Vicipaedia:Taberna/Tabularium 12

30,000

Admodum difficile est numerare, sed credo no. 30,000 Prigg v. Pennsylvania‎ fuisse ...! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:29, 31 Iulii 2009 (UTC)

Hurray!--Rafaelgarcia 14:23, 2 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Operation Market Garden

Avete! I would like to write a page about the Operation Market Garden (Sept. 1944) but I need a bit of help. First, I have some doubts about the title for I don't know how I can translate "Operation" to Latin. Then, I was not able to find a Latin word in Vicipaedia standing for "paratrooper". One last thing: I was wondering if you could tell me a Latin translation standing for "Airborne Division". Thank you. Alexander Gelsumis 12:08, 2 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

operation = operatio

paratrooper = miles deciduus (sec LRL)

airborne divisio = divisio aërea--Rafaelgarcia 14:27, 2 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Vel 'operation' = expeditio (a term that recently came up in discussion somewhere else). Vide etiam Cassell's: "in war, to draw up a plan of [operation]s, rei gerendae ordinem componere, totius belli rationem describere. For 'operation', the first of these phrases might give us res gerenda, or maybe merely res, a useful catch-all. IacobusAmor 14:36, 2 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I think by an operation here is meant a smaller, limited series of actions that prepared the way for an expeditio (campaign or expedition); specifically it was an airborne assault to secure some key bridges.--24.183.186.151 17:17, 2 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

In that case, maybe incursio or incursus would fit. IacobusAmor 19:41, 2 Augusti 2009 (UTC).

I could be wrong, but I think the latin term means when the soldiers "run in" at the enemy; and the second meaning "incusion" (like in english) means a temporary running in (and out) to accomplish some limited goal. Neither quite describe this even which was more of a coordinated "dropping in" or a "delapsus". I don't think we should worry about using a vague "operatio" since the military context will of the term is pretty clear.--Rafaelgarcia 21:30, 2 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Incursio and incursus look OK for English 'raid'. IacobusAmor 15:36, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thank you all for helping me. The title of the page will be Operatio Market Garden. Si novas et alias rationes habetis, spero vos scripturos. Avete et salvete.--Alexander Gelsumis 17:45, 2 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

A military plan is a ratio, as in rationem totius belli describere (to establish the whole war plan). In a more "doing" fashion (as opposed to the simple planning), it would be res gerendae (operations to do) or res gestae (operations already done). The division resembles the Roman manipulum, so "Airborne Division" could be "Manipulus aerius". <vi3x> 21:10, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Translatio

Salvete! Potestisne, quaeso, me adiuvare ad latinandum hunc textum?

Anglice: During the first years of the Viceroyalty, the art was exclusively for religious, and its usage was mainly for the purpose of evangelization. The city of Lima had a main role in the development of the colonial art. The fast urban growth, the encomenderos' accumulation of wealth and the construction of both temples and churches were the causes for the request for paintings and sculptures from the main Spanish cities. The artworks preferred were those form Flanders and Italy, although those from Seville and Andalusia were also requested.

Propositio mea (SED lingua mea materna non est Anglica; tamen spero omnia recte comprehendisse; neque rem ipsam quidem scio, modo temptavi textum Latinum reddere): Per primos annos vicis regnorum ars ista tantum sacris attigit et imprimis usa est, ut homines reddantur Christiani. Urbs Lima maximi momenti fuit maturitati artis colonicae. Causae, cur picturae sculpturaeque urbanae Hispanicae quaesitae sint, et celere incrementum urbis et encomenderos et auctus divitiarum et aedificatio templorum ac ecclesiarum fuerunt. articficia fauta fuerunt Flanderica vel Italica, quamquam Sevillica Baeticaque nihilominus postulata sunt. (15 Augusti 2009, 01:15 CET)

Vero gratias multas tibi ago!!--Le K@l!^nuntia? 16:45, 16 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Hispanice: El arte durante los primeros años virreinales fue exclusividad de los religiosos y su uso tuvo un fin práctico principalmente en el adoctrinamiento. La ciudad de Lima jugó un rol preponderante en el desarrollo del arte en el virreinato del Perú. Su rápido crecimiento urbano, la acumulación de riqueza por parte de los encomenderos y la construcción de templos e iglesias fueron motivos para la demanda de pinturas y esculturas de las principales ciudades de los reinos españoles. Especial preferencia se tuvo por las obras provenientes de Flandes e Italia, aunque las obras sevillanas y andaluzas tuvieron igualmente gran demanda.

Gratias vobis prius ago!!--Le K@l!^nuntia? 04:43, 4 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Photograph

De: "photographus=photographer; photographema = photograph)"—Yet the quaerere box shows that the commonest Latin term for 'photograph' is photographia. For example:

Laurence Olivier, 1939, photographia a Carolo van Vechten capta.

Haec photographia est facta cum pellicula primumHaec photographia est facta cum pellicula primum

Photographia ab aeroplano U-2 speculatorio anno 1962 capta

Viator 1 . . . planetae Jovis hanc photographiam 24º die Januarii amplius 40 miliones chilometrorum distans cepit.

Saturni anuli, secundum Cassinio-Hugeniae photographiam anno 2007

Numerosa telescopia planetae collineata, seu professionalia seu studiosa, photographias ceperunt

Do lexica Neo-Latina disagree about this? And if telegraphare produces telegramma, why wouldn't photographare produce photogramma? IacobusAmor 11:53, 4 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

The latinity of many of our pages, especially our astronomy pages, leave a lot to be desired. The lexica neolatina give photographia = photography or photographic artwork; photographus=photographer, photographema = photograph (as in snap shot or picture photograph). So unless one is talking about photo-like painting, or snazzy artistic photography (see en:Fine art photography) one should say photographema.--Rafaelgarcia 14:57, 4 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Then someone should fix the (two dozen or so?) articles in which photographia means 'a photograph'; so far, only five articles have photographema. IacobusAmor 13:54, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Photographema cannot be. The class of nouns ending '-ma, -matos' in Greek, representing the result of effect of the action of the verb, fit this ending directly onto the present stem. 'Grapho' is a consonant stem verb, so the noun created is graphma, which becomes, by assimilation, gramma, as Professor Love has noted. An 'e' stem verb such as phoneo produces the noun 'phonema'. There is however, no verb 'grapheo' as far as I know. We ought therefore to be talking about a 'photogramma'.82.36.94.228 20:31, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Indeed it is an interesting philological question. I don't know the answer, but of one thing is no doubt, the attestation that photographema=photograph. Aside from several lexica, I just found one original source from 1887 here with hardly any trouble.

