Disputatio:Media America

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Quid est haec res arcana? Certe "Centroamerica" est Media America? Non habemus commentarios nomine "Meridioamerica" et "Septentrioamerica"! Verbum Centroamérica est Hispanicum, non Latinum. IacobusAmor 17:09, 13 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with Centroamerica as a *name*, although I would agree in locum eius America Centralis would be a suitable substitute. America media, however, seems an inadequate translation because...otherwise how do we distinguish "Middle America" from "Central America" and "Meso-America"? These are obviously are termini technici of political geography, but etymologically are essentially indistinguishable.--Rafaelgarcia 17:36, 13 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The terms Middle America and Mesoamerica are often synonymous; but if they must be distinguished in the way that the English wiki seems to distinguish them, the former may neatly & clearly be described as Media America Maior, and the latter as Media America Minor. That leaves the region apparently called Central America to be America Isthmia. ¶ Cassell's defines the adjective medius as 'middle, midmost, mid; central, neutral, intermediate', shows that it happily precedes its noun, and adds "The [centre] of anything is usually expressed by medius, agreeing as adj. with the thing itself." Note Cassell's characterization: "usually." As a rule of thumb, one might suggest that our Classical prose aim for what native speakers would usually have written, rather than reach for arcane locutions. IacobusAmor 17:16, 14 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I think it is remarkable that in order to avoid using the terms "centralis", "mesoamerica", and "centroamerica" you propose to invent new names and new vocabulary (i.e. "isthmia") to boot.

What on earth is wrong with centralis? It may not have been usual in classical latin, but it is not wrong. It is attested in Pliny's encyclopedia with the modern meaning of "central". It is a well-formed word with obvous meaning, and with this maning is found everywhere in latin medical and scientific literature for naming organs and organ systems, parts of machines. And, lets not forget that it is of obvious unambiguous relation to the english and spanish names in common use.

Moreover, since when and by what principle is a proper name required to be idiomatic?

I can understand the desire to avoid centralis when media would do in prose, but I certaintly have trouble understanding the desire to elminate the term when obvious ambiguities can be avoided.--Rafaelgarcia 20:21, 14 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Nobody's trying to "eliminate" a term. In the discussion above, see the pertinent adverb: usually. The suggestion is to avoid rare words when common, ordinary, usual ones are available. As Cassell's dictionary reminds us: "The [centre] of anything is usually expressed by medius, agreeing as adj. with the thing itself." IacobusAmor 00:13, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

In this regard, it was amusing earlier today to see that in commentario Iohannes Kearney one of our anonymous friends changed progenies to prosapia, a term that Cicero considered archaic. IacobusAmor 00:13, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The larger issue seems to have gone astray. Take two common terms: Middle America and Mesoamerica. Which one covers the more ground? It's not immediately obvious, is it? Whereas Greater Middle America and Lesser Middle America make the differentiation unmistakable. That leaves the curiosity of Central America, which, since our own article says (ungrammatically, on several counts) "Haec regio terrestris et angustia, quasi isthmus, coniugit America Septentionalis cum America Meridionali," would appear to be adequately described as Isthmian America. Thus the three geographical concepts are easily distinguishable. ¶ The admissibility of centralis itself is a different issue. Pliny was more than a hundred years too late for Tully and the boys. ;) IacobusAmor 00:03, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Note the observation that began this thread: "Verbum Centroamérica est Hispanicum, non Latinum." Even the Spanish wiki makes that an alternative term, and prefers something else: "América Central, también llamada Centroamérica, es un subcontinente que conecta América del Norte con América del Sur." IacobusAmor 00:03, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Obviously the latinity and grammar of the article needs major improvement. The spanish wiki sentence also seems off, since (I thought) central america is part of north american continent.

However, I'm not convinced that second guessing the established nomenclature is a wise thing to do. Your nomenclature strikes me as more scientific and logical, but it is also not used anywhere else. We don't want to abandon our Noli Fingere! policy.--Rafaelgarcia 00:41, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Of course it's not used in any other language ("anywhere else")! Unless somebody comes up with a Latin attestation (and somebody well might, given all the padres who roamed those parts, and all the Latin maps that must be available), we have to do some terminologizing so as to get a Latin equivalent of the English (Spanish, whatever) words! IacobusAmor 01:00, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Botanical latin: Testacea novissima insulae Cubanae et Americae Centralis (1849) See the botanical description of Holotypus.--Rafaelgarcia 01:02, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

It seems not to be on the first page—all that people without access to JSTOR can see. Copy it here? ¶ How did these authors distinguish between Central America and what's called Greater Middle America (Anglice: Middle America) & Lesser Middle America (Anglice: Mesoamerica) above? IacobusAmor 01:17, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I replaced it with a better one above. Apparently America Centralis is widely used in Biological diagnoses. (See also [1])--Rafaelgarcia 01:20, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I think mesoamerica mostly refers to the Aztec and Maya cultures. Only Middle America and Central America are primarily geographical distinctions. I don't see Media America or rather if I search Media America i get lots of links about American media! I did find a name ""America Boreali Media" in a phrase meaning apparently "Middle of North America" but that doesn't help either.--Rafaelgarcia 01:32, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The issue is further complicated by this map [2] which shows "centroamerica" as the pacific coastal region of guatemala and el salvador, constituting the southernmost tip of mesoamerica. Also in the article, they mention a so-called mesoamerican region which is defined to include central america and the mesoamerican mexican states. I think the trouble is that these terms where defined by different people all with crossed purposes. There's no one single categorical logic to any of them.--Rafaelgarcia 04:55, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Let's consider the way other languages distinguish these difficultly distinguishable terms. The interwiki links show us:

* en:Mesoamerica is easy: most languages treat it as a foreign term and use it in an unaltered form (or just little altered, for example Mezo-Amerika). Latin probably should do the same and use the original Spanish Mesoamérica.

* en:Middle America (Americas) and en:Central America are more difficult. The number of interwiki links advises that Central America is the common term for this region (no matter how exactly defined), while Middle America is a special term used only in six or so Wikipedias. The few languages having Middle America distinguish it from Central America in this way:

** English — Middle America vs. Central America

** German — Mittelamerika vs. Zentralamerika

** Dutch — Midden-Amerika vs. Centraal-Amerika

** Polish — Ameryka środkowa vs. Ameryka centralna

If we want to make up as few as possible, the Latin translations are quite obvious: America Media vs. America Centralis. The weakness of this solution is that for the MORE common term Central America it uses the LESS common Latin word centralis, while the special term Middle America steals the popular Latin word media. Another alternative is — to use the popular term America Media for the common concept of Central America, leaving Middle America nearly ignored or — when necessary — translated for example as the America Media Maior. Gabriel Svoboda 10:47, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

It would be good to get consensus on the best term to use, because we need categories in this subject area. See Categoria:Aves Mediae Americae, which demands a supercategory. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:25, 18 Decembris 2010 (UTC)