Disputatio:Viti

Quid sit nomen Latinum

Could someone tell me how you'd pronounce "Fiiiis"? 71.130.12.129 07:15, 1 Martii 2006 (UTC)

Something like "Fee-yee-ees". :) I couldn't find a proper declension system for Fiii, so I assumed it was a normal third-declension noun, with its genitive in "-is".

(OK, maybe this page was a bit silly. Just wanted to make a point. Template:Oceania suggests the using "Insulae Fidzienses", so we'll probably want to move this article to a page like that, unless we want to give our readers a headache. :)) -Adamas 08:14, 1 Martii 2006 (UTC)

Aaaaaaaaah. The obvious Latin term is Viti, -orum (n.pl.), 'the Feejees, the Fijis, Fiji'. For maybe 125 years or more, the standard scientific Latin adjective derived from this noun has been vitiensis. Run a search on that word via Google and you'll get 78,500 hits, giving zillions of species so named. Deriving the Latin term from the English term would compound the errors: (1) in the Fiji Islands, the biggest island is Viti Levu, and the islands are collectively known as Viti; (2) in Samoa, to the east, this became Fiti; (3) in Tonga, south of Samoa, that became pronounced something like Fitsi; (4) in the late eighteenth century, Captain Cook "discovered" Tonga and wrote the word down as Feejee, which (5) later English & American writers regularized as Fiji. Let's not further mispronounce an English mispronunciation of a Tongan mispronunciation of a Samoan mispronunciation! In view of the established Latin term, Insulae Vitienses, this Insulae Fidzienses is too novel & English-centered to be helpful.

Similarly: Kiribati, -orum (n.pl.) because Kiribati is the local spelling of the word Gilberts (n.pl.). The Gilbert Islands form a substantial part of the nation of Kiribati. For an adjective, maybe Kiribatiensis or Kiribatianus would work. There's a long-established scientific Latin adjective gilbertensis (several species are so named), and that could be used for the Gilbert Islands (Insulae Gilbertenses), but not for the whole country, which includes the Line Islands (Insulae Lineae?) and the Phoenix Islands (Insulae Phoenicis?). IacobusAmor

Usor:IacobusAmor scripsit:

In ipso loco = Viti ("Fiji, the Feejees, the Fijis"), ita recte Viti, -orum n.pl.; nomen adjectivum scientiae = vitiensis. Hoc Fidzi est horribilis barbaria, ex lingua Anglice nata.

Multo verisimilius ex more Eggeriano quam ex lingua Anglica. Sed Viti -orum attestaturne an ipse composuisti? Quidquid id est "Fiii" haud mihi videtur. --Iustinus 17:39, 15 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

OK, here's what Egger says:

Figi Fiji Islands Fidschi

Insulae Fisienses, f.

Egger has high prestidge among Neo-Latinists, but I rather like the idea of using a form based on Samoan Viti and the established Latin vitiensis. Of course Viti, -orum is rather speculative (though I admit I prefer Havaii -orum to the more established Hawaia). Of course using Insulae Vitienses avoids that problem.

I see nothing wrong with using the English "mispronunciation", given that every non-Samoan language on the interwiki list does the same. But it goes without saying that Fiii is ridiculous (and, I hasten to add, that a noun paradigm in -i -iis is obscenely unlikely): even if we were settled on transcribing the English j as a Latin /j/, Latin is pretty much allergic to /ji/ combinations: cf. Hebrew names like Yis.h.aq (sorry, no unicode on this computer) and Yis´ra’el >Latin Isaac, Israel, not Ji-. So the expected form would then be Fii. But obviously this would be a silly way to do it.

