Latin for "Flying monkey" or "Winged monkey"?
vivian
"flying" or "winged monkey" might be? It's for an essay on _The Wizard
of Oz_ I might try writing.
TIA.
viv
Ed Cryer
"vivian" <dark...@ru.com> wrote in message
news:ha8ar2piq4i6v3e7v...@4ax.com...
I'd go for "simia pennata".
For some reason the old Romans preferred the feminine "simia" to
"simius".
It's the same with "feles" (cat) and "avis" (bird); although "pullus"
(chicken) is masculine.
They were strange, those Romans.
Ed
Aug. de Man
>> "flying" or "winged monkey" might be? It's for an essay on _The Wizard
>> of Oz_ I might try writing.
For Linnaeus "Simia" was one of the suborders of the Primates (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simia).
I don't think the name would be used again for some species.
I kind of flying lemurs really exists: Galeopithecus (weasel-monkey).
Among them I find "volans" and "volitans" for "flying".
But the Oz monkeys http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/oz/images/vc13.jpg
are no lemurs, and they have bird wings, so you could indeed use
"pennatus".
I would say they are a kind of chimps. As the Chimpanzee genus is
"Pan", I would use "Pan pennatus", which sounds nice.
August de Man
Petrus
Salvete omnes!
"Simia"or "simius" should really be an ape (Greek" pithekos") without a
tail, rather than a monkey which has a tail. "Simia" as a general term
for an ape is fine, without going into the exactitude which zoologists
demand.So even if no particular species is named "simia"nowadays
(there is the Pig-Tailed Langur "Simias concolor" which is sometimes
mispelt as "Simia concolor", but this is an error I believe) , we can
still use the word "simia" in Latin in a general sense.No one would
call the African elephant "loxodonta" rather than "elephantus" or
"elephas" in Latin just because " loxodonta" is its current zoological
name! Zoological Latin names are often not useful for Latinists even
though they are more or less Latin because they are often dreadful
Latino-Greek hybrids , too precise for everyday use, too liable to
change and sometimes just too inane. (As an example of inanity,
consider the coyote which is "canis latrans" to zoologists. )
The Wizard of Oz monkeys do have tails, at least in W.W.Denslow's
illustrations, so I don't think they are should be named after
chimpanzees which don't have long tails.Also the current zoological
name "Pan" for a chimpanzee is part of a number of fanciful (demi-)god
names given to primates by zoologists in the past, including Jacchus,
Innuus,Paniscus,Diana, Faunus,Silenus& Sylvanus. Even if the Oz monkeys
were chimpanzees "Flying Pans" would not make much sense in Latin. I
don't much like it and prefer to use an obsolete zoological
name"Anthropopithecus" for chimpanzee.
My proposal for "flying monkey" would be "Cercopithecus pennatus".
Cercopithecus (meaning tailed -ape in Greek ) is found in Pliny 8.72,
and "pennatus, -a, -um" is used by Pliny when describing flying horned
horses , fortuitously in the same chapter as
"cercopitheci",(8.72:"pennati equi , et cornibus armatos quos pegasos
vocant.) As Pliny is the ancient Roman naturalist "par excellence" it
seems elegant to use his terms, and I am sure that Linnæus would have
followed Pliny if our imaginary "cercopithecus pennatus" had appeared
in the Plinian text. (Although I note that Linnæus named a fish
"Pegasus volans"(now P.volitans) and not "equus pennatus", presumably
because "pennatus" implies bird wings not suitable for a fish but who
knows. In any case I digress.)
"Cercopithecus volans/volitans" is also possible and may sound more
like a modern zoological name. (Cf. the flying fish,"Exocoetus volans"
(or "E.volitans"): which also sounds as fabulous as a flying monkey,
and the ancients did write about flying serpents which from memory were
"serpentes volantes".)
Although people generally confuse apes with monkeys and although
Zoological Latin also has made "simia" and "cercopithecus" synonymous
at times , and although some Roman writers may have been referring to
monkeys when they wrote "simia" I like to reserve "simia(simius)",
(Greek"pithekos") for tailess ape and "cercopithecus" ( Greek"
kerkopithekos") for tailed monkey.
So in answer to the original question I'd use "Cercopithecus pennatus"
,or "Cercopithecus volans" or "Cercopithecus volitans"
I hope this is of help, and do remember that I am writing from the
land of Oz. Although I can't say that I have seen a flying monkey we do
have gliding possums!
Best wishes,
Petrus Australianus
************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Aug. de Man
> illustrations, so I don't think they are should be named after
> chimpanzees
> Cercopithecus (meaning tailed -ape in Greek ) is found in Pliny 8.72,
> and "pennatus, -a, -um" is used by Pliny when describing flying horned
> horses , fortuitously in the same chapter as "cercopitheci", (8.72:
> "Cercopithecus volans/volitans" is also possible and may sound more
> like a modern zoological name. (Cf. the flying fish,"Exocoetus volans"
> (or "E.volitans"): which also sounds as fabulous as a flying monkey,
> and the ancients did write about flying serpents which from memory were
> "serpentes volantes".)
I am no good pithecologist, I am afraid, I never looked at the tails.
"Cercopithecus (tail-ape) pennatus", "volans" or "volitans" is OK.
You could also coin "Ozopithecus volans (etc.)", meaning "Oz-ape".
August de Man
B. T. Raven
"Petrus" <cor...@iinet.net.au> wrote in message
news:1169571771.0...@m58g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
Salvete omnes!
I don't see why precision is a vice in everyday use. Also I don't see why
we can't use "simia" when we mean monkey if the Romans did the same. There
are certainly hundreds of thousands of word pairs, one the common
vernacular term and the the other the taxonomists' binomial. Of course it
makes sense to call the African elephant "elephantus" or "elphas" because
that's what Livy called it. If there is some reason to distinguish in a
given context, adjectives can always be piled on, even as in simia
caudata. I don't see it as a problem if the term in the target language
reflects a lack of omniscience in someone making an utterance in the
source language. For example, two people from widely separated places
talking Latin could entertain different referents for the term "lignum
ferreum" and it wouldn't make a difference until a more particular context
required them to distinguish among say Ostyra and Carpinus or even
Casuarina:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironwood
Things like "coyote" really are difficult and it's probably best to bite
the bullet and come out with "coyotlus" [coeotlus, cojotlus??] from the
get go. But for "racoon" procyon and for "oppossum" didelphis.
Eduardus
Petrus
Salvete Eduarde & Auguste& Viviana!
