunately that poses a painful choice to you:
either fix every quote manually, or get a real newsreader such as
Gravity or Forte Agent (to mention the two that come to mind at the
moment).
Thanks for your consideration!
Öjevind Lång
news:3didnR0eNtPY_LPQ...@insightbb.com...
> how was the membership of the 3 "kindred" determined among the aboriginal
elves? fror example - what made an aboriginal elf part of "the kindred of
Ingwe"? (or Finwe or Elwe for that matter?
There was also a fourth group of aboriginal Elves known as the "abominable
Elves" or Yetiquendi.
Öjevind
Bill O'Meally
> Funny how the mind works ;) I remembered that it was an appendix to
> 'Quendi and Eldar' and that there was 144 unbegotten Elves, but I
> couldn't remember any of the details beyond that (it's a number --
> there's a good reason why I work with numbers profesionally). But
> your point is well taken -- I really need to get that index.
144? One Gross indeed! Vulgar expression.
--
Bill O'Meally
"Wise Fool" -- Gandalf, _The Two Towers_
(The Wise will remove 'se' to reach me. The Foolish will not!)
Troels Forchhammer
Bill O'Meally <omea...@wise.rr.com> spoke these staves:
>
> On 2011-01-13 16:38:53 -0600, Troels Forchhammer said:
>>
>> Funny how the mind works ;) I remembered that it was an appendix to
>> 'Quendi and Eldar' and that there was 144 unbegotten Elves, but I
>> couldn't remember any of the details beyond that
>
> 144? One Gross indeed! Vulgar expression.
Precisely ;-) It's gross . . . (I was about _this close_ <holds up
thumb and index close to each other> from using that phrase -- that
there was a gross of unbegotten Elves)
I do wonder if the Elvish pre-occupation with the number 12[*] has any
connection at all with some preference of Tolkien's for that number? Or
is there any traditions about the number twelve? (As there is for
instance for thirteen, or three or nine). Not that I think it matters
with respect to understanding his works -- I am just curious ;-)
[*]
And so it was that the Quendi ever after reckoned in
twelves, and that 144 was for long their highest number, so
that in none of their later tongues was there any common
name for a greater number.
_War of the Jewels_, part 4 'Qendi and Eldar' appendix.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not
simpler.
- Albert Einstein
Stan Brown
> I do wonder if the Elvish pre-occupation with the number 12[*] has any
> connection at all with some preference of Tolkien's for that number? Or
> is there any traditions about the number twelve?
It's the only number above two that has its own name in common use.
Sure, you can come up with words like triplet and quadruplet, but
really you buy a pair of gloves, three slices of prosciutto, but a
dozen eggs.
I think the Elves' preoccupation with the number twelve comes from
our world's ditto. It's Tolkien's version of a "just so story" -- Men
today treat twelve as special because the Elves did, and we learned
it from them.
Another example: the New Year in Middle-earth began on 25 March,
exactly the same day when it began in England before the calendar
reform.
Odysseus
Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:49:49 +0100, Troels Forchhammer wrote:
> > I do wonder if the Elvish pre-occupation with the number 12[*] has any
> > connection at all with some preference of Tolkien's for that number? Or
> > is there any traditions about the number twelve?
<piggyback>
Mythologies and mystical traditions abound in numerical symbolism. That
of twelves can often be traced back to there being approximately that
many (synodic) months in the year.
</piggyback>
> It's the only number above two that has its own name in common use.
Other than its most usual name, I suppose you mean.
> Sure, you can come up with words like triplet and quadruplet, but
> really you buy a pair of gloves, three slices of prosciutto, but a
> dozen eggs.
No invention is needed for native speakers to produce "triplet" (with
"triplicate"), "quadruplet", & seq., but the similar words for larger
groups do sound increasingly like nonce-formations. "Trio" and "quartet"
are hardly uncommon, and the subsequent words that are formed in the
same way also diminish in familiarity rather gradually. Still, I agree
with you to the extent that these terms tend to be more specialized in
application than either "pair" or "dozen".
"Score" used to be common but is pretty well obsolete now. I have heard
"century" used (counting not only years), albeit somewhat jocularly.
"Myriad" is reasonably current, but almost always figurative.
Then there's "Avogadro's number" ... ;)
> I think the Elves' preoccupation with the number twelve comes from
> our world's ditto. It's Tolkien's version of a "just so story" -- Men
> today treat twelve as special because the Elves did, and we learned
> it from them.
In many respects the Elves seem to exemplify ideals of aesthetic
judgement and rationality (culturally if not individually), and for some
centuries there have been a few mathematicians & others advocating the
duodecimal sytem on both these grounds. Nowadays they're mostly a fringe
of the anti-metric lobby, twelve being a very common base for
traditional units of measure. We still cling to our twelve months and
our twice-twelve-hour day! Anyway, I wonder if Tolkien may have
encountered 'dozenalism' while a student or from academic colleagues.
> Another example: the New Year in Middle-earth began on 25 March,
> exactly the same day when it began in England before the calendar
> reform.
Yes, Lady Day ... but the *Elvish* calendar bears little resemblance to
anything ever known to have been used in England!
--
Odysseus
JJ
>
> No invention is needed for native speakers to produce "triplet" (with
> "triplicate"), "quadruplet", & seq., but the similar words for larger
> groups do sound increasingly like nonce-formations. "Trio" and "quartet"
> are hardly uncommon, and the subsequent words that are formed in the
> same way also diminish in familiarity rather gradually. Still, I agree
> with you to the extent that these terms tend to be more specialized in
> application than either "pair" or "dozen".
>
> "Score" used to be common but is pretty well obsolete now. I have heard
> "century" used (counting not only years), albeit somewhat jocularly.
Still used in cricket! 'Score' was used in archery for distances (ie.,
20 yards) and still is in one form, clout shooting. Incidentally, a
'pair' of arrows is three!
> I wonder if Tolkien may have
> encountered 'dozenalism' while a student or from academic colleagues.
In his lifetime the duodecimal system was invariably used; decimal
coinage was introduced in 1971 and metric measurements were forced on
us much later.
Dirk Thierbach
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:49:49 +0100, Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>> I do wonder if the Elvish pre-occupation with the number 12[*] has any
>> connection at all with some preference of Tolkien's for that number? Or
>> is there any traditions about the number twelve?
