Disputatio:Systema consignationum status civilis

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Lemma

I've used what I've found attested, but it still sounds awfully translated to me; so if anybody finds better, please go ahead... (If it were just me, I would call it lixiarchium (from ληξιαρχείο), but alas nobody seems to ever have used that.) Sigur (disputatio) 23:21, 19 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

The English definition says it's a system of registering, but you're almost defining it as the location in which the registering occurs. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 01:40, 20 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Absolutely. It was supposed to mean "register office" or in German "Standesamt". But the Wikidata items are a mess. I linked to the one which seemed the least bad option (and which gave me most inspiration, hence the "attributio"). I manually linked to German "Standesamt", but if you go to the English from that German page, you get a page on the specifically German institution. There also is a Wikidata item "Vital statistics". And pages in some languages linked to those items concern population registers rather than birth/marriage/death registration. So, you can easily doubt the item I linked to, but I don't think we should be governed by a specifically English definition. Sigur (disputatio) 07:35, 20 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

In colonial New England, one of the first things that the settlers of each new town did collectively was elect one of their number to record vital statistics (births, marriages, deaths) and other public facts (brands, owners & boundaries of lands). By your definition, the "register office" may have been that person's bedroom. It was most certainly not a separate building. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:51, 20 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

Interesting that they would see that as a priority. I don't see a problem in that bedroom being covered. Often, it's a separate building, but not always. Especially in jurisdictions with a wide range of marriage venues on offer, the office itself could be just some rooms of a big office buildings (obviously I wouldn't have put an image of one like that, even if I had one; that would be pretty boring). Sigur (disputatio) 20:07, 20 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

Having a town clerk would have been integral to the polity, essential for the establishment of a town. (Did the legislatures perhaps even require it?) In the towns of New England, the "registry" would never have been a separate building: at first, and in some places for a century or more, the records would have been stored in a trunk or a cabinet in the town clerk's house. Similarly, towns didn't have courthouses; the justice of the peace would have held (and in the case of a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ancestor of someone you know, did hold) trials in his living room. ¶ If you're trying to define the office, rather than the process, why don't you start with tabularium? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 21:16, 20 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

In the lemma? In that case, simply because I haven't found it attested in this context. Or do you mean in the description? "Officium registrationis est tabularium civitatis vel..."? Sounds sensible to me. If you think it's a good idea, try it out and see whether anyone else disagrees (I won't). Sigur (disputatio) 22:39, 20 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

We should not define "officium" in this way without a direct source. Bilingual dictionaries are misleading here, because the people who wrote them took the English word "office" in its older sense, now almost forgotten, of "duty". Officium in Latin just does not mean a place of government business.

Oddly enough, in this case, if we are using the term as lemma for a version of the corresponding English "Civil registration" or the French "Etat civil", that would be fine. The places where this duty is performed, as you're discussing above, and the basis of this current article, can't be the definition of this lemma. You can't say "officium est tabularium". It just isn't. What we can do if we want is use "Officium ..." in our lemma, define it roughly as in the English article "Civil registration", and have a section below about the places where this duty is performed. These we could very well call "Tabularia" as Iacobus says. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:45, 21 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

I would rather move the page, I must say, but I guess that we don't have a sensible alternative lemma at hand, so I will give it a try along the lines of your suggestion. Sigur (disputatio) 11:10, 21 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

BTW, do you agree with registrator? While we are at it, I'd rather go for something like tabellarius civilis now, but I don't have a source to back it up. Sigur (disputatio) 11:53, 21 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

I should think a registrar would be a tabularius, and a town clerk (of the sort we were discussing above) would be a scriba oppidanus. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:37, 21 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

See also sense II in L&S, sub voce "tăbŭlīnum (also contr. tăblīnum), i, n. id.":

I. A balcony, terrace, or other floored place in the open air: (cenitabant) rure in corte, in urbe in tabulino, Varr. ap. Non. 83, 21.—

II. A place where family records were kept, archives (for the usual tabularium), Vitr. 6, 4; 6, 8; Plin. 35, 2, 2, § 7; cf. Fest. p. 356 Müll.; cf. Becker, Gallus, 2, p. 178 sq. —

III. A picture-gallery, App. Flor. p. 364, 14.

Note that the definition speaks of a place, rather than a building. That could be a useful distinction. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 13:45, 21 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

PS: The Registry in Astrakhan looks very much like Morelli's ice cream parlour in Folkestone. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:22, 22 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

Soviet kitsch aesthetics in Kent? I've got to go see that one next time I'll be around... Sigur (disputatio) 13:43, 22 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