I may be wrong but I seem to detect a little annoyance with my posts: I
am certainly not trying to show off, claim omniscience or put anyone
down, I am just trying to be helpful.There is absolutely no one I can
discuss these things with in my home state of Western Australia, and I
thought that this forum might be a place to do this.As well I have been
investigating these very topics for some years now as an aid in
speaking Latin, which I do once a year at a Latin camp overseas.I hope
to make some contributions to a Neolatin dictionary, and if nothing
else I am trying to attain a personal Latin which is thoroughly
researched in its vocabulary and true to the genius of the language,
which is certainly not the case with quite a few modern scientific
names.( After all scientists are not trying to write Latin they only
want one more or less Latinate name for purposes of
identification.They do not care about the sort of Latin they concoct as
their aim is not linguistic.) What is really needed for animals unknown
to the ancients are "LATIN COMMON NAMES" as it were, for the everyday
usage of contemporary neoLatin writers and speakers, which may be
derived from the current zoological name, an obsolete zoological name
, a form of a native name, an extension of an ancient name for a
similar creature, a back formation from a modern Romance language
common name,or a forgotten neo- Latin name in the early modern Latin
writers who first described creatures of the New World. Often more
than one word can be applied to the same animal , but this is not bad
as these different words may be suitable for different occasions. (Cf
my remarks on "simia caudata" and "cercopithecus" below .) However I
usually try to avoid coinages based on the English word which would
mean nothing to a Roman and possibly nothing to a non-English speaking
neo-Latinist.(Cf. my remarks on "coyote" below)
Auguste, I like your Ozopithecus volans, but again it would seem to
mean ape to me rather than monkey , yet Ozocercopithecus is perhaps
getting a bit long! As well I tend to think that affixes in a "common
Latin name" (such as "Ozo-")tend to obsure the fact that "commonly
speaking" all monkeys are "cercopitheci", (a sort of "common name
genus") So I would add a geographical adjective to express "of
Oz".This also happens in zoological Latin : quite often subspecies have
a geographical adjective. So I would suggest as our pretend scientific
Linnæan name for the Flying Monkeys of Oz,"Cercopithecus volans
Ozensis"or "C.volitans Ozensis" or "C.pennatus Ozensis" as the most
complete answer to Vivian's question.
Now Eduarde , I never said that precision is a vice in everday life.(
In fact I am being precise in my distinction between apes and monkeys.)
But too much precision is a vice. Remember that according to Aristotle
a virtue taken to extremes becomes a vice. As an example of scientific
over-precision for everyday use (but not for scientific purposes of
course) I gave African elephant which scientists would call "Loxodonta
Africana" but the "Common Latin name " should be "Elephantus (
Africanus) " or "Elephas (Africanus)".( If one wants to be clever
perhaps "barrus' or "Luca bos" may be suitable in some contexts, but
"elephantus' or "elephas' is still the common Latin name.) Certainly
"simia caudata" is acceptable for monkey. In fact Pliny does the same
thing in sometimes giving a pure Latin version of a Greek animal name
.e.g. "equus fluviatilis" for "hippotamus". But since the Romans often
used Greek words especially in the sciences there is nothing wrong with
"cercopithecus" either. It also comes down to a question of tone: if I
were making a formal , solemn Latin speech I may choose to say the pure
Latin "simia caudata" instead of "cercopithecus" I would use
ordinarily in conversation. I don't know if the Romans really did
include our monkeys under "simia", it was just a cautious remark on my
behalf based on no particular evidence. They may well have made the
distinction, at least those who employ the word "cercopithecus". Yet I
do know that the ancients were not so precise as we are in certain
areas .(For example I suspect that the distinction we make between
leopards and cheetahs is thoroughly confused in ancient sources.)
Certainly in terms of colour names or units of time the Romans were not
as precise as we are. Nevertheless the Latin writers of the early
modern period were more precise and many terms can be found there. In
other words the whole Latin patrimony , ancient, medieval, and modern,
is at our disposal for use as Latinists today . Too often in my
opinion( and it is just my opinion) in looking for animal names people
today only rely on the dictonaries which record Roman usage and modern
zoology(current names only) without looking at older scientific names,
or mediæval or early modern neoLatin at all.
As for Latinists from different parts of the world referring to
"ironwood", I agree with you, Eduarde . I see nothing wrong in using
"lignum ferreum" or "ferreo-lignum" as the " Latin common name" and
distinguishing the various types , if necessary, by topographical
epithets and their Latin scientific names in brackets after the Latin
common names thus : " Lignum ferreum v. ferreo-lignum
Australianum"(Casuarina equisetifolia );" Lignum ferreum v.
ferreo-lignum Carolinianum"(Carpinus caroliniana).& " Lignum ferreum v.
ferreo-lignum Virginianum" (Ostrya virginiana ).
I also agree with you about "procyon" for "racoon"( also "lotor"), and
"didelphis" for "opossum". I have seen something like "coiotes" or the
like (I can't quite remember) but I prefer "thos latrans" ( an older
zoological name which became inept Latinwise when the genus name"Thos"
was reassigned to "Canis" by zoologists for scientific reasons) , or
"thos americanus" or "lupulus americanus"("lupus americanus"won't suit
because there are also american wolves). An ancient Roman, miraculously
transported to a neoLatin camp has a chance of understanding what a
"lupulus' or a "thos" might be in the New World but would have no idea
what a "coiotes" or "coyotlus"or "coeotlus" etc might be. This
doesn't mean that I reject all such names . When there is no similarity
at all between a New World animal and the animals known to the ancients
then a Latinised form of a native name is often the only course of
action or a borrowing from zoological Latin. This occurs much more
with animals from "Terra Australis", for example the word "kangaroo" ,
"Kangurus" (from an Aboriginal word and found in various forms in all
modern languages), or "Halmaturus"(from zoological Latin ). Even then I
still tend to favour "halmaturus" whch refers to the action of the tail
in leaping, thus telling our imaginary ancient Roman something about
the animal, namely that it has a tail with which it seems to leap ,
but I have no objection to "kangurus". In the latter case our ancient
Roman would have to learn a new word for a totally new animal just as
everyone else in the world once had to in an era too late to receive a
neolatin coinage because there was no more Latin zoological writing.
(The vague similarity of kangaroos to jerboas noted by early observers
doesn't merit calling them "giant australian jerboas", especially as
the name kangaroo in all it forms has become established).
Satis superque de his rebus
Best wishes,
Curate ut vos omnes pancratice valeatis
Petrus
**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Petrus
Ben C
[snip]
> Salvete Eduarde & Auguste& Viviana!
> I may be wrong but I seem to detect a little annoyance with my posts
Not at all, your posts are very interesting.
Ed Cryer
Best wishes,
Salve, Petre.
Stick with it and with us. Your learning and deeply inquiring mind would
be an ornament to any group. You've got readers. It's a mutual service
is a group like this.
You mentioned Aristotle and I immediately thought of his definitions by
species and differentia. I think this is the rationale behind Linnaean
taxonomy.
Eg; according to Aristotle "Man" is a "rational animal". "Animal" is the
species, "rationality" the defining characteristic. No other animal has
this property (Oh Aristotle, things have changed since your day!).
So what we want for "winged monkey" is just this; a species and its
differentia. Now "simia" is the species, and "pennatus" will do as the
distinguishing quality.
Deus eruditionis tecum, Ede
P.S. I can picture you sat in the Lyceum in Athens while Aristotle was
lecturing; or maybe that should be "walking around" because they were
known as the "Peripatetics" due to A's habit of walking as he taught.
Aristotle himself was a student of Plato in the Academy. I suppose they
sat down to listen there.
B. T. Raven
[...]
**************************************************************************
Linnćan name for the Flying Monkeys of Oz,"Cercopithecus volans
or medićval or early modern neoLatin at all.