> It's the only number above two that has its own name in common use.
> Sure, you can come up with words like triplet and quadruplet, but
> really you buy a pair of gloves, three slices of prosciutto, but a
> dozen eggs.
And there's a mathematical reason for this: 12 has quite a lot of
factors for its size, so it's easy to divide up a dozen items in
whatever way is suitable.
Another number like this is 60. I really wonder why there's no
special name for this number.
> I think the Elves' preoccupation with the number twelve comes from
> our world's ditto. It's Tolkien's version of a "just so story" -- Men
> today treat twelve as special because the Elves did, and we learned
> it from them.
Quite possible.
- Dirk
derek
> On Jan 15, 7:18 am, Odysseus <odysseus1479...@yahoo-dot.ca> wrote:
>
> > "Score" used to be common but is pretty well obsolete now. I have heard
> > "century" used (counting not only years), albeit somewhat jocularly.
>
> Still used in cricket! 'Score' was used in archery for distances (ie.,
> 20 yards) and still is in one form, clout shooting. Incidentally, a
> 'pair' of arrows is three!
That really doesn't count. That's not "common usage". You can
probably find many such examples in specific jargon. "score" would be
commonly _understood_, specifically from the phrase "three score years
and ten", but it's still considered archaic. "Century" as a number
describing anything but the passage of time is almost exclusively
borrowed _from_ cricket, these days.
O. Sharp
> I do wonder if the Elvish pre-occupation with the number 12[*] has any
> connection at all with some preference of Tolkien's for that number? Or
> is there any traditions about the number twelve? (As there is for
> instance for thirteen, or three or nine). Not that I think it matters
> with respect to understanding his works -- I am just curious ;-)
Well, there's certainly been many other ideas put forward, both in this
thread and elsewhere - the most simple, and amusing, of which is that
Elves simply had an extra finger on each hand. :)
But I always took it as an echo of subcreationism - everything springs
forth from the Music, and there are twelve musical notes spanning the
range between any given note and its counterpart on the next octave. The
Elves, much more attuned to the magic (or underlying science?) of Creation
than we are, might find base twelve a much more practical base for
calculation than we do.
In short: Elves count music, we count money. :)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
o...@panix.com I know somebody out there is going to seize on the
word "octave" and insist that there are only eight notes
and not twelve. I can only suggest that, should such a
person be preparing to post a frothy and righteous reply,
they first check their piano and make sure a third of the
keys haven't fallen off.
Julian Bradfield
> But I always took it as an echo of subcreationism - everything springs
> forth from the Music, and there are twelve musical notes spanning the
> range between any given note and its counterpart on the next octave. The
Um, what makes you think the Ainur used a twelve-tone scale?
The commonest scale among humans is, I think, pentatonic; but the
Ainur could presumably cope with arbitrarily microtonal music.
(Whatever "music" means in the Timeless Halls!)
Paul S. Person
<dthie...@usenet.arcornews.de> wrote:
>Another number like this is 60. I really wonder why there's no
>special name for this number.
The translation of Ptolemy in the Great Books of the Western World set
uses "parts" (with a superscript reduced-size capital P as its
symbol), but that hardly qualifies.
Still, Ptolemy also breaks everything down into 60ths, all the way
down to (IIRC) the fifth level (that is, 60ths of 60ths of 60ths of
60ths of 60ths of a degree or a part). And, of course, an "hour" is
divided into 60 minutes ("minute parts"), and a minute into 60 seconds
("second minutes"), so the use of 60 is still quite common, even if 60
itself has no special name.
--
"'If God foreknew that this would happen,
it will happen.'"
Steve Morrison
> Still used in cricket! 'Score' was used in archery for distances (ie.,
> 20 yards) and still is in one form, clout shooting. Incidentally, a
> 'pair' of arrows is three!
>
I've read that the word "pair" did not originally imply "two".
From a Straight Dope article (http://preview.tinyurl.com/cyt6q2):
Further confusing matters is "a dozen pairs of rosaries," even
though there are 50-some beads. This harks back to an old use
of the word "pair" to mean "a set of more than two like or
equal things making a whole."
A related usage, supposedly common in the theater business for
many years, is "a pair [flight] of stairs." Occasionally
theatrical types will say of a pair that it is "nice," and one
assumes the rest of the superstructure ain't bad either. But
that's a discussion for another day.
Julian Bradfield
> I've read that the word "pair" did not originally imply "two".
> From a Straight Dope article (http://preview.tinyurl.com/cyt6q2):
If you read somewhere reliable instead, like the OED, you find that
pair did originally mean two, but sometime around 1150 in French and
1350 in English developed a meaning of a set (not nec. two) as well.
E.g. "a pair of cards", apparently still in use in some English
dialects in the 1960s.
derek
Thanks for asking - I was thinking the same :-)
Bill O'Meally
> I've read that the word "pair" did not originally imply "two".
> From a Straight Dope article (http://preview.tinyurl.com/cyt6q2):
>
> Further confusing matters is "a dozen pairs of rosaries," even
> though there are 50-some beads. This harks back to an old use
> of the word "pair" to mean "a set of more than two like or
> equal things making a whole."
>
> A related usage, supposedly common in the theater business for
> many years, is "a pair [flight] of stairs." Occasionally
> theatrical types will say of a pair that it is "nice," and one
> assumes the rest of the superstructure ain't bad either. But
> that's a discussion for another day.
Though I don't consider a pair of pants as two separate garments.
Odysseus
<ca9d22f8-1818-42dc...@f35g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
JJ <jo...@jones5011.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> On Jan 15, 7:18 am, Odysseus <odysseus1479...@yahoo-dot.ca> wrote:
<snip>
> > I wonder if Tolkien may have
> > encountered 'dozenalism' while a student or from academic colleagues.
>
> In his lifetime the duodecimal system was invariably used; decimal
> coinage was introduced in 1971 and metric measurements were forced on
> us much later.
Ordinary arithmetic used decimal notation quite invariably, then as now
and having done so for many centuries. Gallons and avoirdupois pounds
were divided by powers of 2, pounds being grouped in 14s (stone), 8s
(hundredweight) and 20s (long tons); the coinage had a vigesimal level
above the duodecimal; surveying measures (miles, furlongs, acres, &c.)
were quite lacking in 12s ... So it seems to me that to characterize
Tolkien's era as dominated by duodecimal is a stretch, to say the least.
