Disputatio:Iosephus Matt

verbum auctoris

Salvete amici,

This is my first translation of a Wikipedia page into Latin, and obviously, it isn't likely to be perfect, so please give me any feedback you can. I am eager to learn the ins and outs of Wikipedia.

Gratias tibi.

--Andrew K. 02:21, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)

Salve et tu, Andrea. Res prima: aliquid de verbi "cartoonista" usu faciendum est. --Ioscius ^∞ 18:43, 1 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Obviously, I made up the term "cartoonista". I wasn't able to find a Latin word that was equivalent to the English cartoonist, and I wanted something concise, so I went with it. I suppose that "pictographista" or something like that might be better. I find "cartoonista" a little bit funny though, and that makes me prefer it too. What do you think I should do? --Andrew K. 21:11, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Of course it's tempting. And it is funny, and for writing emails and stuff, I'm sture I would use it, too, but on an encyclopedia, we have to do something better.

The question is what? There I'm not sure. I remember the feeling of disappointment when I wanted to write an article on en:jungle, but the only word I could find was silva with an adjective. Totally lacks class and originality, but then, we're writing Latin.

I suppose that the most concise would be "pictographus," but I don't really like that because it isn't specific enough. In fact, in my mind this term could just as easily be applied to someone drawing or painting in a representational style as much as to someone drawing in a cartoon style. Of course, the concept of a "cartoon" is quite old. The rough pre-pictures or guides that the Renaissance painters drew on paper or on the walls under their paintings are known in English as cartoons. And I believe that this is an old usage, and so there must have been a Latin term for this. If someone could find out what that term was, that might be the answer to all of this. --Andrew K. 05:04, 3 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

For "cartoonist," what about "gryllopictor" = "cartoon drawer." Is that an acceptable way to combine the two words? --Andrew K. 04:01, 6 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Gryllographus gets some google hits and looks pretty good to me. Purists might have something to say, but then you can always show them this =] --Ioscius ^∞ 18:23, 6 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Ioscius. I apologize for how inept I am at using the available resources. I am gradually learning about what dictionaries and vocabulary lsits are available for modern Latin. --Andrew K. 00:56, 8 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Fascia valet idem ac "strip"? --Ioscius ^∞ 18:46, 1 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Once again, I couldn't find anything for "comic strip," so I used "fascia." It seemed as good a term as anything. It's not an object that lends itself to easy naming in any language. The English term "strip" is extremely imprecise. I went with "fascia" because I wasn't sure where else to go. --Andrew K. 21:11, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Would probably have gone taenia, as it already has connotations in neoLatin of entertainment industry. Somebody might have a better idea, here.

"Taenia" is a good idea, not just because it has the entertainment associations but also because a strip of film is essentially the same thing as a comic strip, but in photographs. They are both sequences of pictures that together tell a larger story. Whitaker gives "fabula nubeculata" for "comic strip," and so "comic book" would be "liber nubeculatus," but this seems to me unideal because it is more of a literal translation of the English than a description of the thing. The cartoonists I like make comic books that are not necessarily that funny at all, or at least they investigate a wide range of emotions, comic ones included. --Andrew K. 04:48, 3 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

I've seen nubeculatus used of comics in more reliable sources than Whitaker's myself. But how is that a literal translation of the English 'comic'? 'Comic' means 'humorous' but 'nubeculatus' means having little clouds (nubeculae)—i.e. the speech balloons. Cf. nubecula. —Mucius Tever 06:17, 3 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, I see. That makes quite a bit of sense. I apologize for my denseness. --Andrew K. 15:03, 3 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Having trouble with this sentence too: Super picturarum sequentialium libros, et propter originalium fasciarum picturarum sequentialium de Gasoline Alley collectionem magnam natus est. I get "besides books of sequential pictures, and because of a large collection of strips of sequential pictures about Gasoline Alley he was born." --Ioscius ^∞ 18:57, 1 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

This was a typo. I meant "notus," not "natus." Obviously, the one different letter turns it into gibberish--which makes me wonder, what is the Latin word for "gibberish"? --Andrew K. 21:11, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Ahhhhhhh! Makes all the sense in the world now, I should have been able to figure that one out.

The only attestation I have for "gibberish" is sermo perplexus which is just awful. I would use nugae.

--Ioscius ^∞ 22:24, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Gratias. Instructionem in lingua habere gaudeo. --Andrew K. 04:48, 3 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

nomina

• David, Davidis is far more common than Davidus, Davidi.
• Not sure what to do with Harvey.