Apparently sometimes graphema can occur see es:grafema is spanish for en:grapheme--Rafaelgarcia 20:52, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Googling turns up many hundreds of attestations of photogramma and photogrammata, including a pertinent one here: Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca. IacobusAmor 21:49, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Good find! --Neander 22:03, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Grapheme, morpheme, toneme, even behavioreme, has been formed on the analogy of phoneme in the heydays of linguistic structuralism. Usor 82.36.94.228 has a point, but the point is somewhat weakened by the fact that analogy tends to play an important role in word-formation (not just sound laws). On the other hand, I can't say I'm fond of "photographema", either ... --Neander 21:33, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

And [the discipline of] choreology has given us kineme. :) IacobusAmor 21:49, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Ah no. Kineo and morpheo are 'e' stem verbs in Greek so kinema and morphema are the regular developments. Kineme is, of course, a philological doublet of cinema. The rubicund professor Dawkins, has, as is well known, coined the term "meme", but even he has acknowledged that philologically it should really be 'mimeme'. 82.36.94.228 15:00, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes! As used in anthropology, choreology, and ethnomusicology, according to a noted (ahem) encyclopedia, a kineme is 'the minimal unit of movement recognized as contrastive by people of a given dance tradition'. It's meant to be an analog of phoneme 'the minimal unit of distinctive linguistic sound'. IacobusAmor 16:31, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is an analogue in that it is the same sort of verbal noun as phoneme - and quite regularly formed since kineo and phoneo belong to the same Gk conjugation. Whether it was consciously so coined, is another matter. It is, however legitimate from a philological point of view - unlike 'grapheme'.82.36.94.228 19:58, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

It was consciously coined as an analog of phoneme, but the coiner tells me she knows no Greek. :) IacobusAmor 15:31, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

OK now it gets more interesting. We have it turns out a photogramma page, started by Avitus, but it is translating "Film frame" (spanish: es:fotograma, italian it:Fotogramma. So apparently photogramma means more of a microfiche type of photograph that is part of a series of them intended to be viewed together as a collage or movie.--Rafaelgarcia 22:43, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

One might wonder what's Avitus's source (except for Romance languages). Iacobus found at least one textual locus (above) which scarcely refers to a frame. --Neander 00:19, 13 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

It might if it they are refering to microfilm or microfiche frames, where each frame contains a different page of the manuscript. Remember those are like movies.--Rafaelgarcia 00:32, 13 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

The way I see it is this: -graphia denotes a fine art (Photographia, Cinematographia, Calligarphia etc) while -graphema denotes a work of fine art. The prototype of this morphemic pattern is from Ancient Greek. Confer: ζωγράφος "painter" > ζωγραφέω "I paint" > ζωγράφημα "picture" or ζωγράφος "painter" > ζωγραφία "picture". So, there is an assumed verb -γραφέ-ω which gives -γράφημα: φωτογραφέω (Katharevousa Greek) > φωτογράφημα > photographema. (Photogramma on the other hand should rather be analyzed as phos+gramma and semantically a "photogram" is a special kind of a "photograph".) This also means that the formal graecolatin name for a "movie" should be cinematographema. Of course, even in Traditional Greek the rule is not very strict: ζωγράφημα and ζωγραφία, καλλιγράφημα and καλλιγραφία, φωτογράφημα and φωτογραφία etc, can be occasionally synonymous, but it would be useful if we make a disambiguation when using the pattern in Latin. And of course, structuralistic terminology is irrelevant to the pattern; in struct, termin. you just grab the root of any noun and then stick an -eme after it in order to define a structural unit! :) Btw, speaking of structuralism and sociodarwinism, how should we render behavioreme and meme in Latin? Shall I propose comportema (comportamentum + -ema "structural unit") / morema (<mos) / behaviorema for the former, and memum (mimema (<μίμημα<μιμέομαι) + genum "gene") for the latter? --Omnipaedista 05:33, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That sorts it out. Photographeo on the pattern of zographeo produces photographema. I can't think why grapho should shift to another conjugation in compounds though!82.36.94.228 12:39, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Morphologia Graeca

Well, it has to do with the way Ancient Greek forms derivative words. In many instances, first there is a compound noun (usually comprised of two noun-roots) from which there was derived either another (semantically more abstract) noun via a process known as parasynthesis, eg: γεωγράφος "geographer" > γεωγραφέω, γεωργός "farmer" > γεωργία "agriculture", καλλιγράφος > καλλιγραφία, γεωμέτρης "geometer" > γεωμετρία; or a verb (in which case it is the -έω conjugation that is always involved), eg: γεωγράφος > γεωγραφέω > ἀγεωγράφητος (geographiae ignarus, *«ingeographatus»), καλλιγράφος > καλλιγραφέω, γεωμέτρης > γεωμετρέω > ἀγεωμέτρητος (geometriae ignarus, *«ingeometratus»). It is very unusual to the rules of Greek morphemics to fuse a noun (like φῶς "light") with a verb (like γράφω) in order to produce a new word (and thus produce for example something like φωτογράφω which would give in its turn the word φωτόγραμμα), or vice versa to analyze neologisms, such as φωτόγραμμα as being derived from a hypothetical *φωτογράφω. Cases like περιγράφω "I describe" > περίγραμμα "lineation, contour" belong to the category proposition + verb (in which case the verb keeps its original conjugation). I was overly paedantic here but I just wanted to clarify this interesting point. --Omnipaedista 23:36, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Nomen adiectivum phototypicus, -a, -um