--
Odysseus
Dirk Thierbach
That's funny. Modern German still has both uses: With capital P, it
means "two matching", with lower case p, it means "a few" or
"some". As in "ein Paar Socken" = a matching pair of socks, "ein paar
Socken" = some socks, a few socks. But the latter meaning doesn't
imply completeness, as in "set". "Ein paar Karten" is never a full
set of cards.
Any idea why this development happened in several languages?
- Dirk
JJ
> In article
> <ca9d22f8-1818-42dc-a82f-2f57d1858...@f35g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
Measures of length are mostly accidental: a mile is a thousand paces
(with one foot), a furlong (furrow-long) is a convenient size which
converts into an eighth of a mile; a foot is well, a foot; a yard is a
man's pace ( which is conveniently three feet), an inch is the length
of the top joint of your thumb. There are twelve inches in a foot: not
duodecimal? A man of Tolkien's generation (and mine) would be totally
accustomed to Imperial measures and certainly he would never have
understood metric!
derek
> Measures of length are mostly accidental:
As are some of your examples :-)
> a mile is a thousand paces (with one foot), ... a yard is a
> man's pace ( which is conveniently three feet),
A pace cannot possibly be both 3 feet and 1/1000th of a mile. I don't
know how a mile came to be the size it is, but the 1000 pace distance
was a Roman measure, whose name I can of course not recall, but
related to "stadium", iirc. That's often translated as Mile or Roman
Mile, but clearly isn't actually a mile.
Jeff Urs
Julian Bradfield
As JJ said, a mile is a thousand paces (with one foot) - i.e. the
distance from the left (say) foot to the left foot again when it next hits
the ground. So about five feet.
The Roman mille passus is generally said to have been about 1618
yards, the Roman foot being a little shorter than ours.
Jeff Urs
Dadgummed "Send" button.
Anyway...
I shall, like you, rely on my memory (initialized when I were a lad in
school), rather than a dictionary. :-)
The mile, so they said, comes from 1000 paces of a Roman legionary,
same foot to same foot. The name of the measure was "mille", from the
Latin for "thousand". The stadium was a completely different measure.
The yard, I was told, comes from the distance from one's nose to the
tip of one's index finger when the arm is extended in front. That is
apparently a bit longer than a Roman soldier's step from one foot to
the other (that being half his pace).
--
Jeff
Paul S. Person
That is, of course, a "noun vs adjective" difference and yes, it /is/
interesting that the noun should mean "exactly two of" and the
adjective should mean "a few" or "several".
Is that the only instance in German where a noun and an adjective,
spelled identically, have different meanings? English has at least two
verb/noun pairs with different meanings: "affect" and "effect". (When
you "affect" something, you produce an "effect". An "affect" is close
to "affectation" in meaning; and to "effect" something is to make it
happen.)
derek
wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 09:01:26 +0100, Dirk Thierbach
>
>
>
> <dthierb...@usenet.arcornews.de> wrote:
> >Julian Bradfield <j...@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> >>> I've read that the word "pair" did not originally imply "two".
> >>> From a Straight Dope article (http://preview.tinyurl.com/cyt6q2):
>
> >> If you read somewhere reliable instead, like the OED, you find that
> >> pair did originally mean two, but sometime around 1150 in French and
> >> 1350 in English developed a meaning of a set (not nec. two) as well.
> >> E.g. "a pair of cards", apparently still in use in some English
> >> dialects in the 1960s.
>
> >That's funny. Modern German still has both uses: With capital P, it
> >means "two matching", with lower case p, it means "a few" or
> >"some". As in "ein Paar Socken" = a matching pair of socks, "ein paar
> >Socken" = some socks, a few socks. But the latter meaning doesn't
> >imply completeness, as in "set". "Ein paar Karten" is never a full
> >set of cards.
>
> >Any idea why this development happened in several languages?
>
> That is, of course, a "noun vs adjective" difference and yes, it /is/
> interesting that the noun should mean "exactly two of" and the
> adjective should mean "a few" or "several".
>
> Is that the only instance in German where a noun and an adjective,
> spelled identically, have different meanings? English has at least two
> verb/noun pairs with different meanings: "affect" and "effect". (When
> you "affect" something, you produce an "effect". An "affect" is close
> to "affectation" in meaning; and to "effect" something is to make it
> happen.)
There's only case in English I can think of where the verb and noun/
adjective are spelled identically except for capitalization, but have
different meanings - and that's Polish and polish. It is, of course,
nothing like the German example etymologically. :-)
Stan Brown
>
> There's only case in English I can think of where the verb and
> noun/ adjective are spelled identically except for capitalization,
> but have different meanings - and that's Polish and polish. It is,
> of course, nothing like the German example etymologically. :-)
Far be it from me to disagree with your august thinking, but we might
talk about it next August.
derek
> On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:10:12 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
>
> > There's only case in English I can think of where the verb and
> > noun/ adjective are spelled identically except for capitalization,
> > but have different meanings - and that's Polish and polish. It is,
> > of course, nothing like the German example etymologically. :-)
>
> Far be it from me to disagree with your august thinking, but we might
> talk about it next August.
I did say only one I could think of. :-) Yours is certainly a better
example, as they should, I think, have a common root. Of course,
given the nature of capitalization in German, I suppose it's not
strictly fair to dismiss Paul's examples.
Odysseus
Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:10:12 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
> >
> > There's only case in English I can think of where the verb and
> > noun/ adjective are spelled identically except for capitalization,
> > but have different meanings - and that's Polish and polish. It is,
> > of course, nothing like the German example etymologically. :-)
>
> Far be it from me to disagree with your august thinking, but we might
> talk about it next August.
Those are an adjective and a noun. Of course "polish" can be a noun as
well as a verb -- I don't know which came first.
There are probably several verb-&-noun pairs like "bear" (to carry) &
"bear" (ursid), and even some multiples like "sound" (to give voice or
to measure depth) & "sound" (noise or marine channel), but very few
distinguished by capitalization of the noun(s). English doesn't seem to
go in for that quite as much as German does. ;)
--
Odysseus
Dirk Thierbach
> In article <MPG.279d1f1aa...@news.individual.net>,
> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:10:12 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
>> > There's only case in English I can think of where the verb and
>> > noun/ adjective are spelled identically except for capitalization,
>> > but have different meanings - and that's Polish and polish. It is,
>> > of course, nothing like the German example etymologically. :-)
>> Far be it from me to disagree with your august thinking, but we might
>> talk about it next August.