--Ioscius ^∞ 05:53, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Harvey is said by en:wiki to correspond to the French (originally Breton) forename Hervé. Following up, en:Hervé explains: "It already appears in Latin sources of the eighth century as Charivius. A later Latin form is Herveus." You pays your money and you takes your choice. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:25, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Checking further, the spelling actually given on en:wiki for one or two of those medieval Hervés is "Hervaeus" (e.g. en:Hervaeus Natalis). To me that looks more convincing than "Herveus". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:54, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Nice, thanks Andrew! --Ioscius ^∞ 11:43, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

I would say Herveus would be better, though, because of the pronunciation. In mediaeval Latin, ae and e were interchangeable, but the former would get an un-historical pronunciation from many today. Pantocrator 17:25, 3 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew, and not to spite you PC. Just, as always, not sure what your obsession with modern reception is. Ask (almost) any American how to pronounce cacti and/or octopi and you're bound to get an "un-historical" pronunciation. Certainly you don't propose cactae. You will undoubtedly raise the point "sure but i and ae were never interchangeable. Right you will be, but that still isn't motivation for making something less classical just so it will be understood by your beloved modern and, if we have to be honest about it, undereducated target audience. Hervaeus looks great. --Ioscius ^∞ 21:35, 3 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

'Cacti' and 'octopi' will get the correct pronunciation for English. There is an established way of pronouncing Latin words in English, and of course I wouldn't say them the same way if I were talking Latin. This name in any spelling is not classical, and the point is that the sound now usually given to ae does not accurately represent any language. Pantocrator 22:12, 3 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

No, I agree with Pantocrator. What exactly would make 'Hervaeus' more convincing than 'Herveus'? At the time when 'ae' and 'e' were interchangable phonetically, the spelling 'ae' was a common device to show that a long 'e' was intended—as, even though the vowel wasn't pronounced long any more, it still affected the placement of the stress. Cf. cafaeum/café, Budaeus/Budé, Linnaeus/Linné—examples of the phenomenon given by Morgan—where the etymology doesn't merit the ae, but the ae suggests the stress. At any rate, even without the etymology, 'Hervaeus' looks less convincing on that ground; but with the older form 'Charivius' cited, the ae seems to have no merit at all—unless, of course, we can point to usage to support it for this person. —Mucius Tever 06:08, 4 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

(And for what it's worth, Herveus Natalis currently gets more google book hits than Hervaeus Natalis, though not by a large margin.) —Mucius Tever

Eh, I don't care enough about Hervaeus/Herveus to agree or disagree. My point/problem is that given two options 1) Classical, Latin, Educated 2) Less Classical, more Romance, more easily digested for a modern audience, PC noster will inevitably pick the second. Harvey is just a symptom. --Ioscius ^∞ 09:20, 4 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, but just because the reasoning may be wrong doesn't mean the conclusion is. And PC wasn't even wrong; I believe it's only in the classical pronunciation that it would make sense to speak of a spelling difference between "ae" and "e" causing an unhistorical pronunciation—in all later and regional Latin pronunciations I'm familiar with, even the English, the pronunciations of both spellings have merged. Without any other reasoning provided, it seems the one form only looked more "Classical, Latin, Educated", "convincing", and "great" because of the opportunity to throw in a gratuitous 'ae'—though of course five times more Latin words end in -end than in -aeus (and the majority of the -aeus words themselves seem to be of Greek origin). Yes, we don't want to give up our ideal of classicizing, and yes, PC (like any of us) is occasionally wrong, but that doesn't mean we should indulge in stereotyping without looking into facts. (The fewer gratuitous cases like 'Chicago, Chicaginis' we have to promote, the better.) —Mucius Tever 23:52, 7 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Ioscius and Andrew both for your help. I have a question about translating "Harvey Award" though. Wouldn't the English "Harvey" be used no matter what language it was used in? I assume that the "Oscar" is called the Oscar internationally (although I really don't know). Would it be "Adsignatio Harvey" or "Adsignatio Hervaei" or "Adsignatio Hervaeus"? Gratias. --Andrew K. 21:10, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Praemium Harvey, Praemium Harveianum? IacobusAmor 21:26, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

Well there is the Praemium Nobelianum, but we didn't come up with that. If we accept Hervaeus, we could do Praemiun Hervaeum, but I would probably just do Praemium Harvey. --Ioscius ^∞ 21:48, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

In botany at least, a solidly attested manner of making Latin adjectives from non-Latin surnames is to add -anus (William T. Stearn, Botanical Latin, 3rd edn., 1983, p. 295). Ergo, Praemium Harveyanum. But I may have seen sources where, in such circumstances, the y changes to i, producing Harveianum. Similarly, Sydney = Sydneium, not Sydneyum. IacobusAmor 22:06, 2 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)

As a search-engine will show, both Harveyanus, -a, um and Harveianus, -a, um are well-attested, and not just as species epithets; exempli gratia, vide hic. IacobusAmor 16:49, 4 Aprilis 2010 (UTC)