Ecce attestatio nominis adiectivi: Imaginem nostram phototypicam (Christianus Fridericus Seybold, "Glossarium Latino-Arabicum," in Semitische Studien, ed. Carl Bezold, Typis F. Straubii Monacensis, vols. 15–17, p. VIII). Or, because it's related to printing, does phototypicus really mean 'halftone print'? IacobusAmor 12:38, 23 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

In old books right after photography was invented, photographs were introduced as "plates" that appeared on separate pages. To create the image in the book a separate typus was created based on the paper photograph. The typus was called a phototypus , english en:phototype.--Rafaelgarcia 13:10, 23 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Surnames

Incidentally, the publication referenced above uses a style whereby surnames are unchanged in the nominative but sometimes changed in oblique cases: [1] "egit etiam G. Loewe," sed "Qui quod Loewium secutus" (p. 10); [2] "demonstravit clarissimus vir Eduardus Boehmer," sed "opera ipsius Boehmeri gratissima" (p. 12); [3] "utitur quanta olim Oehler" (p. XIV), sed "memet ipsium Oehleri neglegentia in errorem induxit: fol. 8b Oehlero restabat" (p. XII) et "quam erat quondam Oehlero et Arnoldo" (p. XIII), et "ab Oehlero passim miscentur" (p. XIV), et "facillima quaeque et clarissima persaepe ab Oehlero lecta sunt falso" [miserum Oehler!] (p. XIV); [4] "ille Arabum Hispanicorum historiographus Renardus Dozy" (p. IX), sed "ipsum doctissimum Dozyum" (p. XVII). Nihilominus, hoc exemplum ut videtur non est constans: confer "virorum Francisci Oehler et Augusti Arnold" (p. XII); iterum, "poetae Cordubensis Ibn Guzman" (p. VII), sed "Ibz Guzmani collectione" (p. 18). Et nomen Goetz in speciem non commutatur: "Viro Illustrissimo Georgio Goetz Jenensi" (p. XIX). IacobusAmor 12:38, 23 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Anglice: confederate vs. federal

According to Cassell's, the only suitable noun for 'confederacy' is foedus, ergo per Bellum Civile Americanum the Confederacy—the confederated states, Civitates Confoederatae—could be the Foedus; however, troops of the United States—the federated states, Civitates Foederatae—were then called 'federal troops' (as they still are): so during the civil war we seem have copiae Foederis 'Confederate troops' being opposed by copiae foederati '(con)federal troops'. Is there a way out of this confusion? ¶ Caesar has societatem belli facere 'to form a confederacy of war' or perhaps 'to make a military alliance', but using societas for the Confederacy doesn't seem natural, at least to a native English-speaker. IacobusAmor 13:04, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

The concepts of a federal union and a confederation were not present in Roman times, these are a new senses for these terms taken from medieval and neo latin.

You also have to keep in mind that Confederate and Federal in these cases refer to proper names. So you have to go with what the countries are called. Here you should call confedrate troops copiae confederati since here confederati refers to the Confedratae Civitates rather than to the Foederatae Civitates.

By the way this issue has some bearing on why some people call the united states the Civitates Unitae Americae rather than Civitates Foederatae Americae. Here in Vicipaedia, we decided to go with the oldest attested term, that used by Francis Glass in his biography of Georgius Washingtonius.--Rafaelgarcia 13:16, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Ergo, according to Cassell's, Switzerland is called Foedus Helveticum? I think the well-attested term Confoederatio Helvetica makes it legitimate to use confoederatio in America, too. We already have Civitates Confoederatae Americae anyway. Gabriel Svoboda 13:26, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

An internet search shows that Foedus Helveticum is well attested, in texts and on coins. For Switzerland, I don't know which term has priority (and so may be said to be preferable), but the absence of confoederatio from Cassell's suggests that, unlike foedus, it's a postclassical term. Nevertheless, for the Confederacy, I'm happy with Confoederatio if others are; I'll fix the text now, adopting Rafael's suggestions above. The obvious Latin back-formation from English 'Confederacy' would be Confoederatia (-ae, f.), but it would presumably make our modern Latin-speaking public unhappy. IacobusAmor 13:49, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

The con in confederatio, suggests the meaning "leaguing together" as opposed to just "leaguing", so these are hardly very different things. Confederatio one would suppose by rights would be a special kind of federatio, where the treaty of union emphasizes some unique aspect about how they are united together, perhaps the equalness of the unions, perhaps something else, maybe just to emphasize togetherness. In the case of the CCA, the union preserves the right of each party to leave the union; in the case of switzerland, I believe it must have been the idea of togetherness, for in fact the 1848 constitution which provides the name Confederatio Helvetica is a federal one , mimicking the US system, as described here [1] . In the end though, Conf. Helvetica just a proper name.--Rafaelgarcia 17:04, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I will probably need some advice from American people here, but if I don't get it wrong there were the Union (which won and later became the USA) versus the Confederacy (which lost). The confoederatio entails the presence of a foedus, a pact. As far as I can tell, the Confederated States kinda had a pact, an agreement, to secede from the Union. On the other hand, the Union to me looks like a... union of States! A group of states which held something in common. I'm not sure whether there was a pact, a specific agreement there. So we have a congregatio, coniunctio, societas on one side and a confoederatio on the other one. Personally, I think that naming the USA Civitates Foederatae Americae probably hasn't been the best choice. It's United states, not Federal states of America. Though the USA are indeed a federal state, that's not what their name means. To me, the emphasis is put on the union, on the binding factor, rather than on the form of government. <vi3x> 18:53, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

The continuing saga: remarkably postposed forms of esse

"Communitas Castellae et Legionis (Hispanice: Comunidad de Castilla y León ; Legionice: Castiella y Llión ; Gallaice: Castela e León ; Extremaduriane: Castilla i Lión) communitas autonoma Hispaniae, creata anno 1983 et Septemtrionali oropedii media regione in Paeninsula Hiberica, est." IacobusAmor 13:58, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Not quite so remarkable: "Iulius Giorello, natus Mediolani die 14 Maii 1945, philosophus, professor philosophiae apud universitatem Mediolanensem Università Statale ac scriptor Italicus est." IacobusAmor 11:49, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

