Disputatio:Sisith

Sisith fuit pagina mensis Ianuarii 2013.

I've been working on this article offline since September 29th, so please be kind ;) Of course, as often happens when you're working on something that long, I have grown so used to it as to be a bit blind, therefore I need your help making sure the whole thing hangs together: do I mention some facts more than once? Do I assume knowledge in an early part that I don't present until a later part? And so on. I'm also waiting to hear back from some Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends for sources on the use of fringes in church vestments, and their putative connection to tsitsit (whether it's truly historical, or imagined, it's still relevant here). --Iustinus (disputatio) 18:33, 5 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Wow! (don't know if that helps ...) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:44, 5 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

It certainly couldn't hurt, especially coming from the likes of you ;) --Iustinus (disputatio) 18:51, 5 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Hahahahae, I just noticed that this is currently the 35th longest article on the wiki. Not bad! --Iustinus (disputatio) 19:00, 5 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Where's the gadget that tells us this kind of information? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 19:57, 6 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Specialis:Paginae longae. Now up to 28th! Of course since I'm just adding loci Latini that's kinda cheating. --Iustinus (disputatio) 20:03, 6 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

It's up to 23rd now. ¶ Fourth on that list is Castalia, at 125,553 octeti; however, the text of that article has extensive blanked-out sections. Since no work on them has occurred in more than fourteen months, let's delete them and see what happens. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 22:15, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

The deletion is done, Castalia now has 9167 octeti, and Sisith has moved up to 22nd. ;) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 22:29, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Wow, taking out competitors for me? Thanks, Iacobe ;) --Iustinus (disputatio) 00:41, 9 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Well, that, and it's usually good for code to be as lean as possible. ;) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:25, 9 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

This exercise has revealed an instructive infelicity: the program counts hidden text in its totals. Could someone teach it to ignore matter marked <!-- -->, the way the program presumably behind the summarium of the thousand pages does? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:25, 9 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

A well-known flaw in the system. I don't think there's anything we can do here to fix it, but you might want to take it up with MediaWiki. There is of course a small amount of blanked-out text in this article too; I suppose I should delete the one at the beginning of the Mulieres section, which contains a reference and my first attempt at translating a quote (of which I only used part in the actually posted draft), but all the others should stay I think. --Iustinus (disputatio) 16:54, 9 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

BTW, with resect to my question about fringes in Christianity, my Eastern Orthodox source has nothing, but one Catholic source says he has some Latin books discussing the question at his parents' house... unfortunately since his parents can't read Latin it may be a while till I get that information. --Iustinus (disputatio) 16:54, 9 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Locatives

Iacobe, I notice you Latinized the placenames in the bibliography. This is generally a good thing, since I wasn't consistent about it. I am a bit uneasy, though, about "Terrae Mariae" and "Georgiae." I hope you meant those to be genitives and not locatives? --Iustinus (disputatio) 19:48, 6 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I guess you weren't entirely consistent either: several place names are still in the vernacular.--Iustinus (disputatio) 19:50, 6 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Yes, no time to be thorough. Those are genitives, modeled on Andrew's "Bethlehem of Judaea"; the cities should be locatives. (We've received contradictory advice on the locative of Franciscopolis : -e against -i.) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 19:57, 6 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

OK, as you probably know I usually use the Romae in Italia construction, but I can't really argue with Romae Italiae. And I'm not sure what you mean about contradictory advice: third declension city names can have their locative either in -e or -i, both are correct. Personally I would avoid using -e in -polis names, but I don't believe it to be wrong per se. --Iustinus (disputatio) 20:01, 6 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

I merely mention (since I see my name above) that, firmly believing in liberum arbitrium and elegant variation, where locative + genitive would result in two consecutive -aes or -is not in agreement with one another, I go the other way. Hence, in the hypothetical case mentioned by Iustinus, I would personally prefer "Romae in Italia"; and then, since I expect my reader to know where Rome is, I'd delete the "in Italia" :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:58, 6 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I notice you also changed Ierusalem to Hierosolymis... this is perfectly OK, but again, I just wanted to make sure you weren't thinking it was mandatory: bothe Ierusalem and Hierosolyma occur, but the former is the form usedin the Vulgate. --Iustinus (disputatio) 19:50, 6 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