Best wishes,
Eduardus Petro G'day dicit:
I apologize if I gave you that impression. Maybe, like Ed, I just miss
summer and I am envious that you antipodals can enjoy it these days. My
m.o. in dealing with people I am acquainted with only via the Internet is
to display a flat affect to all and sundry since it seems the most prudent
face to put on in case things don't work out later. The bright side is
that I react to obloquy with the same sang froid. ;-) Compare this
attitude with the brouhaha apud Latinam Gallicam where unkind language was
exchanged just because someone failed to maintain Ciceronian decorum in
translating a joke about marital infidelity. Anyway, I wasn't accusing you
of claiming omniscience and the very word probably leaked into my answer
from another thread I had just responded to. In fact I'm impressed with
anyone who can make sense at all more than half the time.
The subject of neologisms in Latin is difficult enough in formal diction,
in colloquial speech it becomes orders of magnitude more difficult, and in
slang actually quite impossible. I would maintain that there can't be any
neo-Latin slang that is not frankly monstrous. The little we can glean
from Plautus is all we'll ever have.
We'll have to agree to disagree about the so-called vice of
hyper-precision unless you are saying only something like "you shouldn't
say spider when you mean arachnid." Hannibal wouldn't have had his
elephants shipped from India so it's certain that when Livy writes
"elephantus" he means the animal that zoologists would now call Loxodonta.
Recently it has been discovered (or maybe only apodictically asserted)
that there are two species of African elephants:
" the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant (until recently
known collectively as the African Elephant),"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant
so even in neo-Latin you will have add a third term to the name if you
want to distinguish between a "Bush" and a "Forest."
Apparently someone has decided that Thos is a jackal (Canis aureus, etc.)
in Latin but the animal is quite similar in appearance to a coyote. Since
both Thos (whatever it was 2000 years ago) and jackal are old-world
animals, it's safer to follow this nomenclature:
http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thos
or Dzhakela (not sjekel, which is a shekel) along with Racuunus and
Oppossuma.
This stub arbitrarily and unaccoutably make coiotes a Greek word:
http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coiotes
I like to image that one of the blackrobes around Tenochtitlan (ca. 1550)
used the word "coyotlum" in a Latin epistle (subsequently lost). This is
of course completely unwarranted, but no more so than the Nahuatl-Greek
loanword. Will a subsequent Latin wiki contributor coin
Xoloitzcuintles, -is (or -eos) for the Mexican hairless?
The bottom line is that it's just not import to worry about Vergil or Ovid
understanding our Latin. It's enough if we understand theirs. Besides, if
they haven't been lazing around Elysium the last 20 centuries, they
probably know English better than we do.
Eduardus
B. T. Raven
"B. T. Raven" <eci...@alcisp.com> wrote in message
news:351cd$45b81b2a$49f2070$23...@DIALUPUSA.NET...
>
> "Petrus" <cor...@iinet.net.au> wrote in message
> news:1169653754.7...@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com...
>
> [...]
>
> I like to image that one of the blackrobes around Tenochtitlan (ca.
1550)
> used the word "coyotlum" in a Latin epistle (subsequently lost). This is
> of course completely unwarranted, but no more so than the Nahuatl-Greek
> loanword. Will a subsequent Latin wiki contributor coin
> Xoloitzcuintles, -is (or -eos) for the Mexican hairless?
Oops ... (ca. 1580) First ones not there til 1572. Order founded in 1540
though, only 20 years after Cortez' siege.
Eduardus, not omniscient.
Petrus
> Salve, Petre.
>
> Stick with it and with us. Your learning and deeply inquiring mind would
> be an ornament to any group. You've got readers. It's a mutual service
> is a group like this.
>
> You mentioned Aristotle and I immediately thought of his definitions by
> species and differentia. I think this is the rationale behind Linnaean
> taxonomy.
> Eg; according to Aristotle "Man" is a "rational animal". "Animal" is the
> species, "rationality" the defining characteristic. No other animal has
> this property (Oh Aristotle, things have changed since your day!).
>
> So what we want for "winged monkey" is just this; a species and its
> differentia. Now "simia" is the species, and "pennatus" will do as the
> distinguishing quality.
>
> Deus eruditionis tecum, Ede
>
> P.S. I can picture you sat in the Lyceum in Athens while Aristotle was
> lecturing; or maybe that should be "walking around" because they were
> known as the "Peripatetics" due to A's habit of walking as he taught.
> Aristotle himself was a student of Plato in the Academy. I suppose they
> sat down to listen there.
Salve Eduarde!
I am so glad all is well (I have had a few unpleasant experiences
online, particularly on the Grex Latine Loquentium ) and am heartened
by your flattering words of encouragement and your faith that I would
have been able to get into the Lycæum!
I think you are right to suppose that Aristotle anticipated Linnæus'
binomial nomenclature.
However I still can't accept "simia' as the species name for our
imaginary winged monkey because I believe it means "ape' and not
"monkey", and as Augustus pointed out earlier "simia "is a name of one
of the suborders of primates and not used as a species name nowadays.
My preferred" Latin common name" for a monkey "cercopithecus" is also
used extensively of old world monkeys in zoological nomenclature.So I
would still suggest as our faux Linnæan name for the Flying Monkeys of
Oz,"Cercopithecus volans Ozensis"or "C.volitans Ozensis" or "C.pennatus
Ozensis" as the most complete answer to Vivian's question.
Cura ut basilice valeas
Petrus Australianus
************************************************************************************************************
************************************************************************************************************
Petrus
> Eduardus Petro G'day dicit:
>
> I apologize if I gave you that impression. Maybe, like Ed, I just miss
> summer and I am envious that you antipodals can enjoy it these days. My
> m.o. in dealing with people I am acquainted with only via the Internet is
> to display a flat affect to all and sundry since it seems the most prudent
> face to put on in case things don't work out later. The bright side is
> that I react to obloquy with the same sang froid. ;-) Compare this
> attitude with the brouhaha apud Latinam Gallicam where unkind language was
> exchanged just because someone failed to maintain Ciceronian decorum in
> translating a joke about marital infidelity. Anyway, I wasn't accusing you
> of claiming omniscience and the very word probably leaked into my answer
> from another thread I had just responded to. In fact I'm impressed with
> anyone who can make sense at all more than half the time.
Salve Eduarde,
Thankyou for the Australian greeting which is appropriate as it is
Australia Day today. You and Ed may well envy my antipodean summer but
I can tell you that I am suffering a heat wave at the moment and it
isn't pleasant! ( By the way how should I distinguish between the two
Edwards in Latin ? Does "Eduardulus" for "Ed" seem appropriate?)
In any case I am glad that all is well. I have had some nasty
experiences with rudeness on the web , principally once when I
suggested a Ciceronian alternative to "neonazista" . So I was attacked
for maintaining Ciceronian decorum and for being a rabid Ciceronian
which isn't true at all.
> The subject of neologisms in Latin is difficult enough in formal diction,
> in colloquial speech it becomes orders of magnitude more difficult,
I am content to hunt out neologisms which can be used in everyday
Latin conversation and writing as well as in formal orations.
Conversational Latin is quite possible from the remains we have, as
well as the efforts of neolatinists like Erasmus and Vives who wrote
"colloquia".
> and in
> slang actually quite impossible. I would maintain that there can't be any
> neo-Latin slang that is not frankly monstrous.
Slang is not something that can be made up, and I agree not really
possible.
>The little we can glean
> from Plautus is all we'll ever have.