"Augusta Taurinorum ac Taurasia deinde Taurinum (Italice Torino ; Pedemontane: Turin) urbs in Pedemontio in Italia et caput Pedemontii est." IacobusAmor 12:30, 7 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

"Reinhardus (vulgo: Reinhard) Klimmt (natus 16 Augusti 1942 Berolini) vir publicus Germaniae et sodalis Socialis Democraticae Factionis Germaniae (SPD) est." IacobusAmor 14:43, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

"Trias politica conceptus qui suverenae gubernationis potestates inter duas aut plurimas valde independentes entitates dividendas esse statuit est." IacobusAmor 22:19, 27 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Quinque exempla recentiora (IacobusAmor 14:52, 28 Decembris 2009 (UTC)):

"Daera (ex Arabico vocabulo دائرة‎ "circulum" significante) vilaiae divisio administrativa in Algerio et Sahara Occidentali est."

"Divortium actus legalis cum quo matrimonium habet finem, est.

"Mucimum (Malayane: Mukim) daerae (sive districti) subdivisio in Bruneio et Malaesia est."

"Nicolaus de (vulgo: Klaus von) Dohnanyi (natus 23 Iunii 1928 Hamburgi) vir publicus Theodiscus et sodalis Socialis Democraticae Factionis Germaniae (SPD) est."

"Districtus geographica sive politica divisio facta determinato scopo et quoque quaelibet regio, nationis aut urbis pars potest."

Quid est symbola?

Secundum Cassell's, symbola est 'a contribution of money to a common feast'. But that can't be what it means here: "Computing machinery and intelligence est symbola ab Alano Turing scripta." So it's something written, and the italics imply that it's a book, a play, or an exceedingly long poem. (If it's an article, it would be set roman, inside double quotes.) It's presumably not the plural of symbolum 'sign, token, symbol; creed'. So what is it? IacobusAmor 14:34, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I believe it is a neolatin word meaning "journal article" derived from the first meaning above, widening the sense of "contribution", contribution to a discussion... I have seen it other places too, but all modern. Such terms deserve their own article explaining them.--Rafaelgarcia 16:24, 8 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

As usual, Iacobus and his ruthless servant, Cassell's, provide food for thought. As Rafael surmises, basically rightly I think, symbola '(scientific) article' is a metaphorical extension of the meaning 'a contribution of money to a common feast'. But I'd like to add a few precisations. Basically, symbola < Gk. συμβολή (compositional meaning:) 'a throwing together', has nothing to suggest feast or money. As such, symbola denotes a contribution; 'feast' and 'money' come from the context, which was sympotic (or perhaps in better English, symposiac) in nature. An ancient symposium (< Gk. συμπόσιον 'a drinking together') consisted not just in heavy drinking (witness Plato's Symposium) but also in philosophically and scientifically pertinent contributions to common themes (witness Plato's Symposium, again). This is also the context of symbola, as has been told by Gellius (7.13): according to him, symbolae were scientific contributions to a sympotic picnic of learned men. /// One may have wondered, why, in nowadays symposia, there's less drinking than scientific contributions. Well, a semiotician might call that markedness reversal. Nowadays, symbolae, as contributions and output of scientific symposia, are often published within a single cover, consisting of various contributions or articles on a more of less connected scientific theme. This is, I guess, the etymological background of symbola as an article in a scientific journal, Festschrift, or collection of papers; notice that symbola is indeed a scientific paper in contradistinction to commentatio and the like, which are apt to denote newspaper articles and the like. Examples of this modern use are Symbolae Osloenses; see also this list. Both Morgan and Pitkäranta have symbola '(scientific) article'. --Neander 12:26, 9 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Irrelevant but fun... Reginaldus uses esse (long e) de symbolis in case we ever want to write about en:Picnic or en:Potluck. --Ioscius ^(disp) 18:51, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Jutland

Avete, Vicipaediani. Scribere de pugna navalis a.D. 1916 gesta in Mare Germanico Orientali vellem sed nonnullam dubiam habeo de nomine huius proelii. Pars Orientalis et Septentrionalis nominibus diversis appellata est, in exemplum: * Danice Jylland, Germanice Jütland vel Skagerrak, Anglice Jutland, Latine Cimbria vel Iutlandia vel Iutia; ex quo satis haesitans ad vestras rationes seu opiniones legendas morari malo. Puto via et ratione bonum esse titulum "Pugna navalis Iutlandensis (1916)" at spero vos me adiuvaturos. Curate ut valeatis, hoc Alexander Gelsumis vobis iubet.

Sign Language

Quis scit nomen latinum pro sign language? In pagina surditas, nullo fonte invento lingua chironomicascripsi, sed aequaliter lingua gesticularia patere potest.--Rafaelgarcia 18:01, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Lingua gesticulatoria apud Pitkäranta. --Neander 19:44, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Gratias!--Rafaelgarcia 19:47, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Supongo que 'to sign' = signum dare, vel etiam significare. Et 'signing' ergo = significatio, et 'sign language' = lingua signata—vel fortasse lingua manuum. Sed gesticulari = 'to make pantomimic gestures', and sign language is NOT pantomimic. IacobusAmor 19:52, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

De signo, credo sensum idem ac "sign"="hand gestures" admodum remotum esse. De verbo gesticulor, recte dicis, primum sensum esse "pantomimimic gesture", sed alterus sensus est simpliciter "gesticulate" secundum L&S "to gesticulate (perhaps not anteAug.; cf.: gestum agere, Cic. de Or. 2, 57, 233):"--Rafaelgarcia 20:13, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Despite of the world-wide authority and paragonality of English, "sign language" is not too felicitous an expression, the simple reason being that every natural language consists in and of signs. If you don't believe me, ask Saussure.   :–)   --Neander 21:10, 12 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Tell it to the French (Langue des signes)! and the Spanish (Lengua de señas)! and the Italians (Lingua dei segni)! IacobusAmor 03:21, 13 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

If someone approached a Roman and asked Scisne linguam signorum?, he would think you were talking about augury or perhaps about the manner in which battle standards or household statues are made.

