mundo mirabilis
jsqu...@gmail.com
off and on, here and there. "mundus mirabilis"
would seem more corect grammatically.
Is the former just wrong, or, do I remember correctly
that it is sometimes used?
Ed Cryer
<jsqu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:59a543a4-09fc-42e9...@w19g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
Mundus mirabilis is straightforward good Latin; marvellous world.
Mundo mirabilis is good Latin as well; marvellous to the world.
I get no Google hits for the latter. The former gets many; especially
for a map produced in 1687.
Ed
Johannes Patruus
But what if "mundo" were dative, as in "... et ero deo amabilis, mundo
mirabilis et consorcio beatorum laudabilis"? - http://bit.ly/8ojr5i
Patruus
jsqu...@gmail.com
Yes. That was my thinking. It would make
both forms correct, but not equivalent in
meaning.
I also suspect that I am confusing the same
phrase said slightly differently in various
romance languages.
e.g. mundus lat. => monde fr.
jsqu...@gmail.com
> <jsqua...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Actually, having right brained a bit, I come up with an
embarrassing display of grammar ignorance:
1. In your
> Mundo mirabilis is good Latin as well; marvellous to the world.
I take "mirabilis" to be a noun form. Right?
2. "mirabilis" as a plural dative or ablative could not
work on purely grammatical grounds because
one can NEVER pair plural adjectives with
singular nouns. Right?
Ed Cryer
<jsqu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:72a07396-407c-4fdc...@m7g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
*******
As in "tout le monde" and "demi-mondaine".
Ed
Ed Cryer
<jsqu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:65588fc4-bdf4-4289...@d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
1. In your
**************
You've lost me here. I can only construe "mirabilis" as first person
singular adjective. And the "abilis" pattern is so normal in Latin,
whereas I can't think of a single example of a word ending in "abilus".
Ed
Ed Cryer
"Ed Cryer" <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote in message
news:hfescb$ut0$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
> You've lost me here. I can only construe "mirabilis" as first person
> singular adjective. And the "abilis" pattern is so normal in Latin,
> whereas I can't think of a single example of a word ending in
> "abilus".
>
> Ed
>
Oh, and first person genitive as well.
Ed
Will Parsons
>
> You've lost me here. I can only construe "mirabilis" as first person
> singular adjective. And the "abilis" pattern is so normal in Latin,
> whereas I can't think of a single example of a word ending in "abilus".
Umm, adjectives in Latin (or any other language that I'm aware of) don't
have "person".
--
Will
jsqu...@gmail.com
I know that I may well be on shaky ground here discussing
grammar niceties with those who know Latin far better
than do I, but one can often only learn by persistence.
Here is why I reject what seems, at first glance, to be
the way to translate this phrase "mundo mirabilis"
if it is posited as an alternative to the much more straight forward
"mundus mirabilis"
:
If we take "mundo" as the dative case of a noun,
then what are we to do syntactically with "mirabilis"?
It seems to me to be far more natural to think of
"mundo mirabilis" as (dative noun nominal noun)
than (dative noun adjective )
i.e. "mundo mirabilis" ==> to the world, wonder
This backward formation of a noun from an adjective
is not uncommon in either English or in Latin.
Witness
red====> redness
Several of my Latin grammars mention this making
of nouns from adjectives as not unusual, be it
explicit or implicit. I would take this phrase
we discuss here, "mundo mirabilis", as an example of
an implicit conversion.
Actually, my preference, if I take "mirabilis" to be a noun,
is to see "mundo", not as a dative case, but, rather, as
an ablative. That is,
"from the world, wonder"
is more the way the phrase is used in English than
is
"to the world, wonder"
Ed Cryer
"Will Parsons" <oud...@nodomain.invalid> wrote in message
news:slrnhhm516....@isis.thalatta.eme...
Thanks for the correction. I did see it almost as soon as I posted it,
but bed-time was calling. However, I doubt that I've confounded anybody
too deeply, but just to reiterate standard grammar let's see if we can
reach a common ground.
Only verbs have first person forms. Nouns have nom, voc, acc, gen, dat,
abl; both singular and plural.