ציצית singulare

Somehow I feel everything isn't grammatically OK here: "sisith quae textu Hebraicus reperitur, ציצת, singulare est". Or am I just having a bad day? Neander (disputatio) 21:29, 7 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

I do see a problem: I used the feminine quae, but the neuter singulare. Even if we accept my use of the feminine with sisith in general (which, as I mention in footnote 2 is in itself iffy), arguably it should be treated as neuter here, because we're talking about the word and not the thing. Perhaps sisith illud quod textu Hebraicus reperitur, ציצת, singulare est (as illud or hoc are sometimes used to distinguish a word from the thing it represents), or perhaps even better verbum sisith quod textu Hebraicus reperitur, ציצת, singulare est.

Does that answer your question, or do you see something I missed?

--Iustinus (disputatio) 22:00, 7 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

D'oh, mssed the obvious one: Hebraicus needs to be Hebraico! --Iustinus (disputatio) 22:44, 7 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Good, but wouldn't it be clearer to have "in textu Hebraico"? As to the alleged gender conflict, "quod" would indeed be prefereble to "quae", for the stated reason, and thus, "verbum sisith quod in textu Hebraico reperitur" is OK with me. Let me point out, though, that sisith becomes a word (and arguably neutrum) by dint of italicisation (which is a means of hypostatisation). Or maybe this is too akademisch? ¶ BTW, with your consent, I'd like to change "ornamenta in vestitu sacro Iudaeorum" (which isn't incorrect), in the intro, into "ornamenta vestitus sacri Iudaeorum"; generally, Latin seems to prefer genitive attributes to prepositional attributes. Neander (disputatio) 23:58, 7 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --Iustinus (disputatio) 00:18, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Now that I think of it, ornamenta probably isn't the mot juste anyway, since from a religious standpoint the tallit is more a decoration for the tzitzit than vice versa. Not sure what else I should call them though. --Iustinus (disputatio) 00:32, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

&c.

In tam indigines quam peregrini, is that supposed to be tam indigenae quam peregrini? I'm finding indigens, -entis 'a needy person' and indiges, -getis 'native, indigenous' in Cassell's, but nothing like indigo, -inis. Merriam-Webster's etymology of English 'indigenous' has Late Latin indigenus, which might give us indigeni here. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 01:56, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Yes. --Iustinus (disputatio) 02:28, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

I've changed lex Iudaicus to lex Iudaica, not least because we ought to have an article on Halakha. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 02:02, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 02:02, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

An Israeli classicist and I had a bit of a discussion on how to say halakhah in Latin. It's kind of a pain. Lex is normally used for Torah—the equation is pretty strong, and of course to this day many English bibles render it "The Law." In the general sense, the whole body of halakhah, iurisprudentia seems to be the best word. But I needed it for that Targum Pseudo-Jonathan quote in the last footnote, where it meant something more specific. He eventually convinced me that ritus was the right word there.

That said, I did write lex iudaica (gender errors aside), and "Jewish law" is a common collocation in English. I'm really not sure what to do about that, other than capitalize it when it means Torah.

--Iustinus (disputatio) 02:28, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Pretty funny that I used the deprecated spelling extinctus given the long section on dye ;) --Iustinus (disputatio) 04:12, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

You'd evidently been thinking of the fact that they'd all dyed out. ;) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:37, 25 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

*GEMITVS* (Sed macte virtute) --Iustinus (disputatio) 16:17, 25 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