Not quite, there is also Petronius, and graffitti & inscriptions and
even parts of Juvenal or Horace or Persius. My aim in speaking Latin is
not to make up slang (which as you say is impossible) but to
communicate clearly, and I hope elegantly and in line with the genius
of the language. I don't use much slang anyway even in English and have
never said "G'day" to anyone ever! (It is a myth that it is a universal
Australian greeting, but it is unique, so tourist promotions have
seized upon it.)
> We'll have to agree to disagree about the so-called vice of
> hyper-precision unless you are saying only something like "you shouldn't
> say spider when you mean arachnid."
No I'm saying the opposite: you shouldn't say "arachnid' when you mean
"spider". Thus in conversational, epistolary or oratorical Latin you
shouldn't say "loxodonta" when you mean "elephantus"or"elephas'". It is
only hyperprecise in everyday use of course.
> Hannibal wouldn't have had his
> elephants shipped from India so it's certain that when Livy writes
> "elephantus" he means the animal that zoologists would now call Loxodonta.
It used to puzzle me as a child when teachers would tell me that
African elephants couldn't be tamed and yet I knew that Hannibal's
elephants had to be African not Indian! Yet the African elephants
Hannibal used were North African elephants which are now extinct.
Some have thought that they might have been the former subspecies (now
species) "Loxodonta africana cyclotis" living in North Africa. I think
I have also seen the suggestion that it was a smaller extinct variety
of African elephant, a Mauretanian Forest elephant. Certainly the
wikipaedia article lists an extinct subspecies "Loxodonta africana
pharaonensis" (North African Egypt Elephant or Carthaginian Elephant or
Atlas Elephant).
According to Polybius, Ptolemy IV used 73 mostly"Libyan " elephants (
African forest elephants) against the 102 Indian elephants of the
Seleucid king Antiochus III , south of Gaza in 217B.C. Ptolemy lost
because the smaller African elephants could not endure the smell &
trumpeting of the Indian elephants and were daunted by their bigger
size & strength.
The Seleucids obtained Indian elephants from the Hindu Maurya Empire.
The Ptolemies were cut off from this supply of Indian elephants and so
obtained smaller African forest elephants from Nubia & Ethiopia.
Pyrrhus' s elephants were apparently Indian too, so I suppose to be
hyperprecise "Luca bos' should only be applied to the Asian elephant!
> Recently it has been discovered (or maybe only apodictically asserted)
> that there are two species of African elephants:
>
> " the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant (until recently
> known collectively as the African Elephant),"
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant
>
> so even in neo-Latin you will have add a third term to the name if you
> want to distinguish between a "Bush" and a "Forest."
I really, really doubt if one would need to distinguish them in Latin
conversation. Would you in English conversation? Even the titles of
the learned papers in the Wikipaedia article on elephants only mention
"African elephants" not "loxodonts". The two "new" species were
formerly considered subspecies :" Loxodonta african africana" &
Loxodonta africana cyclotis". Zoologists are always reassessing and
renaming genera &species.
> Apparently someone has decided that Thos is a jackal (Canis aureus, etc.)
> in Latin but the animal is quite similar in appearance to a coyote.
Although "thos" may have a few meanings in Greek, jackal seems to be
one of them, and certainly I think in Latin. Pliny places it among the
"wolves" and Grattius speaks of interbreeding "thoes" with
dogs.(Cynegetica 253). I think that this identifiaction was accepted by
Gesner and others in the sixteenth century.
> Since
> both Thos (whatever it was 2000 years ago) and jackal are old-world
> animals, it's safer to follow this nomenclature:
> http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thos
I am not sure I understand you here:are you rejecting the word "thos"
for jackal? Or are you saying that it is safer to use "coiotes" for
coyote (seen at the end of this article on "thos")?.
Since new world animals have always been named in reference to old
world animals( consider the koala "bear") why should "thos" for a
similar new world animal be rejected ?
For "coyote ",I really don't like "coiotes" or "coiotis". I think it
is much "safer" to use real Latin words when one can than follow
"Vicipaedia" here. As I have already said,I prefer
"thos americanus" or "lupulus americanus".
Even Vicipaedia's "lupus pratensis" a calque of an English common name
"prairie wolf' or Hernandez' "vulpis indica" are better than "coiotes"
or "coiotis,"although not perfect (for example"indica "is ambiguous).
After all as you say, a coyote is quite similar in appearance to a
jackal. I cannot see why it is "safer" to call it a "coiotes" if that
is what you are saying : its use in "Vicipaedia' doesn't make it more
authoritative or "safer", much as I admire Vicipaedia.
> or Dzhakela (not sjekel, which is a shekel) along with Racuunus and
> Oppossuma
Or "Ciacalis" as Busbequius reports the Turkish word. .. (Is
"Ciacacalis" a misprint in the Vicipaedia article?)
I also don't think it is good to multiply neologisms
(Dzhakela,Racuunus and
Oppossuma), we aren't the first to ponder the Latin for coyotes,
raccoons or possums. (I wonder if "opossum" itself is a Latinised form
of a native name which makes it look like a Latin neuter but that is
another story)
By the way "shekel" is "siclus " in Latin and I can safely rely on the
authority of the Vulgate for that one! (e.g. Exod.30.13)
.
>
> This stub arbitrarily and unaccountably make coiotes a Greek word:
>
> http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coiotes
>
> I like to image that one of the blackrobes around Tenochtitlan (ca. 1550)
> used the word "coyotlum" in a Latin epistle (subsequently lost). This is
> of course completely unwarranted, but no more so than the Nahuatl-Greek
> loanword. Will a subsequent Latin wiki contributor coin
> Xoloitzcuintles, -is (or -eos) for the Mexican hairless?
I hope not :).
> The bottom line is that it's just not import to worry about Vergil or Ovid
> understanding our Latin. It's enough if we understand theirs.
I disagree again : to me it is of the utmost importance to worry about
this. I imagine making my conversation intelligible to a Virgil or Ovid
or Cicero in order to guarantee as much as I can that I am really
speaking in good idiomatic Latin, not translated English. Perhaps we
have different aims:mine is not just to have a passive understanding
of ancient Roman texts but an active use of a language which has been
used for communication for centuries after the fall of the Roman
empire. After all a language should be written and spoken as well as
read. for me Latin isn't a "dead" language at all or as one scholar put
it , it is now an" immortal" language.
(A great side effect of an active use of a language is that one can
read it better too.)
>Besides, if
> they haven't been lazing around Elysium the last 20 centuries, they
> probably know English better than we do.
I doubt this too!
But you may be right W.F.Jackson KnIght, the Virgilian
scholar,thought that a spiritualist was able to put him in touch
with Virgil himself.Yet when pressed to communicate in Latin, it
appears that" Virgil" claimed that he could no longer speak in Latin.
Anyone else might have doubted the medium and suspected a con...
Best wishes,
Petrus Australianus
**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
B. T. Raven
[...]
>
> Salve Eduarde,
> Thankyou for the Australian greeting which is appropriate as it is
> Australia Day today. You and Ed may well envy my antipodean summer but
> I can tell you that I am suffering a heat wave at the moment and it
> isn't pleasant! ( By the way how should I distinguish between the two
> Edwards in Latin ? Does "Eduardulus" for "Ed" seem appropriate?)