Significatio on the other hand, does have closer meanings to "sign" in the sense of an action conveying a meaning (making signals and meanings is something ordinary people do, an action, including gestures). As Neander points out, lingua significationum (the language of meanings and indications), which would then be a very literal translation of "sign language", is not very illuminating as to the actual intended meaning ipso facto.

Indeed, even in modern languages the use of "sign language" to mean "communication through gestures" is so roundabout, that you have to wonder how it came about. I venture it came about because of the use of flags in intership naval communication with semaphore. Via the analogy with signing a message between ships can signing between people is understood, even when no flags are used.--Rafaelgarcia 10:21, 13 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

It's not as roundabout as all that, perhaps. "Sign", a loanword from French in early middle English, had as its earliest English sense "a meaningful gesture with the hand" (text of 1225 cited in OED, a monastic rule; signs were permitted in this particular rule to avoid the necessity for speech). And so the first user of the phrase sign language in English was building on a real major sense of the English word. (According to OED this first user was apparently an American author of 1847, writing in American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb.) However, this wasn't the main meaning of the French word, or of the original Latin word, hence our difficulty ... Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:07, 13 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

This is an elegant etymological explanation! The term sign language has come about as a motivated colligation, no doubt about that, and everyday routinisation has blocked compositional re-interpretations (esp. by native speakers). When referring to the paragonality of English, I was (rightly or wrongly) surmising that langue des signes, lengua de señas, lingua dei segni, etc may be word-by-word translations of sign language. --Neander 22:55, 13 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Signum in Latin is a broad word, with a lot of meanings (...sign, signal, order, flag, platoon, symptom, statue, seal, astrological sign, nickname...). Despite the similarity with the Italian "linguaggio dei segni", which was probably borrowed from another language, the word which means "hand gestures" is gestus. I found some interesting classical sentences as examples: gestu rogare (to ask by gestures) and per gestum res significanda mihi (I have to explain the thing by gestures). I guess that lingua gestuum and gestibus loqui should be appropriate. <vi3x> 18:31, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Autonomus, -a, um

Is there a good reason to use the adjective autonomus, -a, um, rather than liber, -a, -um and sui iuris, the Classical equivalents of (English) 'autonomous'? The searchbox says that autonoma already appears in eighty-four articles; the masculine form, not so much (only five). Is autonomus, -a,-um a thoughtless bit of leakage from Romance? or do we have Classical precedents for it? IacobusAmor 12:49, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

It isn't classical but it doesn't mean that it should be disgarded...Autonomus is an important term with distinct political, moral and technical meanings. In politics, it means a pagus that sets its own laws and bugdet internally, but its foreign affairs are managed by a distinct sovereign state; like the vasque country.--Rafaelgarcia 14:21, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

What adjectives were applied to such states under the Roman empire? For example, Roman Palestine under King Herod? IacobusAmor 16:22, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

That is neither liber nor sui iuris. Autonomus is also applied to ianimate objects (automotons) or programs or any other mechanism that functions independently (based on an internally set algorithm). In philosophy and business autonomy (being autonomus) means having the power to be indepedent (autonomus=self-mind); indepedence is exercising that power (non depedence actually). Both concepts presume libertas and being sui iuris, which are legal-political terms; autonomus and independens instead are distinctions that apply in philosophical, technical, work, or moral spheres.--Rafaelgarcia 14:21, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

"Autonomus" isn't latin, the etymology is Greek (autos-nomos, "self law") and as you can see the meaning is exactly the same as sui iuris. Luckily I haven't burnt (yet) my Roman Law book and there's a chapter about civitates and citizenship. The cities which could keep their independence and their own statutes were called civitates liberae. Sui iuris is usually used for people, meaning "not legally subjected to anyone" (typically, a pater familias). <vi3x> 17:15, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I guess that just shows you how dependable you biblical dictionary is. Regardless of etymological orgin, the term is one used in latin by latin philosophers (first by Spinoza I think in the moral sense) and it is the latin term that is the source of the modern term in english and romance languages. Neither autonomus nor independens is the same as sui iuris (of one's own right); moreover a right ius is not the same as a law lex.--Rafaelgarcia 13:09, 15 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Macte, Vi3x! Most excellent! So what should be done with Autonoma Matriti Communitas? Turn it into Libera Matriti Communitas? And what about my question about Roman Palestine under King Herod? What adjectives did Roman politicians use for it? IacobusAmor 17:48, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Gratiam tibi ago! Well, "communitas" is wrongly used: I looked for "community" in the dictionary and in the meaning of "group of citizens" it gives me civitas. The meaning of communitas is more or less the state of being common, a common condition or fate, and sociableness. Being it an administrative subdivision of Spain, I guess we should use Civitas libera Matriti. As for the Palestine legal status, I haven't found a lot around. But for sure, it was a Roman province and if we think about the story of Christ and about the fact that crucifixion was a typical Roman execution, we should probably conclude that it wasn't a civitas libera. <vi3x> 18:16, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

That's after the death of Herod the Great (about 4 BCE); but in Herod's time, it was nominally a kingdom within the empire, Herod himself having been elected king by the Roman Senate. IacobusAmor 18:48, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

You may be interested in reading the following analysis from A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875. concerning Universitas :"The following are Juristical persons: (1) Civitas: (2) Municipes:...(5) Commune, Communitas." So the term was used by the Romans in the sense of community as a political person and entity.--Rafaelgarcia 17:23, 15 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I've found something useful here. <vi3x> 19:03, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