On glosses

The section "De vocabulo" contains glosses, of which some are in single quotes, some in double quotes. I leave it to you to decide whether a meaningful difference is involved. But I'm asking myself whether glosses should be declinable or not. The ancients may have tended to answer in the affirmative. Therefore, let me rephrase: whether or not glosses in single / double quotes (obviously a device not wielded by the ancients) are exempt from being inflected like ordinary parts of speech. Personally, I tend to answer in the affirmative, but that may not be persuasive enough. Be this as it may, instead of " sensus verbi dicitur nihil esse nisi יוצא "exeuntem," et ענף "frondem, comam." " I'd say "sensus verbi dicitur nihil esse nisi יוצא 'exiens', et ענף 'frons, coma'." the reason being that it's the question of a nominativus cum accusativo construction. Furthermore, instead of "quod ipsum a radice נצץ nṣṣ 'efflorendo', sive latius 'effulgendo, enitendo' deduci" I'd prefer "quod ipsum ab efflorendi, sive latius effulgendi enitendive radice נצץ nṣṣ deductum est" (efflorendi etc are supposed to be epexegetic genitives). Neander (disputatio) 20:56, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

OK, I guess you are right, since the verb is passive those words should be in the nominative. And I guess it's OK in this case that you've made my phonemic transcriptions into phonetic ones, since we're on fairly good ground here, and I was careful to mark my Roman-era pronunciation as fere. --Iustinus (disputatio) 16:48, 9 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Oy, the problem is that in the nominative you can't distinguish frondem from frontem! --Iustinus (disputatio) 14:52, 24 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

True enough. If you feel that this is an intolerable ambiguity, you have either to change the grammatical construction of the sentence, or to use the synonymous folium. Neander (disputatio) 19:20, 24 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Nexum ad folium addidi. Neander (disputatio) 13:48, 25 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately I intended the broader senses of the word, "branch," "foliage" etc. So I changed it to ramus, frondes... to make it clear. --Iustinus (disputatio) 16:17, 25 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

OK, fine! Neander (disputatio) 16:28, 25 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that the ancients generally did decline glosses. If a gloss needed for whatever reason to be made indeclinable, they'd add a neuter demonstrative before it, which, like the article does in Greek, would mark the case. When deriving things from verbs the Romans normally just did a+gerund, as in the famous lucus a non lucendo, but your phrasing of the sentence does work, due to my inclusion of the word radix, and it might be more clear (anyone else want to comment?)

As for quotation marks, I was trying to follow IacobusAmor's rule that the gloss goes in single quotes, but obviously I wasn't consistent.

--Iustinus (disputatio) 21:03, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

It's not my rule, but the custom in linguistics (over here at least), saving double quotes for actual quotations and, in the hands of those who can't resist, the occasional deployment of "scare quotes." The curious thing (in Civitatibus Foederatis) is where any associated punctuation goes: to the right of a closing single quote marking a gloss, but to the left of a closing single quote that itself is to the immediate left of a closing double quote. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 22:06, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's "yours" inasmuch as I learned it from you (and haven't seen it elsewhere that I've noticed), and inasmuch as you are the one who enforces it here ;) As for where to put the punctuation, I'm impressed, because that makes a hell of a lot more sense than the usual proof-reading rules I hear! --Iustinus (disputatio) 00:41, 9 Decembris 2012 (UTC)

Pagina Mensis

Well, it's made Pagina Mensis, and this hopefully means lots of revision. I will comment here if I have comments, questions, or objections to changes made by others. Iacobe, you will be shocked to hear that I have some with your latest batch ;)

• "pro ornamentis":

This is beautiful Latin, and sounds very Biblical, but I'm worried that it removes my hedging. See my comment of 00:32, 8 Decembris 2012 (UTC), above: I put that quasi in for a reason. --Iustinus (disputatio) 14:45, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

pro re esse = to serve as/for. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:10, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't know that tzitzit "serve as" decorations. As I said above, religiously they are the whole point of the tallit, not decorations thereto. Not knowing how else to describe them, I went with "quasi ornamenta." It's an awkward hedge, to be sure, but I'm not sure using pro ornamentis really addresses my concern. (BTW, I thought that construction was in the Latin to Numbers 15:39, translating "וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְצִיצִת" ... but I was wrong, and in fact Jerome ignores that phrase entirely!)