> In any case I am glad that all is well. I have had some nasty
> experiences with rudeness on the web , principally once when I
> suggested a Ciceronian alternative to "neonazista" . So I was attacked
> for maintaining Ciceronian decorum and for being a rabid Ciceronian
> which isn't true at all.
Ego:
Eduardus Minnesotanus
Alter Eduardus (fortasse)
Eduardus Cambriensis. [Re vera nescio si Eduardus noster est Cambriensis
sed certe Britannicus est. Hic antea scripsit se multum delectari in
regione Lacustri (Windermere and Wordsworth country) spatiari.
I don't think it's possible to come any closer to the idea of Nazism with
Ciceronian Latin than Bacci did in his dictionary and that's not nearly
close enough for me. I suppose that if Latin were to make a real come-back
that there will be (at least) two schools, each refusing to talk to the
other, the Ciceronians and those like me who are content to pollute
neo-Latin with tens of thousands of slightly distorted vernacular words.
Of course I'm in favor of using Plautine-Ciceronian-Tacitean Latin to the
extent of what it is capabable of expressing and that might well include
80 or even 90 percent of what we might want to say, at least to the extent
that we limit ourselves to ordinary matters. Not only don't I think that
Cicero couldn't express the idea of Nazism, I don't even think it's
possible to make an accurate Ciceronian translation of Jerome's Vulgate.
The problem is that there has been too much water under the bridge in the
interim.
>
>
> > The subject of neologisms in Latin is difficult enough in formal
diction,
> > in colloquial speech it becomes orders of magnitude more difficult,
>
> I am content to hunt out neologisms which can be used in everyday
> Latin conversation and writing as well as in formal orations.
> Conversational Latin is quite possible from the remains we have, as
> well as the efforts of neolatinists like Erasmus and Vives who wrote
> "colloquia".
And more possible because of their efforts. Further effort won't be
avoidable.
>
> > and in
> > slang actually quite impossible. I would maintain that there can't be
any
> > neo-Latin slang that is not frankly monstrous.
> Slang is not something that can be made up, and I agree not really
> possible.
>
> >The little we can glean
> > from Plautus is all we'll ever have.
>
> Not quite, there is also Petronius, and graffitti & inscriptions and
> even parts of Juvenal or Horace or Persius. My aim in speaking Latin is
> not to make up slang (which as you say is impossible) but to
> communicate clearly, and I hope elegantly and in line with the genius
> of the language. I don't use much slang anyway even in English and have
> never said "G'day" to anyone ever! (It is a myth that it is a universal
> Australian greeting, but it is unique, so tourist promotions have
> seized upon it.)
O.K. but slang is ephemeral anyway so there is really no more need for
Plautine or Petronian slang than there is for 16th century English slang.
No, rejecting it for coiotlum. The term caniculus pratensis (a term
describing the ecological niche) would apply to both of them.
>
> Since new world animals have always been named in reference to old
> world animals( consider the koala "bear") why should "thos" for a
> similar new world animal be rejected ?
>
> For "coyote ",I really don't like "coiotes" or "coiotis". I think it
> is much "safer" to use real Latin words when one can than follow
> "Vicipaedia" here. As I have already said,I prefer
> "thos americanus" or "lupulus americanus".
The first of these two is better than the second but less precise than
coyotlum (I've changed to neuter here because I think the Nahuatl gender
system is more similar to English than to Latin). What if there Argentine
animal even more different from Thos than it is from *Canis latrans*?
>
> Even Vicipaedia's "lupus pratensis" a calque of an English common name
> "prairie wolf' or Hernandez' "vulpis indica" are better than "coiotes"
> or "coiotis,"although not perfect (for example"indica "is ambiguous).
> After all as you say, a coyote is quite similar in appearance to a
> jackal. I cannot see why it is "safer" to call it a "coiotes" if that
> is what you are saying : its use in "Vicipaedia' doesn't make it more
> authoritative or "safer", much as I admire Vicipaedia.
Coyote seems to be more of an international word than, say wolf, dog,
chicken, etc. but less so than coffee, tea, radio. So, what to do?
>
>
>
>
> > or Dzhakela (not sjekel, which is a shekel) along with Racuunus and
> > Oppossuma
>
> Or "Ciacalis" as Busbequius reports the Turkish word. .. (Is
> "Ciacacalis" a misprint in the Vicipaedia article?)
This depends on the Italian pronunciation of Ci, which I reject for
Latin.
>
> I also don't think it is good to multiply neologisms
> (Dzhakela,Racuunus and
> Oppossuma), we aren't the first to ponder the Latin for coyotes,
> raccoons or possums. (I wonder if "opossum" itself is a Latinised form
> of a native name which makes it look like a Latin neuter but that is
> another story)
Possum is a small oppossum and I think the word was borrowed by
taxonomists to apply to smaller distantly related animal.
>
> By the way "shekel" is "siclus " in Latin and I can safely rely on the
> authority of the Vulgate for that one! (e.g. Exod.30.13)
I knew this but I like to experiment with spellings like Sjicagum for
Chicago so that someone unfamiliar with that town is not tempted to say
Khicago.
Agreed to a point but I think that the active use of Latin should be
wholly in the service of the vernaculars. I don't have any illusions about
usefulness or even the possibility of setting up intentional Latin
speaking communities (e.g. Nova Roma and the toga wearers of "Animal
House.")
>
>
>
> >Besides, if
> > they haven't been lazing around Elysium the last 20 centuries, they
> > probably know English better than we do.
>
> I doubt this too!
>
> But you may be right W.F.Jackson KnIght, the Virgilian
> scholar,thought that a spiritualist was able to put him in touch
> with Virgil himself.Yet when pressed to communicate in Latin, it
> appears that" Virgil" claimed that he could no longer speak in Latin.
> Anyone else might have doubted the medium and suspected a con...
My only point is that it is not important to worry about whether Cicero
might understand us. If our only purpose is to pass down the philologist's
object, the precious heirloom frozen in amber and forever unchangeable
even to the extent of disallowing further accretions then I, for one, will
lose most interest in the project. For example above I used the adjective
"lacuster" modeled on "paluster" but a strict Cicenonian would not allow
this since the form is not found in the corpus. Instead he would agonize
over how to express this using only allowable tokens. Quid magis
ridiculum?
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Petrus Australianus
>
>
**************************************************************************
**************************************************************************
**********************************************************************
>
Ed Cryer
You're creating a new language; a new and artificial language. Latin
itself evolved; into various Romance languages, and the regional
variations in these were produced by regional differences, different
social conditions, different political structures. The Roman Empire
broke up, and so did its official language. It had been held in place by
its growth to greatness, and the literature of Vergil, Livy, Tacitus
etc. are its peak.
But it went; it passed, and we live in its wake, just as we live in the
wake of Greece, Egypt, the Hittites etc.
You're trying to do something even less empirical than the
Proto-Indo-European constructors; create a purely hypothetical
structure.
How could you even attempt to verify questions such as "What would
Cicero say about this, that and the other ... today?" It's pure
speculation; beyond verification and falsification. It's on the same
epistemological footing as, say, string theory is in physics. Pure
theory!
What would Shakespeare think of today's English? What would Alexander
Pope think of it?
The point is "What do we think of Bill and Alex's English; for that is
not pure theory.