> Those are an adjective and a noun.
That's because Stan answered the original point -- "Paar" is a noun,
and "paar" an adjective.
- Dirk
Öjevind Lång
news:a9b193d6-e00a-4878...@d7g2000vbv.googlegroups.com...
Oh yes, the month of August was named for the Emperor Augustus, who was
really named Octavius, nicknamed Octavianus (and a lot of other things), but
whose by-name means "elevated, glorious, admirable", and the like. He rather
fancied that by-name, which only became currency some years after he had
been safely installed as ruler of the Roman Empire.
In general, the names by which Roman Emperors were known to their
contemporaries, and to history, are a curious mélange of nicknames,
honorific titles, first names, clan names and family names. The Emperor
Tiberius' full name was Tiberius Claudius Nero. The emperor Caligula's full
name was Caius Claudius Nero; Caligula was a pet-name given to him by his
father's soldiers, meaning "Little Boot". The Emperor Nero's full name was
Nero Claudius Caesar, but all those names were added when he was adopted by
the emperor Claudius; Nero originally had a first name, a clan name and a
family name which do not appear in the lists after he was adopted by the
emperor Claudius, whose full name as a ruler was Tiberius Claudius Caesar
Augustus Germanicus, where the name Augustus was honorific and added, as it
was to most emperors after Augustus, and Germanicus was a by-name his father
had acquired after commanding troops in a campaign against the Germans. (The
cognomen Nero was no doubt part of his name set but apparently not included
when he became an emperor.) Originally, the emperor Nero's name would have
been Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, as was his father's, but his mother was of
the Nero family of the gens Claudia, so when slated to become heir to the
throne he was renamed. All Romans had a prenomen, a nomen and a cognomen -
that is to say, a first name (Caius, Tiberius, Titus), a clan name (Julius,
Cornelius, Sempronius, Claudius) and the name of your family within the
clan - Caesar, Sulla, Scipio, Gracchus, Nero. So Caius Julius Caesar had a
praenomen (Caius, his given name), a nomen (Julius, the clan name; he
belonged to the gens Julia) and Caesar (the cognomen or family name, which
was adopted by all his successors and became synonymous with "ruler,
emperor, Caesar, Tsar, Kaiser").
The chaos did not end with the extinction of the Claudian dynasty. The
Emperor Vespasian's full name was Titus Flavius Vespasianus. His son and
successor Titus was also called Titus Flavius Vespasianus, but Titus'
brother and successor Domitian was called Titus Flavius Domitianus. I'm not
sure why he sported a different cognomen, but his wife belonged to a rather
distinguished family called Domitius, so perhaps he chose to use her nomen
because there had already been one emperor Vespasian and one emperor Titus.
Hmm. (The Romans were very unimaginative about given names; there were less
than 20 of them: Caius, Cnaeus, Publius, Quintus, Sixtus, Septimus, Octavius
and so on. There were no female names; the daughters were officially simply
known by the father's nomen in a female form: Julia, Claudia, Sempronia.)
As the Principate extended through the centuries, the offical names and
titles of the emperors also became longer. And yet they were simply referred
to by one name or honorific title or nickname, for the sake of convenience.
The names used for them in history writing became even more motley.
Philippus Arabs, for example - "Philip the Arab". He was originally named
Philippus (a Latinized form of a Greek name, worn, among other people, by
Philip of Macedon, father to Alexander the Great), and he was an Arab. Or
the three emperors Gordian I, II and III - grandfather, father and son, all
named Marcus Antonius Gordianus. By their time (3d century A.D.), the Romans
had got wise th the usefulness of numerals when listing monarchs. (Who, of
course, officially were not monarchs at all but just happened to be
"adopted" into the Caesar family, which had a "special position" in the
republic.)
Confusing? Well, here's an attempt at a brekadown of the names of the
Claudian emperors - the members of the first Roman impersal dynasty:
Augustus - Caius Octavius, assumed his maternal uncle Julius Caesar's
cognomen Caesar - known in the history books by the name Augustus, one of
the many glorious by-names he awarded himself.
Tiberius - Tiberius Claudius Nero - known as an emperor by his given name.
There were no frills about Tiberius. Of course, as an emperor he
automatically acquired the additional name (nomen, or clan name) of Caesar.
Caligula - Caius Nero Claudius Germanicus, nephew of Tiberius; I don't know
why the nomen and cognomen were switched around in his case - named in the
history books for his by-name.
Claudius - Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus - named for his nomen.
Nero - son of Claudius' sister, original name Cnaeus Domitus Ahenobarbus,
adopted as Cnaeus Nero Claudius Caesar - known by his adopted family's
cognomen.
I've tried to simplify this. It might help if you realize that the Roman
Empire was officially known as the res publica - the Republic - throughout
its history and during the many centuries with purple-wearing rulers, born
to the throne, adopted or adopting themselves after having killed off their
predecessor. Semantically, "res publica" simply meant "the public matter".
Just the way "Caesar" was just a name. ;-)
Öjevind
Noel Q. von Schneiffel
> On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:10:12 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
>
> > There's only case in English I can think of where the verb and
> > noun/ adjective are spelled identically except for capitalization,
> > but have different meanings - and that's Polish and polish. It is,
> > of course, nothing like the German example etymologically. :-)
>
> Far be it from me to disagree with your august thinking, but we might
> talk about it next August.
I may remind you of that next May.
Noel
Stan Brown
>
> Oh yes, the month of August was named for the Emperor Augustus, who was
> really named Octavius, nicknamed Octavianus (and a lot of other things), but
> whose by-name means "elevated, glorious, admirable", and the like. He rather
> fancied that by-name, which only became currency some years after he had
> been safely installed as ruler of the Roman Empire.
"Some" = about three. Octavianus (as he then was) smashed his last
rivals at the Battle of Actium in 30 BCE, and he was granted the
title by the Senate in 27 BCE.
> after he was adopted by the
> emperor Claudius, whose full name as a ruler was Tiberius Claudius Caesar
> Augustus Germanicus,
Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar Augustus Germanicus, I believe.