ornamenta haberi possunt? Or make it a verb: (ex)ornant, decorant? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:05, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Don't think the former really works. The latter... mmmaybe. --Iustinus (disputatio) 16:22, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

The religious contribution of the tzitzit and the tallit to each other, respectively, looks interesting. I first thought that this looks like being a religious Necker effect, the tallit being the ground and the tzitzit, the figure, or vice versa, depending on the context (or whatever). But when you say "religiously <the tzitzit> are the whole point of the tallit, not decorations thereto," I'm wondering whether you're trying to say that the tzitzit and the tallit form an emergent whole (holon) that, in religious experience, is qualitatively more than the parts. At least this is what I'm reading from your words. Does "the whole point of the tallit" imply that, without the tzitzit, the tallit wouldn't be "the" tallit but something more everydayish? Well, the purpose of my musings is that somehow the hedging should indeed be removed, at least partially, so as not to give a misleading linguistic characterisation. ¶ As far as grammar goes, pro ornamentis sounds good, if the meaning is supposed to be 'instead of ornaments', or if the tzitzit are supposed to 'pass for ornaments'. But if they are "ornaments, so to say" you might consider using ornamenta quaedam. But maybe it'd be better to have a bit longer characterisation? Neander (disputatio) 20:22, 2 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm allergic to Theory, so I'm not sure I fully understand. But what I'm saying is that the commandment is to wear tzitzit, and the whole point of the tallit is to have something on which to put tzitzit. As I explain at Sisith#Tallith, the prayer shawl was essentially invented because Jews had ceased to wear pallia, so there was no longer any opportunity to wear tzitzit. Thus, the tzitzit is not there to decorate the tallit, the tallit is there to bear the tzitzit. I suppose something like "tamquam/quasi/velut ornamenta" or "ornamentorum instar" might work—they *look* like decorations to the casual observer. Or we could rephrase this entirely... I just need something to call them in the basic definition... fila plectilia nodataque? (I think we shoudl restore the "sunt" as well at this point.) --Iustinus (disputatio) 21:28, 2 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I read the article too perfunctorily, and therefore my understanding of the matter wasn't too solid. Let's see if I now have a better grasp: the tzitzit looks like an ornament but has greater religious significance than the tallit which makes a "substrate" for the tzitzit. (Please, don't mind my "Theory"-ladden parlance.) Given this, it seems to me that tzitzit shouldn't be called or conceptualised as 'ornament' at all. (Or is this too strict?) After all, it's the religious function that counts, not how the tzitzit looks like to a casual observer. But if the religious function of the tzitzit isn't that of an ornament, then what is it? I suggest that you first think up an adequate way to express this in English. Then it might be easier to put it in Latin. Neander (disputatio) 05:01, 3 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Yes, precisely. I'm thinking the fila description I give abovr, or one like it, is the way to go. Iacobe, I hope you won't mind if I change this back to a "Sisith ... sunt ... qui ... pendent" construction. --Iustinus (disputatio) 05:26, 3 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

OK, I tried rephrasing it. What do you think of it now? Part of what screwed me up before is that classical Latin doesn't really seem to have a word that unambiguously means "tassel," as opposed to the more general "fringe"—if tassel is even the mot juste in English. Notice of course the vulgate's use of funiculi... but I suspect that would just confuse people even more. --Iustinus (disputatio) 05:46, 6 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

• "Palaestinam Syriamque":

As is so often the case in Wikipedia, I'm not sure that linking to the modern country of the same name is wisest. Given this Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is doubly the case for Palaestina. Could we at least make pages to distinguish the ancient regions/Roman provinces (and possibly modern regions) of Palaestina and Syria from the Palestinian Territories/State of Palestine and the Syrian Arab Republic? Israel is, after all, a very carefully worded disambiguation page! --Iustinus (disputatio) 14:45, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it should link to something, but what? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:10, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm suggesting we need new articles to resolve this. Perhaps on analogy to Israel, Palaestina and Syria should be disambiguation pages, and the modern states could be listed under their full names? I originally put the country of Israel under Israel (civitas) with its official name, מדינת ישראל, literally Civitas Israelis in mind, and that works well for "State of Palestine" as well. "Syrian Arab Republic" may not be quite as rearrangeable though. (The same issue comes up elsewhere, of course. I recall discussing this for Aethiopia, for instance.)

