Quantum redactiones paginae "Vicipaedia:Taberna/Tabularium 12" differant

 

== Dicio, natio, civitas, status ==

I'm sure this has been well discussed before, but which is the best general word for 'state' or 'country'? "Civitas" seems to have been adopted here, but the problem is that it is a very ambiguous word in Latin. In Classical Latin it means "citizenship" or "Commonwealth", but from about Tacitus onwards, and certainly in the vast corpus of mediaeval Latin, "civitas" is exactly synonymous with "urbs". Thus talking of the UK being a "civitas" or the USA being a federation of "civitates" does at first look, well, rather quaint. Modern RC textbooks seem to use the term 'dicio' to refer to the political entity of the state, although "status" (which the Classical enthusiasts will insist only means "standing") is not unknown either. The Vatican City State is known as "Status Civitatis Vaticanae", after all. Latin must be the only wikipaedia where a vocal contingent of users is so insistent on archaic terms in preference to more recent ones.[[Usor:Tergum violinae|Tergum violinae]] 22:12, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

:[[Civitas]] in its primary sense is any political community with its own law and government, i.e. "the citizenship" as in a group of citizens. Only secondarily does it mean citizenship, as in "having citizenship", despite the fact that many dictionaries say so. Citizenship primarily (unabmiguously) is translated as "status civitatis" ="state of participating in a civitas"(see [http://books.google.com/books?id=iklePELtR6QC&pg=PA715&lpg=PA715&dq=status+civitatis&source=bl&ots=OgXTGCtR7l&sig=jbiK6kAmIxxVmhk5tkJrCNxiCzU&hl=en&ei=O-yJSqLyHZOuMI-Z_OkE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=status%20civitatis&f=false]).

:The ambiguity/conceptual clash between civitas and the idea modern state comes about because, in the Roman tradition, civitas does not automatically have exclusive juridiction or exclusive imperium '''over a country/juridiction (pagus/regio/districtus/etc.)'''. This is a modern innovation, which early on (e.g. Hobbes) was subsummed under the term res publica, even though this term also means a type of rectio (government).

:Then, after Machiavelli introduced the term stato (italian) to political discourse, some people started using the term "status" as a separate term (or "status rei" or "status rei publicae"), to mean a State in the modern sense: an independent country with an army, government and administration. This separated the two senses of res publica. In otherwords, res publica, regnum, etc... were all considered species of status. This development however, came at the end of latin as an widespread language of international discourse, and so there are not many examples. In fact many people at the time did not follow this usage.(For another take on this see [http://books.google.com/books?id=4AE8ur83g8AC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=status+rei+civitas&source=bl&ots=8962tfDwa2&sig=rtpsj_CUe6Yuyf-HOpTr4zXRJQs&hl=en&ei=rrOISur8EpDCNeaikNwL&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=status%20rei%20civitas&f=false])

:Today, Latin writing people do not like using the term status in this sense, and rather translate state as res publica or as civitas according to the sense required. I think this is in large part out of a desire to avoid using non classical latin terms; in part out of the fact that using status as a synonym for state itself introduces new ambiguities, since then status rei publicae becomes non sensical. Rather than introduce an ambituity in status, modern latinists prefer the ambiguity in res publica or civitas. For example, the name "Status Civitatis Vaticanae" = "the Vatican Citizenship" or "Organization of the Vatican State", depending on which sense is taken.-[[Usor:Rafaelgarcia|Rafaelgarcia]] 23:13, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

:::True ''status civitatis'' is not totally unambiguous. Here the ''status'' referred to is not of an individual person, but of 'the citizenship' as a whole.--[[Usor:Rafaelgarcia|Rafaelgarcia]] 00:09, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

:In sum, I don't think there is a consensus amongst latinists about what should be done about this issue.--[[Usor:Rafaelgarcia|Rafaelgarcia]] 23:13, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

::Which is why I suggested, a couple of years ago (it seems), that there be at least two Latin wikis: a Classical one and one that accepts the grammatical & lexical & phonetic changes that happened later. [[Usor:IacobusAmor|IacobusAmor]] 23:57, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

:::I assume you are being humorous? Classical or Roman wikipedia which you want would only be an encyclopedia of the Classical age. Great to find out about togas and chariots and stuff, but precious little use for anything else. Dr Bradley's statement that the whole of latinity can be found in the works of Cicero, Caesar and Livy, as well as being a lot of nonsens, is very representative of a Victorian, Anglosaxon Protestant view of history - noble virtuous Romans , benighted superstitious Mediaevals. It is remarkable, but very telling, that the Latin dictionaries of that period never cite the greatest Latinist of all time (in volume, at least, even if you dispute his greatness otherwise), Augustine. He of course put forward the radical view in De Civitate Dei that Classical civilisation was a heap of ordure, and that the Romans in their history had been more barbarian than those they liked to call barbarian. Latin outside the Anglosaxon world has fortunately been rather more catholic, in every sense of the word - so that the enthusiasm of our American contributors for archaic Latin to them may look rather bemusing.[[Specialis:Conlationes/82.36.94.228|82.36.94.228]] 07:16, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

::::We have not addressed the main issue which is that most often in Latin, civitas means a city, not a state.[[Specialis:Conlationes/82.36.94.228|82.36.94.228]] 07:17, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

:::::Well, then, going back to your comment at the start, I think you are exaggerating the extent to which "civitas" means "city" in classical -- even late classical -- Latin. Looking at ''[[Oxford Latin Dictionary]]'', which ought to be a very good source for Latin up to 200 AD, "Civitas=city" (sense 3b) is first recorded from Seneca, is not noted at all from Tacitus, and has the fewest citations overall. The largest number of citations are for senses 1 "an organized community, esp. that in which one lives or to which one belongs as a citizen, a state", and 4 "the rights of a citizen, citizenship ...". I believe it's true that this changed later, but most of us don't have such ready access to the dictionaries that would demonstrate it ...