A civitas can't be called libera if it is controlled by another. Communitas isn't classical, but it is ok as a synonymous political term, just like unio and a variety of others are synonyms for consociatio, foederatio,....--Rafaelgarcia 12:47, 15 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how "A civitas can't be called libera if it is controlled by another" and "The cities which could keep their independence and their own statutes were called civitates liberae" can be reconciled. Can the discrepancy be resolved by discovering what the political components of, say, Bismarck's German Empire were called? Latin was then being cultivated in that area, so perhaps attested terms would exist. I'm thinking of states like the Kingdom of Bavaria, the "free city-states," and such. IacobusAmor 13:20, 15 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Evidently in that phrase the adjective libera is being used distributively not descriptively; "civitates liberae" = "free citizens" or "free citizenships" not "free state" or "free community" nor "free city"; neither the city nor the state or community were free of the king, but they were free of feudal lords; the people were not serfs or slaves, which was the state of 90% of Europe at the time. In the same sense a Romanus was liber if he was not a servus... But The kings did this in return for taxes from the city, so they were his subjects, and had to follow his law. The people's freedom in return for tax revenues is considered the most important change that brought about the end of feudalism and the beginning of capitalism.

As an aside, perhaps this term may be the source of the medieval term civitas=urbs. However, these cities were not city states. That is a separate idea, presuming complete political independence, including control of foreign affairs.--Rafaelgarcia 13:41, 15 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Usor, usuarius aut utens?

See the discussion at Disputatio Vicipaediae:Legatio nostra#...Usor???

Perhaps one of the old timers will remind us of why usor was selected?

Regardless, the classical usuarius would seem the most logical and transparent choice. --Rafaelgarcia 16:12, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I'd wager it was 'selected' because the people who first activated Vicipaedia didn't speak Latin very well. A lot of the original messages, IIRC, were actually in Interlingua or something like it. The continued existence of 'usor' I would say just means nobody's complained loud enough through the proper channels. (That, and it's generally conceded that 'usor' is well-formed, even if it is ill-advised.) —Mucius Tever 20:40, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? Why ill-advised? --Neander 20:58, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

While waiting for the explanation of usor, I'm just remarking that usuarius in Latin is a legal word, and indicates who has the right to use something without being its owner: an usuarius in Latin is an usufructuary who is entitled to the mere usage of the thing, without being able to retain its profits and advantages.

In my opinion, to indicate "someone who uses" the most suitable word would be utens, which is the substantivation of the participle of utor. Similar nouns are agens (en. "agent", part.pres. of ago), praesentia (en. "present things", part. of prae sum), pugnantes (en. "fighters", part.pres. of pugno) <vi3x> 16:42, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the L&S entry linked above, the scope of usuarius is wider than its legal meaning: as an adjective is means "of or belonging to use, usuary"; it describes even the person or thing being used.

I looked at the link, it's just that I'm using a 1176 pages dictionary here and there's no trace of other meanings for usuarius. I really don't want to sound cocky here, but this is the dictionary I've been using in 5 years of Latin in high school, and is commonly used as a standard here in Italy. [2] <vi3x> 17:51, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, even the legal meaning cited is apt: a person who uses something without the right of ownership to the thing or profits--that describes a Vicipaedia user quite aptly.

For example, an usuarius may use a creditor/faenerator (money-lender)'s money or a commodator/creditor's land, in return for usura (interest) or locarium (rent) paid; the usuarius doesn't own the land or the money but has the right to use it for a certain time in return for a certain fee, which is the lender's cut in the expected profit.

Indeed, a VP user has no ownership of the site, but what he does is a mere fact. He has no real right to write, and he couldn't sue anyone for preventing him to use VP. In Roman Law an usuarius is someone who signed a contract, not a mere "user". <vi3x> 17:51, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Utens on the other hand, has a horrific disadvantage that Iacobus pointed out in that it is the present participle of a deponent verb (unlike agens an active verb with no unusual case structure hanging on); how about if the user is not longer using, is it proper to still call him an utens? or an usus?...--Rafaelgarcia 17:15, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Probably my Latin is rusted (and if this is the case, I beg you to excuse me and to correct my grammatical mistakes :) ) but I do not see big issues regarding deponent verbs. As for the unusual case structure, it suffices to say "Vicipaedia utens" (abl.). Regarding the past tense, don't forget that utens is born from a verb but it becomes a noun, so there is no need to put it into a past tense (usus est) even if a user ceased using VP. <vi3x> 17:51, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

MOreover the only citation of have of utens meaning anything other than the participle is Words which says:

utens, utentis (gen.), utentior -or -us, utentissimus -a -um  ADJ   [XXXFO]    veryrare
having money to spend;

Utens, utentis is exactly the participle of utor, whose third meaning is "to be in possession of", "to enjoy". An utens is someone who owns, who has, therefore he is rich. It'd be the same grammatical mechanism displayed here, only used with the first meaning of the verb. <vi3x> 17:51, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

--Rafaelgarcia 17:26, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything to be said for even the English word username? A similarly formed term, screenname, could be more precise, in the sense that it's a name chosen to be displayed on a screen. IacobusAmor 17:57, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

"Screen name" would literally be nomen tabulae. Probably the whole usuarius/utens thing could be avoided focusing on the concept of "member" of Vicipaedia... Socius? <vi3x> 18:15, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Notice that usor is a morphologically well-formed word, though not met with in classical Latinity. From the same mould are lusor, fusor, clusor. Usor is indirectly attested in Salvianus, De gubernatione Dei 8 perditorum hoc adulescentium speciale convicium est, ut abusores scilicet et incuriosi ac neglegentes rerum suarum esse dicantur. Methinks usor is a tolerable word. --Neander 20:10, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm afraid it's not. Lusor comes from ludo, fusor from fundo and cl(a)usor from cl(a)udo. Utor as verb has a comletely different morphology, picking nouns who simply resemble usor does not necessarily imply that usor is correct nor well formed. The usage of abusor in a source is probably more convincing... I don't know, probably it's the word "utente" stuck in my mind, because in Italian it just means "user" and comes straight from the Latin utor. <vi3x> 20:58, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Completely different morphology? Oh, no. All the verbs mentioned have dental stems to which the -to element was once attached: *lud-to-, *fud-to-, *claud-to-, *ut-to-; for some curious reason, d/t + t was changed to ss, and later simplified to s after a long vowel or diphthong. Actor nouns were formed on the outcome of the -to- participial stem (in the present case, lus-, fus-, claus-, us-). --Neander 21:22, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I never noticed anything suspicious with usor until Vi3x brought it up. If Neander likes it, that says a lot to me.--Rafaelgarcia 21:14, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I've never liked the sense of the word. Why isn't it something like scriptor? IacobusAmor 21:47, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Well, maybe that's why Mucius said that usor is ill-advised. And I said that usor is (only) tolerable, on account of being grammatical, as far as morphology goes. Though I can put up with usor, I kinda sympathise with Iacobus, too. In a diplomatic mood :-) Neander 22:02, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