You know, of course, that Latin remained the language of education well
into and beyond the middle ages. It tried not to change; and it was
supported by The Catholic Church which claimed that we live in a world
with an unchanging backdrop to it. And, oh, how they tried to
accommodate that world-view to ancient learning; people like Aquinas and
Augustine trying to use Aristotelianism to support the official Church
view.
But that too fell. It fell with people like Galileo, Kepler and Newton.
And Latin went out of usage, to be replaced by local languages; a trend
that was already well underway with the Protestant tradition.
So, if you want to invent a new lingo, good luck to you all! But don't
call it "Latin". That's a slur on the great literature of Cicero,
Sallust, Horace, Ovid and Juvenal. They used "Latin".
Ed
Petrus
Salve Eduarde Minnesotane!
I fear that I am being misunderstood so I am going to spell out my
thoughts as clearly as I can.
Remember that firstly, I am attempting to use (Neo)Latin as a vehicle
of communication and secondly, that I aspire to be a stylist in
Latin.
I have attended five Latin "conventicula" at Lexington , Kentucky and
I can certainly say that real conversation in Latin is quite possible.
If you or anyone else has different aims you may not agree with what I
say but at least I hope I have explained why I say what I say.
I might add that I won a prize(actually two prizes) in an
international Latin competition for translating a portion of an
article written in colloquial English dealing with nuclear
proliferation, "suitcase nukes" and the Sudanese. Moreover I received
praise for the style of the translation. So you see I take these
matters seriously.
In order to achieve the clarity of communication In Latin for which I
hanker, I conduct a" mind experiment": how do I explain the gist of
whatever it is I am trying to explain to an ancient Roman such as
Cicero.
Of course "suitcase nuke" by itself is going to puzzle Cicero, but an
explanation of the concept of a fearsomely destructive portable
weapon wouldn't puzzle him at all.
Of course,I am not a lunatic who believes he actually speaks to
Cicero! All I am doing is what anyone does who explains something to a
small child. Apart from the immense pleasure it brings me I think it
is a good mental exercise, life enhancing and ultimately harmless.
Now you (not necessarily you personally Eduarde), you whoever you are
who read this, may exclaim to yourself "What a waste of time! I'd
rather read the ancients, and not waste time on trying to speak Latin
or find ways of expressing modern concepts in a togate form!" Well
that's fair enough but if I want to do so there is no reason why I
should not just because others don't wish to do so.
> > Ego: Eduardus Minnesotanus
> > Alter Eduardus (fortasse) Eduardus Cambriensis. [Re vera nescio si Eduardus noster est
> > Cambriensis sed certe Britannicus est.
Mihi placet!
> > I don't think it's possible to come any closer to the idea of Nazism
> > with Ciceronian Latin than Bacci did in his dictionary and that's not
> > nearly close enough for me.
Now I wasn't trying to define "Nazism"!
I was attempting to find a more formal Latin rendering than the
conversational "Neo-nazista" for "Neo-nazi". That is to say, something
I could use in formal written or spoken context which also would make
sense to a Latin speaker of any era or from any country.
( I also don't particularly like "neonazista"because of "neo- ",
which is a Greek prefix, preferring to use "Novo- or "Novi-"in its
place, but let's not get distracted.)
I think I came up with "Sectator Hitleri hodiernus"
Of course you have to know who Hitler was to understand fully, but any
Latin speaker from any era or any country on earth would understand
that it means "a contemporary follower of (someone called )
Hitlerus".
Now if you feel that Nazism is unable to be explained just call it
"Nazismus" which is all that we did in English when it was new. After
all Lord Tennyson wouldn't understand Nazism any more than Virgil.
However, for "Nazism","placita Hitleriana" would at least indicate
that there are doctrines or opinions involved, and that a person
called "Hitlerus" or "Hitlera" had something to do with it.
"Sectator Hitleri" & "Placita Hitleriana" communicate more to a Latin
speaker who is totally ignorant of the twenteth century, than
"Nazista" or "Nazismus" which convey absolutely no meaning in
themselves if you don't already know what "Nazism" is .
Of course you can't explain everything to such a person by using
"Sectator Hitleri" & "Placita Hitleriana" , but once you have
enlightened our imaginary ignorant Latinist and discoursed eloquently
and comprehensively on Nazism, you may use "Nazista" and
Nazism" (colloquially,in my opinion) if you wish.
In any case we all use names for concepts of which we only have a
meagre understanding , otherwise we would be monsters of omniscience.
( For example I know that Shiites and Sunnis are groups in Islam
without being able to tell you offhand the fundamental distinctions
of each one. I am therefore not particulary "close to the idea " of
Shiites or Sunnis, but have made a beginning. If I knew not that they
were something to do with Islam I could guess for ever:football teams?
Service clubs?...)
So let me make my nuanced postion clear, because I am constantly being
accused of things I haven't done or thought.
I am using Latin as a real language and the primary aim is
communication.
Just as in English I may use in Latin use different words for the same
concept, and depending on the occasion.
I am not saying that I will never ever use "Novo-nazista" (my
personal , idiolectal if you like , form of "neonazista" ) in a Latin
conversation. It can be a useful shorthand form colloquially, even a
form of slang if you like, but certainly "sermo cottidianus".
I am not a rabid Ciceronian who will only use words used by Cicero:
that is to my mind an absurd position. Yet mention Cicero and that is
what one is accused of it seems. (This happened to me on Grex Latine
Loquentium. )
I am not saying that everyone has to do as I do. I am making my own
style in Latin to express my personality, and am my expressing only
my opinion.
>>I suppose that if Latin were to make a real come-back
> > that there will be (at least) two schools, each refusing to talk to
> > the other, the Ciceronians and those like me who are content to pollute
> > neo-Latin with tens of thousands of slightly distorted vernacular
> > words.
I do not think it needs to be so polarised. Two schools only? What
about the "Golden Mean'?
In my nuanced position, I tend to eschew what you call "slightly
distorted vernacular
words" in favour of Latin words which communicate something of a
meaning, so I prefer "halmaturus" which conveys the sense of some sort
of "tail leaper" for "kangurus" which means nothing at all, if you
haven't heard the word kangaroo.
However I do not reject all such coinages as "kangurus" because
sometimes there is a need to name something so new and unusual. For
instance I have adopted the zoological "vombattus" for "wombat".
"Vombattus" has a precedent in a form of Latin (i.e zoological
Latin), and suffices for an animal that is hard to describe.
(Australian animals are difficult because they are so unusual.)
However I will not make up other words like "Vombatum, -i n." as a
rival form.
I do not believe that such words are a "pollution"(as you put it,
Eduarde) of Latin, as the Romans themselves borrowed a small number
of foreign words, for example from Celtic.
For my own use I restrict the number of these vernancular influenced
coinages.I personally would not want " tens of thousands" of them, as
you put it.
> > Of course I'm in favor of using Plautine-Ciceronian-Tacitean Latin to
> > the extent of what it is capabable of expressing and that might well
> > include 80 or even 90 percent of what we might want to say, at least to the
> > extent that we limit ourselves to ordinary matters.
I really believe that we actually agree, Eduarde, because I have no
problems at all with this statement.
