Disputatio:Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis

LATINITAS

• +1 (inspecta1) --Alex1011 08:19, 2 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Dumbledore = Humblebee = Bumblebee

Re: "Summus Magister scholae Hogvartensis Albus Dumbledorus." Since a dumbledore is a bumblebee, why is the headmaster's surname not Bombus? IacobusAmor 11:39, 17 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Because the book has already been published in Latin, and his name there is Albus Dumbledore (gen. Dumbledoris, as the translator makes most names ending in -e), not Bombus, nor Dumbledorus for that matter. —Myces Tiberinus 21:43, 17 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Vide Vicipaedia:Translatio nominum propriorum.--Ioshus Rocchio 14:36, 17 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. But then doesn't the article, by calling him Dumbledorus, break your rule ("nomina gentilicia non reddenda sunt")? In the real world, we're likely to encounter numerous possibilities:

1. Georgius Bush, Georgii Bush <---cognomen indeclinabile

2. Georgius Bushus, Georgii Bushi <---cognomen declinationis secundae

3. Georgius Bushius, Georgii Bushii <---cognomen declinationis secundae

4. Georgius Bush, Georgii Bushis <---cognomen declinationis tertiae

5. Georgius Frutex, Georgii Fruticis <---cognomen Latine redditum

Before happening on Harry Potter's article, I'd just read an article in which both names of a German politician were wholly translated into Latin (again breaking your rule?). Should all names really follow the same rule? The preface of Poems of Mr. John Milton, Both English and Latin, Compos'd at several times (London: 1645) included three congratulatory poems, addressed:

ad Joannem Miltonum <--- Miltonus, -i (sicut #2 supra)

ad Joannem Miltonium <--- Miltonius, -i (sicut #3 supra)

ad Joannem Miltonem <--- Milton, -onis (sicut #4 supra)

and in the 1937 edition, all three of these appear on the same page. So John Milton, the greatest English Latinist of his age, allowed his name to be treated three ways in his own publication. Also, there's ample precedent for translating names: the German composer Heinrich Schuetz in Latin called himself Henricus Sagittarius (sicut #5 supra). IacobusAmor

Hmm, maybe I was directing you to the wrong part of the help page. The first line something like "Si iam est homini latinum nomen adhibetum, eo utere, iadda, iadda..." I have not read any of the books, mind you, but I'm pretty sure it was translated into latin, Harrius Potter. I then assumed, not unreasonably, that whoever wrote this article might have had a copy of this latin version, and taken the headmaster's name straight from the text, in which we should certainly adhere to the already published version, and what we might really be debating here is a missing reference. Bombus I'm not sure has the same sort of ring as Dumbledore, which is onomatapoeitc of humming rather than buzzing, per Rawling's own description...

As for Jorge, Boscus makes me smile because he reminds me of the little monkey who advertises Bosco chocolate milk syrup. Frutex, I can barely stomach. Bushus (pron latine bus-hus?) makes sense to me grammatically, but something still unsettles me.

I provide an anecdote for humor. I was on vacation with a group of Russian friends at a big family beach type affair in Hatteras. One of the families had a little girl, about 3 or so years old, still learning how to speak properly. And as a pedagogic exercise, the parents were making her go to shops and restaraunts on the beach and practice talking to the waitstaff. So she went in to a restaraunt, and we were a couple feet down on the boardwalk waiting for her, talking and carrying on. She came back a few minutes later and we asked:

• "Как был ето ресторан?" (How was that restaurant?).
• "Был хорошо, только меня повесили не там где обычно." (It was fine, but they hung me where they usually don't.)
• So we gasp in horror, "Тебя повесили?! Что ни худа они с тобой делали!?!?" (They hung you?! What the hell were they doing with you?!?!)
• And she goes, "нет нет...меню висела на кухне, а обычно весит на двери." (No no, the menu was hanging by the kitchen, instead of usually at the door.)

So in Russian

• I = Ego = Я (ja)
• me = me = меня (menja)

So this girl knew the word меню "menu" in the nominative, and knew меня in accusative, so in a sentence she substituted the form and she said "they hung ME" instead of "they hung the MENU", not yet being old enough to know that Russian usually does not decline loan words. (cf Нью-Йорк instead of Новьий-Йорк). Moral is: sometimes it's not best to decline foreign nouns. =]

As for John Milton, there is much to be commended about a man who has not a preference even for the way his own name is printed.--Ioshus Rocchio 18:39, 17 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

I should add, Henricus Sagittarius may well call himself what he likes. I call myself Ioshus instead of Iosue, for instance. I am not about to sign my name Iosue Lignus. So there are preferences that people are allowed to make regarding their own name. But can we have such liberty with translating another's name?