According to wikipedia, the origin of the term is as a technical term: in information science a user is defined as a person with an account and a username: "User (computing), one who uses a computer system. In order to identify oneself, a user has an account (a user account) [ratio/conventum] and a username [agnomen] (also called a screen name, handle, nickname, or nick on some systems)." The conventum of course, is the user agreement you click on when you create an account (ratio) or save an edit. It is very much a legal thing. Nevertheless, I am happy with scriptor, or usor, even if it isn't a literal translation. Scriptor in particular carries with it a certain amount of pride that is lacking in usor/usuarius. And pride is a good thing. Veni Vidi Vicipaedia!--Rafaelgarcia 22:23, 14 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Spreitenbach

Hello. A friend of mine lives in Spreitenbach in Argovia and would like to know it's Latin name. I was looking for one on the Internet very long and only found out that Spreitenbach was first mentioned in a document from about the years 1200. If you know the Latin name, please tell me. For I don't live there it is hard for me to find toponomastic books to look it up myself. Thank you very much. Capsicaciolum 00:19, 15 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I found a book Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte which gives it indeclinable in a couple of places: "Addidit etiam hobam unam in villa Spreitenbach, que sita est in pago Ziurigouve." / "Do etiam hübam unam in villa nomine Spreitenbach, quę sita est in pago Zurichgouve." and "predium Spreitenbach, pro quo redduntur vobis septem hy(r)cine pelles". It's also spelled "Sprettembhach" at one point. I'm not finding a Latinized form offhand. —Mucius Tever 18:19, 15 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Thank you[,] Mycēs. Maybe there is no Latinized name of it but thank you for finding that examples of Spreitenbach in latin texts. :) Capsicaciolum 12:22, 24 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

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.Tergum violinae 22:12, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Civitas

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 [3]).

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).

I tried to summarize what happend next at the page "nationes mundi", although it needs work. Eventually, people started qualifying res publicas according to their status. Status civitatis, status nationis, status imperii. A res publica statu nationis is what we would call a nation-state, in the terminology of the day.

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 [4])

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.-Rafaelgarcia 23:13, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Cicero used status civitatis to mean something like 'condition of the state'. So Status Civitatis Vaticanae = 'Condition of the Vatican State'; thus the confusion that the newfangled use of status brings to the table. ¶ Also, we have a neat distinction from Classical times, as given in Cassell's: "civitates aut nationes, civilized states or barbarous tribes, Cic." It seems inconsistent to use civitas for 'state' but natio for something other than 'barbarous tribe'; that's why 'international' may be better rendered inter civitates than internationalis. IacobusAmor 23:57, 17 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Not at all. Observe that a political entity became a "barbarous tribe" (ahemm) merely by being outside the empire and that the only civitates not considered "barbarous" were within the empire. Given that the empire itself was a "state", Persia and all those other nationes with which the Roman Empire fought wars were the only other "states" (in the modern sense) out there!--Rafaelgarcia 12:47, 18 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.--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.--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. 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.82.36.94.228 07:16, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

An obvious way out of the dilemma posed by the Roman religionists' recent use of Status officially to define their capital is to recognize that common speech doesn't always (or perhaps even usually) stick to official names. People usually speak of France even though the country's official name seems to be République Française, and people usually speak of the United States, or even the States, even though the country's official name is United States of America. So there may be no reason that Latin texts can't & shouldn't mostly speak of the Status Civitatis Vaticanae as the Urbs Vaticana, or even the Vaticana. How far back does the current official name go, anyway? Does it precede the Concordatum anni 1929 ("Lateran treaty")? or the catastrophe of 1870? Also, we should bear in mind that the Status Civitatis Vaticanae isn't the same thing as the Sancta Sedes. IacobusAmor 12:30, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the name came about. But The Vatican isn't a real city, it is more of a cordoned off neighborbood: almost a quarter of its area is comprised of an open plaza. I think City in Vatican City means "the Vatican Citizenship". As to the official name: "Status Civitatis Vaticanae" = "Organization of the Vatican Citizenship" or "The Vatican Citizenship" is fine with me.--Rafaelgarcia 13:11, 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.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 ...

But we certainly do have the problem that the classical world was not a world of nation-states, and therefore the classical vocabulary in this area may sit uneasily in our modern writing. One reason why "civitas" came to be equated with "city", I guess, was that political philosophers had a habit of looking at classical Greece, where city and state were synonymous. Another reason, I guess, was that when western European tribal states were taken into the Roman Empire, "civitas" was used as a term for them (they had, after all, been independent), and it came to be equated with their capital cities: thus "civitas Turonum" meant not only the "state" of the Turones (i.e. Touraine), but also the "city" of the Turones (i.e. Tours) because it sort-of-embodied the state. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:51, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

The Vulgate, which reflects popular 4th century Latin, fairly consistently uses 'civitas' for city of any sort. Urbs on the few occasions where it occurs seems to refer to something rather smaller - an oppidum, perhaps. Interestingly, on the two occasions where the NT talks of 'commonwealth' or 'citizenship' (Gk politeuma), Jezza translates it as "conversatio". The Vatican is BTW never referred to as urbs vaticana, and Urbs, standing alone means the city of Rome. 82.36.94.228 11:47, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I would be alone in coming to the conclusion that the vulgate, being written in the common street speech of the day rife with christian in-words, all the while trying to translate other source languages into latin, isn't always a very reliable guide for latin terms in general. But I agree that it is an invaluable source and I own a copy myself.