--Iustinus 03:39, 20 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

I kind of liked a term based on "viti" especially, as noted, since it is attested in latin. I like Insula Vitienses the best of the above propositions.--Ioshus Rocchio 04:03, 20 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

From Oceania, these species epithets are well attested:

Fiji (Viti): vitiensis

Gilbert Islands: gilbertensis

Guadalcanal: guadalcanalensis

Guam: guamensis

Hawai'i: hawaiiensis

Kaua'i: kauaiensis

Kusiae (Kosrae): kosraensis

Marquesas: marquesensis

Maui: mauiensis

New Guinea: novaguinensis

Ni'ihau: niihauensis

O'ahu: oahuensis

Pacific: pacificus

Palau (Belau): pelewensis

Papua: papuensis

Samoa: samoensis

Santa Cruz: santacruzensis

Solomon Islands: solomonensis

Tahiti: taitiensis

Tonga: tongensis

Yap: yapensis

There may well be others. The pattern is clear. IacobusAmor 01:16, 19 Augusti 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what pattern you mean. Just adding -ensis? Well, alas, most biologists these days don't know Latin, and tend to just add -ensis willy-nilly. Some biological epithets are absolutely useful forms, others are atrociously bad. It's a mixed bag, unfortunately. --Iustinus 01:30, 19 Augusti 2006 (UTC)

Archipelagus

Archipelagus is a Medieval Latin term. If there is a good classical idiom (and there should be, given the Greek islands!) we may want to switch to that. Given that it is derived from pelagus it will have a very peculiar morphology:

• Nom: Archipelagus
• Acc: Archipelagus (!!)
• Gen: Archipelagi
• Dat: Archipelago
• Abl: Archipelago

Note that although it ends in -us -i, the word is neuter. Furthermore, it has no plural form. --Iustinus 01:00, 19 Augusti 2006 (UTC)

Hello Iustinus, I have a comment and a question: The morphology does seem peculiar at first, but we ought to notice that it follows the most basic rules of declinable Latin neuters: a) the nominative and accusative (and vocative) singular forms are of the same particular form (e.g. bellum, iter, cornu), and b) all of the other case forms derive from a form of the stem that makes the base of the word apparent (e.g. bases bell-, itiner-, corn-). We should no more expect an accusative singular form Archipelagum than an accusative singular form cornum for cornu. (It is easy to start believing that -um is some kind of Intrinsic Second-Declension Accusative Singular Ending.) Could the compound Archipelagus have the nominative (and accusative and vocative) plural form Archipelage like the uncompounded pelage plural form of pelagus? (The e is a Greek-derived plural ending from the third-declension Greek etymon, standing for -ea.) 156.34.218.54 19:24, 8 Decembris 2008 (UTC) --Diaphanus.

Within Fiji, you've got the two big islands, and then you've got the Lau Archipelago (or Group) and the Yasawa Archipelago (or Group). I think the safest solution to the problem is to call the entirety the Insulae Vitienses (both of which terms are well attested!), and, possibly for short, Viti, -orum ("the Feejees"), though a problem with the short form is that the biggest of the Fijian Islands is, in Fijian, Viti Levu, and how do you make Levu agree with Viti? Just call it indeclinable? IacobusAmor 01:14, 19 Augusti 2006 (UTC)

I have already moved the article to Insulae Vitienses. I just mention "Archipelago" because it was in the original article, declined incorrectly. I corrected it, but decided the word was a) weird b) tricky enough that I needed to discuss the complexities here (especially for fear that some well meaning editor will try to "fix" it).

And since we have attestations in Latin for Vitiensis but not for Viti, I have avoided using it in the article. Viti -orum makes sense, but I would rather avoid such coinages when there is a possibility of finding a real attested form. I left Viti Levu in italics, treating it as a forreign word. For now that is probably the best policy. --Iustinus 01:30, 19 Augusti 2006 (UTC)

Primus Administer

Primus administer should be primus minister, I think. However, looking at the english page, I think the person listed there is president, therefore Praeses, and someone else should be listed as Primus Minister.--Rafaelgarcia 02:47, 28 Octobris 2007 (UTC)

Quid significat

Quid significat haec sententia? "Numeri unius lusor follis oblati septem in mundo cum Gulielmus Ryder prope vestigia eius persecuto." All's I'm getting out of it is 'The player of one number of an oblate ball seven in the universe when William Ryder near his [i.e., someone else's] footsteps with pursuing'. :/ IacobusAmor 14:57, 20 Februarii 2011 (UTC)