Ed
Ed Cryer
<jsqu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f5791f7e-cf69-4624...@y32g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
red====> redness
"from the world, wonder"
"to the world, wonder"
****************
It's a truism of English, I guess, that nouns can be confounded with
adjectives. Take "wonderful"; you'd say "adjective", but then you read
something like "Mr Wonderful" and you're into the area you've discussed.
Doctor Mirabils. Wonderful doctor, or Dr Wonderful?
Language often adopts ad hoc, pragmatic rules to combat ambiguity.
"Mundo mirabils"; strictly speaking it could be ablative, wonderful
because of the world. But native speakers would be (would have been)
aware of this possibility, and an ad hoc ruling come into play. I think
that had the speaker intended a causal "mudo" then he would have said
something like "propter mundum" or "causa mundi".
This is one of my major complaints about "Latin through the ages". It
has evolved, changed over time and over territory. And the result is
something that we call a "dead" language; and it's the bane of anyone
who tries to revive it and drive out the "deadness" as to just where and
when their stipulations will apply.
A lot of purists like myself try to stick with good classical Latin; our
bench-marking test is "Would Cicero or Caesar have understood and ticked
it as ok?" And that links it firmly with ancient aristocratic (or at
least upper middle class) language. And at that point socialists and
democrats start throwing eggs and muck at us; let alone feminists
shrieking "patriarchal values".
Personally I ride the storms because I have extremely high regard for
that great literary and cultural blossoming that occurred in Greece
after the Persian wars. And I have a similar high respect for the
civilising effect of the Pax Romana and its literary greats. The silly
modernists want to throw the baby out with the bath-water, as if we
could
start over again from scratch, lose all our roots and greatest glories.
Not me. Humanus sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto.
Ed
jsqu...@gmail.com
I agree with you. You speak of a subject
that interests me, that of so-called "dead" languages.
Your comment
"..as if we
> could
> start over again from scratch, lose all our roots and greatest glories.>>''
hits at the flaw in the concept that a language, once a part of
a surviving culture, can ever be truly dead. Since Latin is
part of the history of English, in my opinion, it still resonates
with it. Almost without exception, I find those speakers and
writers of English who have this quality of resonance with
some other language to be the better for it. The other language
need not be antecedent, it just needs to be different.
Joseph Conrad and Cormac McCarthy are two writers that
come to mind as using language which is more
than just English. There can be no fatherless son.
Ed Cryer
<jsqu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b85d7af0-6627-49b2...@f18g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Your comment
********************
I could plagiarise Fellini's La Dolce Vita. Set in Rome; spiritually
vacuous people chasing kicks, sex, drugs and rock & roll; and circling
around the Vatican but never stopping to drink there.
I could have mine circle around the Forum Romanum, and use back shots of
the Rostra, law-courts etc.
Ed
jsqu...@gmail.com
If we look at all of this in the larger optics of evolution,
I think the true status of Latin is clearer. Latin is to
English as are earlier species to later species.
Which is to say, earlier species are not really replaced by
newer, they are more or less encased in the newer
and continue to function within an expanded new context.
For example, our brain still has earlier brains, those
of mammals, and those of reptiles, within it and uses
the earlier brains as they best can serve. Freud, with
his Superego/ego/id, touches on this situation.
Looking back thru my emails, I find that where I have
used "mundo mirabilis" and/or "mundus mirabilis"
the Latin phrase is more effective than the equivalent
English "from the world of wonders". Notice that
the word "from" is to me essential and that "world of wonders"
would not really serve where I have chosen to say
"from the world of wonders". Why this is so, I do not know,
but, so it is, and my English is made better by appropriate
Latin. We are, after all, not speaking English. We are
speaking language.
jsqu...@gmail.com
Bradley's "Latin Prose Composition", is a book which I use
only occasionally, but is often excellent in that occasional
service. P. 50 deals with this "mirabilis, adj./mirabilis, noun"
business:
"....
Ciceronis est amicus (substantival); he is the friend of Cicero
Ciceroni est amicus (adjectival); he is friendly to Cicero
...."
hence, if I intended to say
"...from a world of wonder..."