My Latin conversation is going to be a version of my vernacular
conversation and be mostly to do with "ordinary matters". After all
"Petrus Australianus" is merely the neoLatin version of me.
>>Not only don't I think thatCicero couldn't express the idea of Nazism, I don't even think it's
> > possible to make an accurate Ciceronian translation of Jerome's
> > Vulgate.
Theodore Beza made a more classical version of the New Testament, but
I don't reject the Vulgate. As I said I am not a rabid
Ciceronian.There is more than one sort of Latin, just as there are
varieties of English.
> > The problem is that there has been too much water under the bridge in the interim.
I don't agree. There has been a continuous tradition of Latin,
although moderns only tend to accept the ancient writers imagining
that there is a huge gulf between them and us.
> >> > The subject of neologisms in Latin is difficult enough in formal
> > >> diction, in colloquial speech it becomes orders of magnitude more difficult,
I believe it to be the same amount of difficulty.
> >> I am content to hunt out neologisms which can be used in everyday
> >> Latin conversation and writing as well as in formal orations.
> >> Conversational Latin is quite possible from the remains we have, as
> >> well as the efforts of neolatinists like Erasmus and Vives who wrote
> >> "colloquia".
> > And more possible because of their efforts. Further effort won't be
> > avoidable.
Part of that "effort" is to evaluate critically neologisms and to
work out one's stance, but why reinvent the wheel? Better to search
out the entire corpus of Latin of all ages for suitable words rather
than coin more neologisms.
I realise that what I am asking reqiuires even more effort.
> > O.K. but slang is ephemeral anyway so there is really no more need for
> > Plautine or Petronian slang than there is for 16th century English
> > slang.
I agree that slang is ephemeral an not necessary. One can however use
a couple of words from Petronius for a relaxed effect now & then in
conversation, but I am not concerned with slang. Slang in English
tends to obfuscate not communicate and I am only interested in clear
and elegant communication in Latin. I am not concerned about slang One
can be colloquial without using slang . Please don't misunderstand :
one can have conversations in Latin which are informal and as
conversational as any language without resorting to slang.
> >> I am not sure I understand you here:are you rejecting the word "thos"
> >> for jackal? Or are you saying that it is safer to use "coiotes" for
> >> coyote (seen at the end of this article on "thos")?.
> > No, rejecting it for coiotlum.
> >> For "coyote ",I really don't like "coiotes" or "coiotis".
> > The first of these two is better than the second but less precise than
> > coyotlum (I've changed to neuter here because I think the Nahuatl
> > gender system is more similar to English than to Latin).
It is not neccessary to replicate a Nahuatl gender system in Latin in
my opinion. To me all these variants seem more or less the same,
except that your "coyotlumI" is straying even further from the actual
sound of the word "coyote". Even if it should be a neuter in Nahuatl,
whoever coined "coiotes" at least managed to make it sound like
"coyote", and assumed that a Roman (or Greek) might assume a form
like "coiotes" either feminine or masculine.
No source is given for these coinages in Vicipædia : I'd really like
to know who thought of them and when.
I do have a sneaking regard for "Coiotes" which as you said looks
Greek. So we could imagine a Greek loan word in Latin and
neohellenists would have ready made word. However "thos amerikanos"
would suffice in modern Attic Greek too!
> > The term caniculus pratensis (a term
> > describing the ecological niche) would apply to both of them.
Unfortunately I can't agree about "caniculus pratensis" because the
"caniculus'" would seem to refer to a "small dog". What is wrong with
"lupulus"?
What exactly do you object to about "thos americanus "or "lupulus
americanus"?
Do you agree that "cercopithecus pinnatus (v.volans v. volitans)"
answers Vivian's' original request for a faux binomial nomenclature
for the "Flying Monkeys" in "The Wizard of Oz", given that
"cercopithecus' is a species name for a number of old world
monkeys ,and "simia" isn't as Augustus pointed out?
> >What if there
> > Argentine
> > animal even more different from Thos than it is from *Canis latrans*?
I don't understand this question.
> > Coyote seems to be more of an international word than, say wolf, dog,
> > chicken, etc. but less so than coffee, tea, radio. So, what to do?
See my remarks above on "kangurus' (the word in the vernancular
languages internationally) and "halmaturus' ( a word in zoological
latin and descriptive). "Kangurus' is the equivalent of "Coiotes" et
cætera here . "Coyote" is of couse more of an international word
because it was a new animal just as tea, coffee and radio were new
things. Most languages would have their own versions of "wolf", "dog"
or "chicken" without resorting to English loan words! Or do I
misunderstand you?
> >> Or "Ciacalis" as Busbequius reports the Turkish word.
> > This depends on the Italian pronunciation of Ci, which I reject for
> > Latin.
I agree fully with you here. I think Busbequius is merely reporting
the native word not offering it as a Latin neologism.
> >>I wonder if "opossum" itself is a Latinised form of a native name which makes it look like > >>a Latin neuter
> > Possum is a small oppossum and I think the word was borrowed by
> > taxonomists to apply to smaller distantly related animal.
Is this correct? As far as I can tell from "The Australian Concise
Oxford Dictionary","opossum" & "possum" are really the same word.
Australians have merely lopped off the "o". I don't think that
"possum" means a small opossum.(I may be wrong) Is this the usage in
the States? surely you also have the variant form of opossum in such
phrases as "to play possum".
> >>>> or Dzhakela (not sjekel, which is a shekel)
> >> By the way "shekel" is "siclus " in Latin and I can safely rely on
> >> the authority of the Vulgate for that one! (e.g. Exod.30.13)
> > I knew this
It shouldn't worry you that the English form of an Hebrew word
"shekel" sounds like your version of jackal "Dzhakela" when a adequate
Biblical Latin word exists which I assume has added "-us" to a Hebrew
form SKL. ( I am not a Hebrew scholar).
> > but I like to experiment with spellings like Sjicagum for
> > Chicago so that someone unfamiliar with that town is not tempted to
> > say Khicago.
I agree with you about Chicago. Other neolatinists have already
suggested "Tzicagum" or "Sicagum".
There is a precedent for rendering "sh" as "s" in Latin. (Hence "s'
in "siclus" for "sh" in the Hebrew form of shekel).
> >> > I like to image that one of the blackrobes around Tenochtitlan (ca.
> >> > 1550) used the word "coyotlum" in a Latin epistle (subsequently lost).
I do like your picture of black robes around Tenochtitlan writing
Latin!
> > Agreed to a point but I think that the active use of Latin should be
> > wholly in the service of the vernaculars.
No I entirely disagree. NeoLatin is a language in its own right, and
although sometimes drawing on the vernacualrs it is not " wholly in
their service".
> > I don't have any illusions about usefulness or even the possibility of setting up intentional > > Latin speaking communities (e.g. Nova Roma and the toga wearers of "Animal
> > House.")
I am not worried about utility! Latin is for me pure enjoyment and
intellectual satisfaction and self culture.
As I say to the my fellow Australians, who bang on at me all the
time about how useless Latin is: "What's the use of football and beer
(both of which they are all, to a man. unnaturally addicted) or
what's the use of chocolate?
I loathe utilitarianism. People are always saying to me:" Why don't
you make money out of Latin?"