ληξίαρχος

Dare I come back with a completely different approach? Having now properly (for Ancien Greek) transcribed η with an e, I did find something interesting: The Greeks have given their registrars the name of an ancient Athenian officer, the ληξίαρχος, who kept a register of all (male) citizens of at least 20 years of age. The Latin form for that is attested as lexiarchus, -i (pag. 271 apud Google Books) (pag. 735 apud Google Books) (Textus apud Google Books). Now, if the Greeks can do it, couldn't we? So that the registrar becomes a lexiarchus and the register office maybe a sedes lexiarchi (which may have been the ληξιαρχία, which I haven't found in Latin, while lexiarchium appears to be the register (book), not the authority). Duly marked with a {{convertimus}}, but it would sound more like a Latin name for the institution than anything we have until now, which really sounds more like a description. Sigur (disputatio) 23:01, 21 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

If the ληξίαρχος was the person "who kept a register of all (male) citizens of at least 20 years of age," his precise & obvious counterpart in the United States is the director of the Selective Service System, the officer who maintains a register of all male citizens at least 18 years of age—so why not let's reserve lexiarchus for the director of that government agency and keep looking for a more general term for "keeper of civil registrations." ¶ Also, what's your suggestion for a Latin term for "civil registration," a topic that'll eventually want to have an article of its own, distinct from "registrar's office" (the topic of the current article), just as the article "bibliotheca" is distinct from the article "bibliothecarius"? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 01:12, 22 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

The ληξίαρχος apparently wasn't so much concerned with conscription, more with stopping slaves or foreigners from voting. And today's Greeks clearly think it's close enough to a registrar to use the word. That being said, if I could share your optimism about finding something better, I would agree, but I have a bit of trouble with that... As to "civil registration", well, I've already used "registratio civilis" in the article (check the Danish article as well). "Civil" in this sense is pretty widespread in a lot of languages, from French "état civil" of course, with corresponding expressions in most Romance languages, in Switzerland a register office would be a "Zivilstandsamt" in German, I already mentioned Danish (where, by the way, it only designates the function, as the Lutheran church registers are used for the whole population, however unbaptised someone might be), Dutch has a litteral translation from French (burgerlijke stand); in Latin one finds "status civilis" often opposed to "status militaris", but also in the sense a register office would use it. So I think "registratio civilis" is pretty okay. Sigur (disputatio) 07:39, 22 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

Is registratio a word? It's absent from Ainsworth's, Cassell's, L&S, and Traupman. Etymologically, English registration reflects regerere 'to bring back', and registrum is a genuine medieval word. For related English words, Traupman has (compiled, not quoted):

register (list) tabulae ; (public records) acta

register [transitive] perscribere ~ in tabulas referre ; [intransitive] nomen dare ~ nomen in tabulas referre

registrar tabularius

registration in tabulas relatio ~ perscriptio

registry tabularium

Cassell's has some of these, adds liber & album for the noun, and says "render by verb" for registration. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:16, 22 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

Oh, so first Andrew shot down "officium" and now you are telling me "registratio" is wrong, too! And I was just trusting people who were supposed to know better than me (not talking about the two of you, you do know better than me). But fair enough, I'll see whether I can find better inspiration... Sigur (disputatio) 15:53, 22 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

OK. What about consignatio? That sounds to me like what these entries in the registers are. Civil registration could become munus consignationis/consignationum statūs civilis. A bit long, but at least with a chance of being understood without reading the article first. The register could be tabulae/tabularium statūs civilis then. Now, for the registrar and their office, you might think of tabularius, but that's a different matter, I think:

The thing with the Standesbeamter and their colleagues in at least any country having compulsory civil marriage (compulsory meaning that if you haven't married at the register office, for the law you aren't married at all) is that people who hear that word first think... ♥♥♥marriage♥♥♥marriage♥♥♥marriage♥♥♥! It's not for nothing that the page de:Standesbeamter is linked to en:Marriage officiant. Of course, if you ask specifically, then people will remember that they also register births and deaths, but the first thing that pops up is that they conduct marriage ceremonies. That's what I kind of like about my "lexiarchus": Of course, unless you know Greek, it is not going to tell you anything (it didn't tell me anything until I did the research), but at the very least you don't have the mental image of a dull clerk in a dusty office writing entry after entry into a big book (which in any case is my association with "tabularius"). But of course, if anyone finds a word that gets the mental association right AND is easily understandable AND is attested in Latin, I'm going to be the first one to cheer ☺... Sigur (disputatio) 20:02, 22 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)

Motus &c.

At this stage, I think we need to first of all eliminate "registratio" as we now know that it is not proper Latin. It now also seems easier to me to go for a lemma that is closer to the English one it is linked to (system instead of office), because there we can afford a more "descriptive" title/lemma. We thus can avoid a title for the office or officer. Until we have found the perfect translation for this, it may be preferable to rather give the reader some food for inspiration in the text (as I've now tried to do in the article). Pending perfection, just let them choose themself. Sigur (disputatio) 20:13, 24 Ianuarii 2020 (UTC)