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Robert Wagner  
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 More options Jul 9 2004, 9:34 pm
Newsgroups: comp.lang.cobol, comp.lang.fortran
From: robert.deletet...@wagner.net (Robert Wagner)
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 01:34:11 GMT
Local: Fri, Jul 9 2004 9:34 pm
Subject: Re: Dead languages?

docdw...@panix.com wrote:
>In article <40ee18af.20703...@news.optonline.net>,
>Robert Wagner <robert.deletet...@wagner.net> wrote:
>>docdw...@panix.com wrote:

>>>In article <40edfa9c.13003...@news.optonline.net>,
>>>Robert Wagner <robert.deletet...@wagner.net> wrote:
>>>>Richard Maine <nos...@see.signature> wrote:

>>>>>docdw...@panix.com writes:

>>>>>> 'Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres!'

>>>>>Oh dear!  My high school Latin text must have had a bowdlerized
>>>>>version or something.  I'd *SWEAR* I remember this as
>>>>>'Alles Gall in tres partes divisa est'. But a quick google
>>>>>check doesn't find it in that form.

>>>>Richard is correct. Caesar actually wrote:  "Gallia est omnis divisa in
partes
>>>>tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum
lingua
>>>>Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur.

>>>Mr Wagner, this is confusing... Mr Maine wrote 'I'd *SWEAR* I remember
>>>this as 'Alles Gall in tres partes divisa est' in response to my stating
>>>'Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres!'... how does what you cite here
>>>support his reminisce as 'correct'?

>>Even more confusing is the Original Latin I remember as "Omnes Galii est
divista
>>in tres partes."

>What's Life without a bit of Mystery?

>>I remember it very distinctly. How many versions of Gaelic Wars
>>did Caesar write? What the hell's going on here?

>Ahhhhh, for the Oldene Dayse... when they taught Latin quotes such as
>cannot be taught by *ten* teachers, today!

Unlike English, where normal word order is SVO (subject, verb, object), Latin,
along with Japanese, has no normal word order. One can rearrange the words in a
sentence and it still says the same thing.

My hypothesis is that high school Latin text authors rearranged words to make it
easier for English-speaking students to understand. Thus

Caesar's "Gallia est omnis divisa in parte tres." and
Mr Maine's "Alles Gall in tres partes divisa est." and
My "Omnes Galii est divista in tres partes."

are linguistically equivalent, are saying the same thing and are equally valid
Latin.


 
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