They completely miss the point. Even if one could teach here, that is
still not the point in my opinion. I tend to ask them "Why don't you
sell a kidney?Why not sell or prostitute your wife? Must everyting be
valued only for how much cash it raises or its alleged "utility"?
As for Nova Roma .... The Romans are gone but the language has spread
throughout the world and has been used by all sorts of peoples. A love
of Latin doesn't mean a love of Romans.
The existence of Nova Roma is another manifestation of the utility
fallacy I loathe. If you learn a language you must want to visit the
country and speak to the natives. (Modern technological barbarians
don't understand learning a language for reading a literature). As
there isn't a Roman country, let's create one to justify the existence
of Latin.
Actually Latin is still an official language of the Vatican city, but
as so many people I meet think Latin is the private property of the
Roman Catholic Church, I think that will just confuse them. I try to
explain that Latin isn't just a fossilised liturgical language.
As for "Animal House" toga parties surely you jest. I don't recall any
Latin speaking:it is just dress ups.
So Eduarde, embrace the complete lack of usefulness of Latin. The best
things in life are entirely useless: poetry, growing roses, love,
chocolate ...
> > My only point is that it is not important to worry about whether
> > Cicero might understand us. If our only purpose is to pass down the
> > philologist's object, the precious heirloom frozen in amber and forever unchangeable
> > even to the extent of disallowing further accretions then I, for one,
> > will lose most interest in the project.
This is not what I am advocating at all as you can see from what I
have written above. I am not a rabid Ciceronian only using Ciceronian
words, or even ancient words.
> > For example above I used the
> > adjective"lacuster" modeled on "paluster" but a strict Cicenonian would not
> > allow this since the form is not found in the corpus. Instead he would
> > agonizeover how to express this using only allowable tokens. Quid magis
> > ridiculum?
Lacuster is an example of a good coinage , understandable and actually
already used by other s. But if you took the English word
"mere" (=lake) and then added "-ensis" and created "Mere-ensis" it
would be atrocious."Coiotes" is a little like that.
> You're creating a new language; a new and artificial language.
>Latin itself evolved; into various Romance languages, and the regional
> variations in these were produced by regional differences, different
> social conditions, different political structures.
The gulf fallacy again!!!!.
No, alongside the formation of vernacular Romancelanguages based on
Latin,there is a also continuous development of Latin itself as a
"hyperlanguage" through Late Antiquity,the Dark Ages, the Middle
Ages, the Renaissance,theEarly Modern Period up till our day. You and
I in using Latin are participating in the contemporary manifestation
of a continuous tradition.
For the great part of that tradition it has not been any one's mother
tongue, even though some people now speak Romance languages which
developed out of Latin . dante & petrarch wrote latin as well as
italian poetry.Latin ddin't disappear when Italians and French, and
Romanian, etc appeared.
Erasmus was a fluent speaker and voluminous writer of Latin. He and
the humanists helped preserve the hyperlanguage tradition by insisting
on more classical norms.
Also to a certain extent all language is artificial even that of the
Romans.
>The Roman Empire broke up, and so did its official language. It had been held in place by
> its growth to greatness, and the literature of Vergil, Livy, Tacitus
> etc. are its peak.
There are masterpieces in Latin from other eras as well.
> But it went; it passed, and we live in its wake, just as we live in the
> wake of Greece, Egypt, the Hittites etc.
Neolatin is nothing like neoHittite : there is no gulf.
French displaced Latin in diplomacy in the eighteenth century and
English has displaced French , but Latin has never been completely
destroyed.
> You're trying to do something even less empirical than the
> Proto-Indo-European constructors; create a purely hypothetical
> structure.
This is so wrong. You are confusing "Esperanto" with "Latin".
Proto -indoeuropean is hypothetical, but we have a demonstrable Latin
patrimony from all ages.
> How could you even attempt to verify questions such as "What would
> Cicero say about this, that and the other ... today?" It's pure
> speculation; beyond verification and falsification. It's on the same
> epistemological footing as, say, string theory is in physics. Pure
> theory!
Of course it's theory, but just like books that used to be entitled
"An Intelligent Woman's Guide to Quantum Physics."
See what I have written above about explaining a "suitcase nuke" to
Cicero.
Or as a religious analogy for Christians: what would Jesus do in
this situation? Of course it is hypothetical but still a useful
exercise.
I believe that if we steep ourselves in Classical Literature, and in
those who have already steeped themselves in it(Erasmus, Muretus et
al) then we will come as close as humanly possible to replicating the
genius of Latin on our day.
> What would Shakespeare think of today's English? What would Alexander
> Pope think of it?
> The point is "What do we think of Bill and Alex's English; for that is
> not pure theory.
> You know, of course, that Latin remained the language of education well
> into and beyond the middle ages. It tried not to change; and it was
> supported by The Catholic Church which claimed that we live in a world
> with an unchanging backdrop to it. And, oh, how they tried to
> accommodate that world-view to ancient learning; people like Aquinas and
> Augustine trying to use Aristotelianism to support the official Church
> view.
Don't identify Latin with the Roman Catholic church.
Euler used Latin extensively and he was advancing science and
mathematics. Gauss in the nineteenth century wrote in Latin advancing
mathematics and astronomy. You are totally wrong to see Latin as a
historical curiosity from antiquity used by a church with a backward
and unchanging viewpoint as you believe to retard civilisation..
Even in the church the Jesuits advanced ethnography in the
seventeenth century. ( I am not a Catholic by the way)
The first advocate for gay rights, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was Latinist
who supported himself in exile by writing a Latin journal called
"Alaudae" in the late nineteenth century and Vorberg wrote on sexology
in Latin in the earlier part of the same century. Latin and latinists
have been part of the most forward thinking advances.
> But that too fell. It fell with people like Galileo, Kepler and Newton.
Who all wrote in Latin....
> And Latin went out of usage, to be replaced by local languages; a trend
> that was already well underway with the Protestant tradition.
Melanchthon, Luther and Calvin all wrote in Latin, Protestants all.
Still in use in Protestant Scandanavia in the eighteenth century,
(Holberg), still in use today. I have a book written entirely in Latin
within the last few years , on Quantum physics.
Even now botanical descriptions of new plants are still written in
Latin.
> So, if you want to invent a new lingo, good luck to you all! But don't
> call it "Latin". That's a slur on the great literature of Cicero,
> Sallust, Horace, Ovid and Juvenal. They used "Latin".
>
> Ed
Ed, this is nonsense. I am not inventing a new language. Again you are
confusing "Esperanto" for Latin which has along literary tradition in
the arts and sciences streching back over more than two millenia.
Are you going to say that the Israelis don't speak "real" Hebrew or
that Cornish revivalists are misguided?
By all means confine yourself to ancient literature , but do not libel
the rest of the tradition. Not real Latin? Nonsense. Please
investigate the rich and immense post classical tradition of Latin.
Surely you are not unaware of the huge Neolatin corpus (15th-19th
centuries) or of medieval literature, even if you repudiate twentieth
and twenty first century Latin?
I don't think I can say more about my position but would like to hear
what other people think. I trust that I have made myself pellucidly
clear now. ;)
Best wishes,
Petrus Australianus
If I write "Cura ut valeas" it is still real Latin, whether I say it
in 2007 or an ancient Roman wrote it. If I said "Take-us care-us " I
am inventing a new "lingo", and ineptly too!
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