The order of those last three might be subject to contention, since
he inherited the name Germanicus, assumed Caesar, and was granted
Augustus. He was the first "Caesar" who was not a member of the
family, though all but Julius were members by adoption.
> (The Romans were very unimaginative about given names; there were
> less than 20 of them: Caius, Cnaeus, Publius, Quintus, Sixtus,
> Septimus, Octavius and so on.
And the last four of those were really numbers: fifth, sixth,
seventh, eighth. There's an amusing echo of this with the king's
seven sons in the movie /Stardust/, and also with the brothers Primo
and Secundo in /Big Night/.
> It might help if you realize that the
> Roman Empire was officially known as the res publica - the Republic
> - throughout its history and during the many centuries with
> purple-wearing rulers, born to the throne, adopted or adopting
> themselves after having killed off their predecessor. Semantically,
> "res publica" simply meant "the public matter". Just the way
> "Caesar" was just a name. ;-)
And it was known as *Roman* long after it had ceased to include Rome.
The banners of the army, under the absolute rulers based in
Constantinople, continued to announce that the armies were marching
SPQR, "for the Senate and People of Rome".
derek
> In article <MPG.279d1f1aa3f58d1f98c...@news.individual.net>,
> Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:10:12 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
>
> > > There's only case in English I can think of where the verb and
> > > noun/ adjective are spelled identically except for capitalization,
> > > but have different meanings - and that's Polish and polish. It is,
> > > of course, nothing like the German example etymologically. :-)
>
> > Far be it from me to disagree with your august thinking, but we might
> > talk about it next August.
>
> Those are an adjective and a noun.
yes, but that's exactly what the German example was. Paul introduced
verbs.
derek
> In general, the names by which Roman Emperors were known to their
> contemporaries, and to history, are a curious mélange of nicknames,
> honorific titles, first names, clan names and family names.
An interesting treatise (to me - I've found, though, that there are
some strange people who don't enjoy this sort of thing).
Just a couple of nits:
> All Romans had a prenomen, a nomen and a cognomen -
Not quite true - though probably fairly true of the Empire period. As
late as ~100BC, cognomens (I bet you shouldn't put an 's' on that to
pluralize it...) were relatively uncommon, at least amongst those
whose names made it into the history books.
> The chaos did not end with the extinction of the Claudian dynasty. The
> Emperor Vespasian's full name was Titus Flavius Vespasianus. His son and
> successor Titus was also called Titus Flavius Vespasianus, but Titus'
> brother and successor Domitian was called Titus Flavius Domitianus. I'm not
> sure why he sported a different cognomen, but his wife belonged to a rather
Because I don't think that was a "cognomen", at least in the way you
have meant it. It's more in the form of a nickname. They were not,
iirc, of the family "Flavius Vespasianus", but simply "Flavius". So
son #1 got his father's name (as was very common), and son #2 probably
did too (as you say, Romans weren't very imaginative about names), so
he took the name "Domitianus" rather than be called "Secondus", or
something, for the rest of his life. Of course, sometimes these
nicknames became the official cognomen. E.g., there were at least two
families with the cognomen "Caesar" (naturally, I forget the other
besides "Julius"). I'm sure I read that that meant "blond", though a
quick google suggests that it didn't... Nevertheless, it _was_ a
nickname that later became attached to the whole family.
> (The Romans were very unimaginative about given names; there were less
> than 20 of them: Caius, Cnaeus, Publius, Quintus, Sixtus, Septimus, Octavius
And most of those are not strictly given names - or at least not
originally. They're just numbers to differentiate the family
members.
fwiw, those first two are usually spelled "Gaius" and "Gnaeus" in
English, ime.
Paul S. Person
wrote:
>On Jan 17, 3:57 am, Öjevind Lång <ojevind.l...@bredband.net> wrote:
>> In general, the names by which Roman Emperors were known to their
>> contemporaries, and to history, are a curious mélange of nicknames,
>> honorific titles, first names, clan names and family names.
>
>An interesting treatise (to me - I've found, though, that there are
>some strange people who don't enjoy this sort of thing).
>
>Just a couple of nits:
>
>> All Romans had a prenomen, a nomen and a cognomen -
>
>Not quite true - though probably fairly true of the Empire period. As
>late as ~100BC, cognomens (I bet you shouldn't put an 's' on that to
>pluralize it...) were relatively uncommon, at least amongst those
>whose names made it into the history books.
And I suspect that "all Romans" really means "all important Romans" or
"all rich Romans" or "all Romans of noble families" -- who, for the
most part, would also be the ones whose names made it into the history
books.
>> The chaos did not end with the extinction of the Claudian dynasty. The
>> Emperor Vespasian's full name was Titus Flavius Vespasianus. His son and
>> successor Titus was also called Titus Flavius Vespasianus, but Titus'
>> brother and successor Domitian was called Titus Flavius Domitianus. I'm not
>> sure why he sported a different cognomen, but his wife belonged to a rather
>
>Because I don't think that was a "cognomen", at least in the way you
>have meant it. It's more in the form of a nickname. They were not,
>iirc, of the family "Flavius Vespasianus", but simply "Flavius". So
>son #1 got his father's name (as was very common), and son #2 probably
>did too (as you say, Romans weren't very imaginative about names), so
>he took the name "Domitianus" rather than be called "Secondus", or
>something, for the rest of his life. Of course, sometimes these
>nicknames became the official cognomen. E.g., there were at least two
>families with the cognomen "Caesar" (naturally, I forget the other
>besides "Julius"). I'm sure I read that that meant "blond", though a
>quick google suggests that it didn't... Nevertheless, it _was_ a
>nickname that later became attached to the whole family.
Or perhaps "Domitianus" was what the troops called him. Compare
"dominatrix", which means pretty much what you might expect, even in
Latin, or the English "dominate" or the Latin "dominus", the "master
of the house".
Interestingly, White's Latin dictionary give Domitius as the noun and
Domitianus as an adjective meaning "belonging to or associated with
Domitius". So an alternate to the acclamation theory might be that he
had a dominating friend in his youth who died and the name was to keep
the memory alive.
>> (The Romans were very unimaginative about given names; there were less
>> than 20 of them: Caius, Cnaeus, Publius, Quintus, Sixtus, Septimus, Octavius
>
>And most of those are not strictly given names - or at least not
>originally. They're just numbers to differentiate the family
>members.
These are all boy's names, of course. The girl's names were, IIRC,
different.