, I could use the Latin words
"...mundo mirabilis"
which would be represented grammatically as
( noun, abl. mundus / noun, gen. mirabilis )
Actually, looking back at the times I have used
the phrase
"mundo mirabilis"
, with respect to something or other
from the ever expanding world of math, physics,
and solid state technology,
I have really meant to say
"...from a world of wonders.."
i.e. I have referenced wonders not wonder, and, therefore,
"...mundo mirabilium"
would better suit my mostly humorous intent:
"from a world of wonders which includes the
strange persistence of dead language
phrases like 'mundo mirabilium' and the
discussion of that persistence."
jsqu...@gmail.com
por ejemplo
mundo mirabilium
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/12/09/the-latest-from-the-lhc-2/
Ed Cryer
<jsqu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:bb0f4ac9-d68b-4095...@d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
por ejemplo
mundo mirabilium
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/12/09/the-latest-from-the-lhc-2/
***************************
Here come I from a world of wonders.
E mundo mirabilium adsum.
(Maybe I stepped into a parallel universe where there's nothing to catch
the imagination.)
"A world of wonder" surely means a world filled with wonderful things;
or, maybe, one in which "wonderment" (ie the personal characteristic of
standing before things with an attitude of open admiration)
predominates. Now, I don't think that "mirabile" in itself can mean
"wonderment"; it means a "wonderful thing".
How can I say that?
Merely from experience with reading Latin.
Yes, I know that many neuter nouns can stand for the abstract quality
itself, but experience tells me that not all can. And something from
that tells me that "mirabile" belongs in that class.
It's very difficult to quantify that claim. It's also very difficult to
prove it true. But I'll stick with it because of the mere strength of
conviction I have about it.
Ed
Ed Cryer
P.S.
Karl Popper and his falsification hold sway here; just one
counterexample sinks my claim.
Will Parsons
>
> Bradley's "Latin Prose Composition", is a book which I use
> only occasionally, but is often excellent in that occasional
> service. P. 50 deals with this "mirabilis, adj./mirabilis, noun"
> business:
>
> "....
> Ciceronis est amicus (substantival); he is the friend of Cicero
> Ciceroni est amicus (adjectival); he is friendly to Cicero
> ...."
>
> hence, if I intended to say
>
> "...from a world of wonder..."
>
> , I could use the Latin words
> "...mundo mirabilis"
>
> which would be represented grammatically as
> ( noun, abl. mundus / noun, gen. mirabilis )
Although I suppose _mundo_ /could/ be construed as an ablative, I think it
would be far more likely to be construed as a dative: "marvelous to the
world". It it because of ambiguities of this type that the use of bare
oblique cases tended to be clarified by the addition of an adverb leading
to prepositional phrases. So, more likely "from a world" would be
expressed by "e mundo".
--
Will
jsqu...@gmail.com
> "Ed Cryer" <e...@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:hfp8pc$5i5$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > ***************************
>
> > Here come I from a world of wonders.
> > E mundo mirabilium adsum.
> > (Maybe I stepped into a parallel universe where there's nothing to
> > catch the imagination.)
>
> > "A world of wonder" surely means a world filled with wonderful things;
> > or, maybe, one in which "wonderment" (ie the personal characteristic
> > of standing before things with an attitude of open admiration)
> > predominates. Now, I don't think that "mirabile" in itself can mean
> > "wonderment"; it means a "wonderful thing".
> > How can I say that?
> > Merely from experience with reading Latin.
>
> > Yes, I know that many neuter nouns can stand for the abstract quality
> > itself, but experience tells me that not all can. And something from
> > that tells me that "mirabile" belongs in that class.
>
> > It's very difficult to quantify that claim. It's also very difficult
> > to prove it true. But I'll stick with it because of the mere strength
> > of conviction I have about it.
>
> > Ed
>
> P.S.
> Karl Popper and his falsification hold sway here; just one
> counterexample sinks my claim.
that site "news..." did not come up for me. I would like
to see it. Maybe I can get there some other way?
jsqu...@gmail.com
Thank you. What you say makes a lot of sense to me
as I have pondered on how clear the dative/ablative
distinction is in my previous wording. Since the "from"
semantics is important to my little Latin email pre-amble,
and since I send such emails to people who are going to
be much puzzled as to my purpose, your
"e mundo mirabilium" is good, and I think I will use
it in the future.
I have enjoyed this clarification you have given. Thanks
again.