• "ad Regem Salmanassar III portandum exhibentur":

Surely this means "they are shown for the purpose of carying King Shalmaneser III"?? Why did you use a gerundive here? --Iustinus (disputatio) 14:45, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

That's what it seemed to say. Presumably misunderstood. Not enough coffee? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:10, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

It originally said "tributum ad Salmanassar III regem portantes exhibentur," by which I meant 'they are shown carying tribute to King Shalmaneser III.' I trust you won't mind me reverting that. --Iustinus (disputatio) 15:34, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Of course, and portare is probably OK, but Cassell's shows the verbs that usually go with tributum to be conferre, facere, pendere. Is a prepositional phrase with ad best? or should the king be in the dative? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:05, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

I Like "ad ... portantes" simply because of the motion implied by the image: frozen in time they are perpetually bringing their tribute to(wards) the king. I'm not opposed to changing the phrasing, especially if we find other collocations preferable, but we should probably look a little farther than Cassell's first imho. --Iustinus (disputatio) 16:22, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Portare x ad y, when x is a financial contribution and y is an office-holder, seems OK according to Cicero Ad Fam. 12.3.2. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:01, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

(Less importantly: rex usually goes after the name... but this is certainly not an inviolable rule.) --Iustinus (disputatio) 14:45, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

• "Paene omnes fontes scripti qui nobis restant ex memoria traditione Rabbinica sunt":

I don't understand this change at all. First of all, when I saw "sunt" was moved to the end, I thought "Iacobus isn't going to like this!" Then I realized the change was yours! What gives? Second of all, did you mean to replace "traditione" with "memoria," rather than using both? --Iustinus (disputatio) 14:45, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Typo; fixed. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:10, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

• "credant Sindonem Taurinensem non solum verum esse...":

authenticum may not be Classical Latin, but I'm not sure verum is the mot juste either. L&S does list "genuine" as a meaning, but I'm not finding a good example of this meaning. Could we go with genuinum, which, in this sense, is not classical either, but at least antique enough to make the L&S? --Iustinus (disputatio) 14:45, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Cassell's: "authentic, certus, verus." IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:10, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

If you don't like genuinum I suppose we could compromise further by using certus or verus with some sort of noun to make things clearer: "a true miracle/artefact/garment of Jesus" or whatever? Using the bare adjective strikes me like saying "... think the Shroud of Turin is real" or the like. Yes, if you dropped that in conversation you would be understood, but it's not specific enough for formal writing. --Iustinus (disputatio) 15:34, 1 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

I replaced the ambiguous verum by genuinum. If we let Cassell's constrain our lexical options, we'll get jejune Latinity. Words won't hurt, not even authenticus, well attested in Digesti Iustiniani. It's far more important to mind the grammar and idioms. Neander (disputatio) 23:02, 6 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

"do we seriously need a link to nihil??"

Vicipaedia needs, and to keep up with technology-driven culture change will eventually have, a link to every word. Even for people who have a strong desire to understand the texts, the language will be foreign—and people generally, and young people especially, have no patience, certainly not enough to go to a querybox (whose existence & location may not be obvious to them) and type letters into it. A study recently came out showing that when people go to a website, if the site doesn't start painting itself to their screen within one-fourth of a second, they start to leave. Bear that in mind: one-fourth of a second. To keep the largest number of readers reading, that's all the time we've got. ¶ If the brightness of the blue is too jarring, Vicipaedia could do what the English Wikipedia seems to have done: add a touch of black, darkening the blue a little, thereby making it stand out less vividly. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 14:32, 6 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

I generally follow the philosophy that a word should be linked only if it contains relevant information. You tend to link many, many more words than I would (and of course when I originally posted sisith it did not even have every word linked that *I* would consider worth while), but generally when you add links to "my" articles, I defer to your judgement.... However nihil in this case strikes me as a pretty clear case of overlinking. The sentence is "sensus verbi dicitur nihil esse nisi יוצא 'exiens'... (etc.)" 'the meaning of the word is said to be nothing but 'that which comes out....' This is not a sentence about nothing, this is simply the idiom nihil nisi.... Linking to nihil would make a good deal more sense if the sentence meant 'the meaning of the word is said to be "nothing"' ... which it doesn't. Furthermore, nihil is currently a redirect to cifra, which is even farther off.