And then there is Posthumus, used for a boy born after the father's
death.
Matthew Bladen
2dd517...@k13g2000vbq.googlegroups.com>, derek <de...@pointerstop.ca>
wrote:
> On Jan 17, 3:57 am, Öjevind Lång <ojevind.l...@bredband.net> wrote:
[snip]
> > The chaos did not end with the extinction of the Claudian dynasty. The
> > Emperor Vespasian's full name was Titus Flavius Vespasianus. His son and
> > successor Titus was also called Titus Flavius Vespasianus, but Titus'
> > brother and successor Domitian was called Titus Flavius Domitianus. I'm not
> > sure why he sported a different cognomen, but his wife belonged to a rather
>
> Because I don't think that was a "cognomen", at least in the way you
> have meant it. It's more in the form of a nickname. They were not,
> iirc, of the family "Flavius Vespasianus", but simply "Flavius". So
> son #1 got his father's name (as was very common), and son #2 probably
> did too (as you say, Romans weren't very imaginative about names), so
> he took the name "Domitianus" rather than be called "Secondus", or
> something, for the rest of his life.
It was a family name, of a sort - Vespasian's wife was called Flavia
Domitilla (as was their daughter), a female diminutive form of the
nomen Domitius. The general feminine form was Domitia, which as Öjevind
said was the name of Domitian's wife, daughter of the famous general Cn.
Domitius Corbulo who committed suicide in Nero's reign, but that's just
a coincidence.
The ending -anus is adjectival, so Domitianus really does mean
'Domitian', in the sense 'of or relating to Domitius' - or Domiti(ll)a.
The impression I've got is that this sort of name became increasingly
common in the imperial period as a means of ringing the changes on older
names, but I may be wrong.
Vespasian's own cognomen was also taken from his mother's name (Vespasia
Polla); his father and his elder brother were both T. Flavius Sabinus.
So the Flavian naming convention has a clear logic to it: eldest son
receives father's full name, second son receives cognomen based on
mother's name. Cognomina were much more variable as a rule, unless they
served to denote branches of significant families (Cornelius Scipio /
Sulla / Lentulus etc.), in which case additional names were sometimes
added (eg. P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica).
Domitian's own assumed titles, if memory serves, were 'Deus et Dominus',
which did little to endear him to people...
--
Matthew
Troels Forchhammer
<16704c4a-a3e2-4f41...@e4g2000vbg.googlegroups.com>
"Noel Q. von Schneiffel" <noel.von....@fats.teunc.org>
spoke these staves:
No you won't, cause we'll march on your marches a couple of months
before that ;-)
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows
how to read.
- /Guards! Guards!/ (Terry Pratchett)
derek
wrote:
Or simply Ojevind's theory...
> >> (The Romans were very unimaginative about given names; there were less
> >> than 20 of them: Caius, Cnaeus, Publius, Quintus, Sixtus, Septimus, Octavius
>
> >And most of those are not strictly given names - or at least not
> >originally. They're just numbers to differentiate the family
> >members.
>
> These are all boy's names, of course. The girl's names were, IIRC,
> different.
And of course, the wife of Julius was Julia, but her daughters were
Julilla.
> And then there is Posthumus, used for a boy born after the father's
> death.
Oh really! I have meant for ages to look that up. I hadn't imagined
it was simply literal.
Öjevind Lång
news:MPG.279dee48e...@news.individual.net...
> On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:57:04 +0100, Öjevind Lång wrote:
[snip]
>> (The Romans were very unimaginative about given names; there were
> less than 20 of them: Caius, Cnaeus, Publius, Quintus, Sixtus,
> Septimus, Octavius and so on.
> And the last four of those were really numbers: fifth, sixth,
seventh, eighth. There's an amusing echo of this with the king's
seven sons in the movie /Stardust/, and also with the brothers Primo
and Secundo in /Big Night/.
Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus and Decimus were also in use. And I
daresay Nonesimus was as well, though I have never encountered it.
Amazingly, given the dearth of Roman given names, some of them were seldom
given - Spurius, for example.
>> It might help if you realize that the
> Roman Empire was officially known as the res publica - the Republic
> - throughout its history and during the many centuries with
> purple-wearing rulers, born to the throne, adopted or adopting
> themselves after having killed off their predecessor. Semantically,
> "res publica" simply meant "the public matter". Just the way
> "Caesar" was just a name. ;-)
> And it was known as *Roman* long after it had ceased to include Rome.
> The banners of the army, under the absolute rulers based in
Constantinople, continued to announce that the armies were marching
SPQR, "for the Senate and People of Rome".
Yes, the Latin lanuage died out completely in Constantinople in the 8th
century - and yet the Byzantines always referred to themselves as "romaioi"
("Romans" in Greek). And In many languages further east, Anatolia (one of
the most important provinces of the Byzantine empire) is known to this day
as Rum.
Öjevind
Öjevind Lång
news:d97984a1-c062-4b4c...@k13g2000vbq.googlegroups.com...
[snip]
> An interesting treatise (to me - I've found, though, that there are
some strange people who don't enjoy this sort of thing).
Well, most Tolkien lovers have an interest in languages and names, I trust.
:-)
> Just a couple of nits:
>> All Romans had a prenomen, a nomen and a cognomen -
> Not quite true - though probably fairly true of the Empire period. As
late as ~100BC, cognomens (I bet you shouldn't put an 's' on that to
pluralize it...) were relatively uncommon, at least amongst those
whose names made it into the history books.
It's true that for a long time, most plebeians only had two names. Caius
Marius, for example. Sulla's opponent and a relative by marriage to very
aristocratic Julius Caesar, who regarded himself as Marius' successor as a
leader of the People's Party as opposed to the patrician side - which Julius
Caesar belonged to by birth. But then, so did the Gracchus brothers, who
were also prominent leaders of the People's Party in their time..
True. It's amazing how unimaginative the Romans were about this. To find
imaginative names, one must look totheir slaves.
> fwiw, those first two are usually spelled "Gaius" and "Gnaeus" in
English, ime.
But not in the case of Caius College, surely? ;-)
Öjevind
Stan Brown
> there were at least two
> families with the cognomen "Caesar" (naturally, I forget the other
> besides "Julius"). I'm sure I read that that meant "blond", though a
> quick google suggests that it didn't
According to Robert Graves in /I, Claudius/, the Caesars were
etymologically the "hairy ones". Julius Caesar was described in the
Sibylline prophecy as "a hairy man that is scant of hair".
