Disputatio:Civitas Vaticana

"Status Civitatis Vaticanae"

The above is what the English-language Wikipedia says the country is called in Latin. Any expert or other informed opinion?

Why I am interested is that it is a country (probably the only one) where Latin is the official language. Supporters of Vicipaedia should therefore be looking to cooperate with its residents in building this site.

Robin Patterson 19:23 feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. Google turns up a lot of hits for that phrase I have not comved through them, but it looks like a lot of them are getting their info from the Wikipedia. Especially suspicious is that that phrasing does not appear at Vatican.va. I will be happy to be proven wrong, but my initial suspicion is that some speaker of English (or another European language) backformed that from "state."

It would certainly be interesting to get writers from the Vatican, but the fact is that even there few people really know Latin. It is the official language, but not the actual spoken language (jokes by Henry Beard notwithstanding). In my experience, the daily language in use there is Italian (but there are a lot of languages spoken there in general). However, they do have Latinists working on papal bulls, Latinitas, the websites, and so on, so it might be possible to find someone who would be willing to contribute. --Iustinus 19:58 feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, looking more carefully at Vatican.va, I see a few references to a "Commissio Pontificia pro Statu Civitatis Vaticana" and one reference that is not to a committee. The fact that "Statu" is capitalized in that example is especially telling. --Iustinus 20:04 feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Statu is Ablative of Status. This has certaintly little to with State. Civitas (-> people) generally does not sound wrong. Others that come to mind are Urbs ( -> City)

This is esp. true since Augustinus talks about de Civitate Dei (capitalisation is arbitrary). -- Eptalon 05:38, 19 Februarii 2006 (UTC) (if you answer,please do so on my simple user account)

The Latin appears grammatically correct but culturally and historically poor, more or less like a Martian who picks up Latin but has no idea what historical weight was given to this or that technical term. We can't reinvent everything with the help of a modern dictionary. If we do, we might as well use something like interlingua. --User:85.18.14.18, 08:25, 19 Februarii 2006

It is uncertain whether User:85.18.14.18 is referring to the title of the page or the text of the page overall.--Rafaelgarcia 01:36, 19 Octobris 2008 (UTC)

The Pope himself uses the phrase "leges Status Civitatis Vaticanae" in his Motu Proprio "Quo Civium Iura" [1]. And there is an old map in the Vatican Library titled "Civitas Vaticana" [2]. --User:89.12.115.29, 20:08, 18 Octobris 2008

The modern word state indeed was derived from this usage of the latin word status, but it is nonidiomatic, I think, to use the term status all by itself to refer to a state, unless perhaps in some political science text.

"Status civitatis" literally means "a state/status of citizenship" and here the name "Status Civitatis Vaticanae"="The State/status/organization/order of the Vatican Citizenship". "Civitas" in latin literally means "the citizenship", in the collective sense of the body of citizens standing together, which is the same as the idea of a state in english but focused more on the citizens and their government rather than on specific borders or geography. Thus the term "status civitatis" when predicated of an individual means "the status of an individual having citizenship" or the "status of having a state" (Cicero); when predicated of a people it means "the state of the citizens together" (especially Hobbes). When predicated of a government or international entity, it means the "status of being a state" as opposed to a nation, empire or people. It's usage by Cicero in De Republica is also translated to mean "order of the state". Or it can be translated as "organization of the state", in the sense of "organization of the united nations". In the case of the vatican, I think it is these ideas of status as order/organization and civitas as citizenship that is invoked.--Rafaelgarcia 01:36, 19 Octobris 2008 (UTC)

Status can also mean constitution or the like... don't know if that's what it means there. --Iustinus 00:27, 25 Maii 2011 (UTC)

Cartae?

Anyone know where I could find a map or a general topography of the Vatican in Latin? You would think these would be quite easy to find, but no luck so far. In particular I'm looking for a Latin name for the Cortile Belvidere... so far the closest I have is this map, which lists Bel Videre in the upper-right-hand corner. Not much help. --Iustinus 00:27, 25 Maii 2011 (UTC)