Now, if I understand your argument correctly, part of your point is that because Latin is nobody's native language, we need to cast a wider net than the modern languages do — en: says not to link "everyday English words that are expected to be understood in the general context," but words that are everyday Latin are much more likely not to be known by our readers. Fair enough, but if the reader doesn't understand the word nihil, then they probably don't have enough Latin to understand this article in the first place, and linking to an article about nothingness (much less an article about zero) is not going to help them at this point.

--Iustinus (disputatio) 15:36, 6 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with Iacobus on this. If I am seriously editing a page I consider over-linked, one of the things I normally do is to remove excessive links in accord with the English wikipedia guideline. (I make an exception, for the time being, for pages in the 1000 list, because links make those pages longer. Play the game.)

Even if Iacobus is right, on some logic opaque to me, that one day every word will be linked, well, on that day a bot can link them all. Till that awful day comes we can do better for our readers by distinguishing useful links from useless ones -- i.e. by not creating the latter. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:03, 6 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Every link is potentially useful to somebody. What fun those bots are going to have, deducing that vescuntur should link to victus, papilio to lepidoptera, and astronomus Aegyptius to astronomia Islamica (or not)! And what fun they'll have, deciding whether to send compertum habuerunt to scientia (declarativa) or scientia (ratio)! IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:51, 7 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

But, Iacobe, you are only bolstering my original complaint: surely linking "nihil esse nisi" to nihil, which redirects to 0, is precisely the sort of mistake you are arguing against here? --Iustinus (disputatio) 18:27, 7 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

A link on Nihil will take the reader to the article that's equivalent to Wikipedia's Nothing, not to the article on 0, a special (mathematical) instance of the concept. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 19:59, 7 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

The link from Nihil, created by IacobusAmor in June 2012, takes the reader to 0. I can find no link to nihil in the present article. I suggest closing this pointless discussion. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:57, 7 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Historia

Neander just changed per historiam to post humanam memoriam, rightly saying that historia is not the mot juste here. Perhaps per tempus or per aevos would be even better? --Iustinus (disputatio) 22:38, 6 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Per tempus means 'at the right time; in time', whereas per aevum, 'eternally', I think. Post humanam memoriam is a well-attested idiom, but maybe there's a better expression to be found. Good luck! :-) Neander (disputatio) 23:21, 6 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure the meanings you give are absolute, but for want of attestation I concede. My problem with post humanam memoriam is that ... well it's more suited to contexts like "Imhotep is the first medical doctor known to history" or "Never in history has such a silly sentence been writtten!" I mean something more like "From the founding of their religion, and still to this day," or "across the ages." Hmm, souldn't be a problem with per annos should there? Anyone have anything better? --Iustinus (disputatio) 23:45, 6 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

OK, I see. Waiting for reactions by others, I'm asking myself: what about using the "ab urbe condita" construction (in which "and still to this day" is sort of implied, I believe)? Neander (disputatio) 09:48, 7 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

That's a good idea, or possibly even just ab initio. But now that I think of it I don't want to sound too confident about the earliest Christians, about which we don't have much evidence. --Iustinus (disputatio) 15:46, 7 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Oddly enough, in reading I encountered "ab religione condita" yesterday. The phrase can be googled. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:49, 8 Ianuarii 2013 (UTC)

Hyacinthus in the news

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/elusive-biblical-blue-found-140102.htm --Iustinus (disputatio) 15:19, 6 Ianuarii 2014 (UTC)