Stan Brown
But spelt without the "h", I believe.
Öjevind Lång
> On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:07:20 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
>> > >On Jan 17, 3:57 am, �jevind L�ng <ojevind.l...@bredband.net> wrote:
>> > And then there is Posthumus, used for a boy born after the father's
> > death.
>
>> Oh really! I have meant for ages to look that up. I hadn't imagined
> it was simply literal.
>But spelt without the "h", I believe.
That's right. The spellings "posthume" and "Mark Anthony" (instead of Marcus
Antonius/Mark Antony) are due to Renaissance pedantry - misguided pedantry,
at that. When Shakespeare wrote his play "Antony and Cleopatra", he used the
older (and correct) spelling.
�jevind
derek
> "derek" skrev i meddelandetnews:d97984a1-c062-4b4c...@k13g2000vbq.googlegroups.com...
>
> > fwiw, those first two are usually spelled "Gaius" and "Gnaeus" in
> > English, ime.
>
> But not in the case of Caius College, surely? ;-)
Probably not in other cases, too. I wasn't unaware of uses with a C,
but don't recall ever seeing "Caius Julius Caesar" before.
derek
> On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 06:21:42 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
> > there were at least two
> > families with the cognomen "Caesar" (naturally, I forget the other
> > besides "Julius"). I'm sure I read that that meant "blond", though a
> > quick google suggests that it didn't
>
> According to Robert Graves in /I, Claudius/, the Caesars were
> etymologically the "hairy ones". Julius Caesar was described in the
> Sibylline prophecy as "a hairy man that is scant of hair".
Right, that matches something I found via google - but Graves is a lot
more reliable!
Paul S. Person
<ojevin...@bredband.net> wrote:
>"Stan Brown" skrev i meddelandet
>news:MPG.279dee48e...@news.individual.net...
>
>> On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:57:04 +0100, Öjevind Lång wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>> (The Romans were very unimaginative about given names; there were
>> less than 20 of them: Caius, Cnaeus, Publius, Quintus, Sixtus,
>> Septimus, Octavius and so on.
>
>> And the last four of those were really numbers: fifth, sixth,
>seventh, eighth. There's an amusing echo of this with the king's
>seven sons in the movie /Stardust/, and also with the brothers Primo
>and Secundo in /Big Night/.
>
>Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus and Decimus were also in use. And I
>daresay Nonesimus was as well, though I have never encountered it.
>Amazingly, given the dearth of Roman given names, some of them were seldom
>given - Spurius, for example.
It wasn't likely to be used much, was it, given its meaning? Not the
sort of thing a traditional Pater Familias is likely to want to use.
Even in modern society, naming an illegitimate child "Bastard" would
be a bit unusual.
Paul S. Person
wrote:
>On Jan 17, 1:44 pm, Paul S. Person <psper...@ix.netscom.com.invalid>
>wrote:
<snippo>
>> These are all boy's names, of course. The girl's names were, IIRC,
>> different.
>
>And of course, the wife of Julius was Julia, but her daughters were
>Julilla.
But what was it before she married Julius? Or was that the family name
(it's been a very long time since I studied Latin)?
>> And then there is Posthumus, used for a boy born after the father's
>> death.
>
>Oh really! I have meant for ages to look that up. I hadn't imagined
>it was simply literal.
The Romans were a very literal people.
Paul S. Person
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:07:20 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
>> > >On Jan 17, 3:57 am, Öjevind Lång <ojevind.l...@bredband.net> wrote:
>
>> > And then there is Posthumus, used for a boy born after the father's
>> > death.
>>
>> Oh really! I have meant for ages to look that up. I hadn't imagined
>> it was simply literal.
>
>But spelt without the "h", I believe.
Or perhaps ways; White's Latin has the entry
posthumus, a, um v. posterus
and posterus an entry (III.B if I have the rather complicated
subsectioning figured out) for "Postumus" including the note
"sometimes also written 'posthumus'"; this is, however, the result of
a mistaken derivation from "post humus". Of course, this means that
"Postumus" is the correct spelling, even if it also means that
"Posthumus" (or at least "posthumus" was also found in classic Latin
and is not just a common error of Latin students.
As an adjective, it can refer to children born after the father made
his will, apparently whether he was dead yet or not.
derek
wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:07:20 -0800 (PST), derek <de...@pointerstop.ca>
> wrote:
>
> >And of course, the wife of Julius was Julia, but her daughters were
> >Julilla.
>
> But what was it before she married Julius? Or was that the family name
> (it's been a very long time since I studied Latin)?
>
married woman generally kept her (father's) name - so Julia would be a
Julian daughter married to whomever. Julius's daughters might be
Julia and Julilla, merely to differentiate them.
Steve Morrison
Possibly you were thinking of the bride's vow in a
Roman wedding? It translates as "Where thou art Caius,
I am Caia".
Öjevind Lång
news:dac270d7-e270-4025...@j1g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...
Correct. Let me add that the Emperor Augustus' daughter was called Julia
because Augustus had assumed the names Julius Caesar after having been
adopted by his maternal uncle of that name. So her naming followed the
normal Roman convention when it came to naming daughters: they simply had no
name of their own, merely the father's name in one form or another.
Öjevind
Stan Brown
>
> I believe a married woman generally kept her (father's) name - so
> Julia would be a Julian daughter married to whomever.
That's my understanding too. Just from the early period of the
Empire, Marc Antony's daughter was Antonia; Aemilius' daughter was
Aemilia, and so on.
> Julius's daughters might be
> Julia and Julilla, merely to differentiate them.
I won't say that's impossible, but in the examples I know, the illa
suffix is the next generation. So Augustus' daughter was Julia and
his granddaughter (her daughter) was Julilla; Aggrippa's daughter was
Aggrippina and his granddaughter (her daughter) was Aggrippinilla.
The -illa suffix was at least sometimes a nickname and not
"official". Aggrippinilla appears in many history books as
"Aggrippina the younger".
Troels Forchhammer
Julian Bradfield <j...@inf.ed.ac.uk> spoke these staves:
>
> If you read somewhere reliable instead, like the OED, you find that
> pair did originally mean two, but sometime around 1150 in French and
> 1350 in English developed a meaning of a set (not nec. two) as well.