As for the German politician, it's probably an error, unless you find something on the talk page that suggests this is a proper usage. Wiki unfortunately is operated by humans, the best of whom make mistakes, and the worst of whom don't always read policy pages. =]--Ioshus Rocchio 20:47, 17 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Back to Dumbledore: one trusts that educated readers will pronounce it according to the general rules of Latin: something like doom-BLAY-doe-ray. (This minicatastrophe points up a problem of transcribing by eye instead of by ear.) Surely an old Roman converting the name into Latin from the sound of the English syllables would have written Dambulodorus. IacobusAmor 02:06, 18 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Surely? See vec:Discussion:Venezsia. Within a few kilometers, you get 4 different spellings of the same name.

Well, or Dambelodorus or Dambilodorus or Dambiladorus. (You get the idea.) The Romans I've heard speaking English can't perfectly manage our vowel in dumb and pronounce one rather like wan; hence Dam- for the first syllable. A transcribing ancient Roman, however, would face a harder problem in rendering the cluster /bld/ in dumbledore—an impossible combination in Latin, for which the likeliest solution would involve inserting a vowel between the /b/ & the /l/ and then between the /l/ & the /d/. Neither vowel would have stress, and would therefore be indifferent, able to migrate around the mouth, as such vowels did in attested Latin: maximus & maxumus. An alternate, but I think less likely, solution would have been to have ignored the /l/ and produced something like Dambudorus. IacobusAmor 14:11, 18 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Ears are nowhere near as discerning as grammar teachers.

The phonetic transcription of single syllables has almost everything to do with sounds and almost nothing to do with grammar. IacobusAmor 14:11, 18 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly my entire point. You are a speaker of english, if you spelled things the way your ear heard them, years of the work of your grammar teachers would have gone to waste.--Ioshus Rocchio 21:17, 19 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

I think one should trust educated readers a little better than Doom-blay-DOE-ray, just as you can expect anyone english speaker with a second grade education not to pronounce hors d'ouerve "horse duh oh WAYRVE". As I said about Bushus, I see your point and it makes sense grammatically, but the point remains: Attested names stand. Not Frutex or Bombus.--Ioshus Rocchio 02:27, 18 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, if the authorized translation has Dumbledore, -oris, then that's the name, even if it's impossibly formed. In the third declension, the O wants to be long, but in Latin as we know its history from Proto-Latin to the Classical system, DOOM-blay-dor, doom-blay-DOR-is would have turned into DOOM-blih-dor, doom-blih-DOR-is, and that would eventually have been reflected in the spelling: Dumblidor, Dumblidoris. I haven't read the books, but I've seen quotations from them, and they suggest that the author's Latin (as it appears in the English version) is regrettable. IacobusAmor

I don't know where the accent on "Dumbledore" would be, but I can tell you both silent e's would be pronounced as written. The Sorting Hat's song (which, like the other poetry in the book, has been re-rendered in dactylic hexameter) scans "Hufflepuff" (albeit per tmesin) with the e syllable short, not long, as it would if it were pronounced with the l final as in English; see the entry in Victionarium for the example. As for what an old Roman converting the name into Latin would have written, surely he would have written Dimplodorus, after the ancient Greek's Διμπλόδωρος, no? —Myces Tiberinus 11:07, 18 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Ha! Quite possibly! I hadn't thought of that! (Oddly, Google doesn't find it anywhere on the internet.) I guess it all depends on what our old Roman was trying to do. IacobusAmor 14:11, 18 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Propositio sententiae delendae

Propono hanc sententiam" Factum est quod homines Civitatis Foederatae Americae probabiliter non tenent philosophis. " deleri. Non est neutra erga Americam septentrionalem -- [ Usor:Marc Mage ]

Et fortasse falsa! Consentio. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:58, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Consentio. IacobusAmor 15:03, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Haec sententia quidem redditio esse velit similis (?) sententiae ex wikipedia Anglica. Ibi autem nonnulla alia sequuntur. --Alex1011 15:45, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Anglice ea sententia editoribus Americanis adscribitur et oratione obliqua utitur ("citing the reason that ..."); de ea re neutra est. Fortasse possumus rescribere. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:07, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Bene, Alex1011! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:11, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Usor anonymus hodie paginam melioravit sed hunc paragraphon delevit. Restituo; sed, si quis ratione clara vult delere, possumus. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:37, 18 Iulii 2009 (UTC)

That anonymous user felt that the paragraph's grammar needed some work, and saw little value in its content. The wording makes it all sound very speculative, especially without the sources cited in the English version of the article. Perhaps this can be corrected, and the citation included? It still seems like an unusual point to highlight.

Well, our thanks to the same anonymous user for improvements all through. True, in the context of a short article, it is unbalanced. The fact is that the same thing happens with many books, but it became a matter of public comment (and therefore "notable") with this book. I guess Wikipedia prefers, in such cases, to introduce balance by making the article longer rather than by deleting. We should cite a source, however, that's true. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:07, 20 Iulii 2009 (UTC)