> E.g. "a pair of cards", apparently still in use in some English
> dialects in the 1960s.
In Danish the verb form ('at parre' -- to pair) basically means to
match up. It is generally referring to matching one item to one other,
i.e. a pair of two, but is also seen in the more general sense.
But what about the word 'couple'? Does that always mean two, or does
that have the same sense of 'a few'? I also wonder if English
'couple' is connected to Danish 'koble' (a verb with the same meaning
as the English verb 'couple' or 'connect')
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
Scientific reasoning works only with measurements: only
when we have a number and a unit. Thus, topics for which
we have no measurements, scientific investigation is not
useful. No math, no science. When we do have
measurements, scientific reasoning cannot be ignored.
- Dr Nancy's Sweetie on usenet
Message-ID: <ds159c$p45$1...@pcls4.std.com>
Paul S. Person
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote:
<snippo>
>But what about the word 'couple'? Does that always mean two, or does
>that have the same sense of 'a few'? I also wonder if English
>'couple' is connected to Danish 'koble' (a verb with the same meaning
>as the English verb 'couple' or 'connect')
At least one dictionary reports that, yes, it can mean more than two.
The main difference between "pair" and "couple" is that a "pair" is
two of the same thing, while a "couple", even when referring only to
two things, can be two different things.
Matthew Bladen
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm> says...
>
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:05:06 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
[snip]
> > Julius's daughters might be
> > Julia and Julilla, merely to differentiate them.
>
> I won't say that's impossible, but in the examples I know, the illa
> suffix is the next generation. So Augustus' daughter was Julia and
> his granddaughter (her daughter) was Julilla; Aggrippa's daughter was
> Aggrippina and his granddaughter (her daughter) was Aggrippinilla.
>
> The -illa suffix was at least sometimes a nickname and not
> "official". Aggrippinilla appears in many history books as
> "Aggrippina the younger".
While there may be some justification in ancient texts or other sources
that I'm not aware of, the various -illas and other nicknames ('Lesbia'
for Germanicus' daughter Julia Livilla, 'Castor' for Tiberius' son
Drusus) were primarily adopted by Robert Graves in order to help the
reader identify which Drusus, Agrippina, Julia, etc. was meant.
('Castor' as a nickname for Drusus is found in Cassius Dio, but that may
be the only reference; I don't think it's in Suetonius or Tacitus.) In
Tacitus Agrippina the younger is always Agrippina, as far as I recall,
even though her mother is also an important figure in the Annales. They
might be identified as 'maior' and 'minor' if both are mentioned in the
same passage.
Prosopography isn't the force it once was, but the literature on Roman
naming conventions must be vast; it isn't my field, and I've done no
more than make a few observations in the course of reading. If I come
across anything informative but reasonably concise, I may have a browse.
--
Matthew
SRM
"Matthew Bladen" wrote in message
news:MPG.279e9e492...@news.ox.ac.uk...
[snip] (Hi, Steuard!)
Vespasian's own cognomen was also taken from his mother's name (Vespasia
Polla); his father and his elder brother were both T. Flavius Sabinus.
So the Flavian naming convention has a clear logic to it: eldest son
receives father's full name, second son receives cognomen based on
mother's name. Cognomina were much more variable as a rule, unless they
served to denote branches of significant families (Cornelius Scipio /
Sulla / Lentulus etc.), in which case additional names were sometimes
added (eg. P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica).
Domitian's own assumed titles, if memory serves, were 'Deus et Dominus',
which did little to endear him to people...
--
Matthew
Not to mention the gods...
Öjevind Lång
news:MPG.27a170373...@news.ox.ac.uk...
[snip]
>> > I wasn't unaware of uses with a C, but don't recall ever seeing
> > "Caius Julius Caesar" before.
>
>> C was originally pronounced G (as in "go"), descending as it does from
> Gimel and Gamma. In the late preclassical period, most words changed to
> a K sound. The new letter G was invented to spell the minority of words
> that retained the old pronunciation, "Gaius" being one. But the
> abbreviation for "Gaius" continued to be C, so the spelling "Caius"
> never entirely vanished.
>I was under the impression that C represented both /k/ and /g/ in early
Latin writing, and that /k/ was also represented by K and Q, with
limited differentiation between the three (K being used more often
before /a/, and Q before /u/, though not consistently). The Romans
received the (west) Greek alphabet via the Etruscans, and the Etruscan
language didn't have voiced stops (/b/, /d/, and crucially /g/) although
it retained the letters in the alphabet, but whereas it didn't use B and
D at all, it came increasingly to use C to represent /k/, and Latin
orthography was affected by this. G was supposedly created (by modifying
C, obviously) in the third century BC. To the best of my knowledge, this
was all a matter of spelling, and didn't reflect any underlying sound
changes. The retention of C. as the abbreviation for Gaius, and Cn. for
Gnaeus, is a bit of orthographic conservatism.
In classical Latin, the name Caesar was pronounced with a hard k: "Kaisar".
(The "ae" was pronounced as "eye"). That's how the name could become Kaiser,
the German word for "Emperor". In medieval Latin, they started to pronounce
the hard Latin c's as "s", or as "ch": "Sesar" or "Chesar", which is the
reason for the Russian "Tsar", also meaning "king" or "emperor". (Compare
the pronunciation of the modern Italian given name Cesare : "Chesare".)
The emperor Claudius devised two new letters for the Latin alphabet, but
they never caught on. He also wrote a book about the Punic language, and
another about the Etruscan. Both books have been lost, to the sorrow of
many. I'm one of them. We know so very little about the Etruscan, except
that it wasn't an Indo-European language. After a lot of debating back and
forth, modern historians seem to agree that Herodotus was probably right
when he said that the Etruscans originally came from Asia Minor.
Öjevind
JimboCat
> On Jan 16, 4:29 pm, Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:10:12 -0800 (PST), derek wrote:
>
> > > There's only case in English I can think of where the verb and
> > > noun/ adjective are spelled identically except for capitalization,
> > > but have different meanings - and that's Polish and polish. It is,
> > > of course, nothing like the German example etymologically. :-)
>
> > talk about it next August.
>
I've got a whole collection of 'em!
We polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
A farm can produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"Kleptomaniacs: people who help themselves because they can't help
themselves."