Anyway, as to cities, I think it depends on which aspect the writer had in mind, city as city (a large first rate built up place with residences and trade) urbs; a small city/town oppidum; city as a group of people civitas, city as a place with a Roman garrison, castrum....All can be found in the vulgate, sometimes describing the same kinds of places, by different speakers, or from different perspectives.

When judging the meaning of a term, you have to look at what the speaker meant, don't simply look at the english translation.--Rafaelgarcia 15:53, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Please give an example from the vulgate where 'civitas' means anything other than urbs. And do try - though I know it must me hard - not to be so patronising. 82.36.94.228 19:57, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if I came across as patronizing. The heat of debate and all that....Thank you for remininding me to be more self aware.--Rafaelgarcia 22:22, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

My contention that civitas means more than just city even in medieval times doesn't come from the vulgate, but just the knowledge of what civitas meant at the time in the Roman empire from other sources.

As to later sources, see how Hobbes De Cive is translated into english: [5] where City is used for Civitas, but obviously from the context it means "the State".

Yes this is not the Vulgate and it isn't even the same century, but I bring it up to illustrate multiple points. First that Civitas for Hobbes still meant "the citizenship". Second, the fact that when translating De Cive into English, the translator was trying to preserve a certain ambiguity in 1500's latin, that today isn't evident in the term City. Similarly, Jerome was translating Hebrew into Latin; when a translator translates he tries to preserve the sense of the ambiguities in the language from which he is translating from, in the context of the language he is translating into. I don't know Hebrew nor am I able to compare the latin to the original Hebrew, but I wager that he was trying to preserve an ambiguity that existed in the original text of what today we call the old testament.

In addition, I am aware that civitas in the roman empire did not mean a state, but a citizenship, a political community with laws and courts. Further that after the crisis of the third century, the Roman tax structure was changed dividing the pagi into civitates organized for tax collection purposes. The civitates naturally were organized around cities, towns, villas, etc., so it would be natural for people to ambigously refer to a city or town as either a civitas or an urbs, or town, or village.--Rafaelgarcia 22:33, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Acts Of Apostles 22:28 "et respondit tribunus ego multa summa civitatem hanc consecutus sum" ="and the tribune responded "I with a great sum acquired this citizenship" --Rafaelgarcia 23:51, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Iterum lege biblia tua! Credo te inventurum quod verbum de quo agitur est CIVILITATEM. Ab saeculo 3o civitas solum sensu 'urbis' adhibetur.82.36.89.155 12:27, 21 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Potius es tu ineruditus ignorans quem oportet legere illam!--Rafaelgarcia 12:47, 21 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Here [6] civitates stipendariae are explained to be 'tax paying communities'. It is also described how a civitas could consist of many towns or none, but was typically associated with a city, town, or village; so that civitas was a catchall to town, village, or community without further specification. Also it is described that after about 200 ad Roman citizenship was extended to all free inhabitants of the empire so that calling different gentes within the empire civitates would actually literally mean the same as 'a community of Roman citizens'. This was not the case when Jesus was alive however, when only 10% of people in the empire were Roman citizens.--24.183.186.151 02:29, 21 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Dicio

Back to the start again... I wondered why dicio/ditio (lets not discuss its spelling!), a good Ciceronian word, has been passed over as the general word for 'the state'. 82.36.94.228 13:24, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

In latin it means sovereign authority of an individual. The power of the civitas over its own people in latin is called imperium, dicio includes both imperium and the power/potestas over other peoples not part of the citizenship, for example the Greeks, shortly after they were conquered. It is one of the roots of iurisdicio = the power of a magistratus to state/decide the law.--Rafaelgarcia 14:00, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Attested examples show that dicio may be larger than 'the sovereign authority of an individual'. As quoted in Cassell's, Cicero says redigere bellicosissimas gentes in dicionem huius imperii (which I take for something like 'to drive the most warlike peoples into the control of this empire') and urbes multas sub imperium populi Romani dicionemque subiungere ('to subjugate many cities under the command and control of the Roman people'). IacobusAmor 14:26, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that true; it is predicated of a civitas as well; it includes imperium as well as power over other peoples. Also imperium is used both in the primary sense of a power of an individual, the power of the civitas, as the name of the Roman Empire, and in the sense of empire in general.--Rafaelgarcia 14:43, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Pulling words apart and trying to understand their original meaning is only ever partly useful. We can't be too concerned about what Johnny Roman thought when we are trying to convey the modern idea of a state, whether it be a nanny monarchy or a psychotic dictatorship. Dicio seems to be that word in recent Latin rather than civitas from what I have seen. 82.36.94.228 10:30, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Where? How recent? Pulling words apart? Not sure what that means... From what people were citing sources: dictionary entries, scholarly descriptions of the term, attestations of how the term is used, all show that it has a specific meaning. If you have evidence otherwise pony up.--Rafaelgarcia 12:39, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Try googling "ditiones" and then try "civitates". You might get the general drift...82.36.94.228 20:00, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I just did what you suggest, but don't find anything showing that ditio=state in the modern sense: eg. I find lots of map titles such as

"Bruxellensis Tetrarchia in omnes ejusdem subjacentes ditiones accuratissime divisa."="The tetrarchy of Brussels in all of its underlying authories/domains divided"; "Portae Ottomanicae regna & ditiones per Europam, Asiam & Africam diffusae summo studio descriptæ"="The kingdoms and domains of the Ottoman Gate through Europe Asia and Africa distributed described in great detail".

This use of dicio/ditio is consistent with the roman use to describe its authority over the conquered greeks. Ditio in these titles does not denote an independent state with monopoly power of government, an administration, and army; but colonial possessions or subdivisions of a country. Since you brought up the point could you produce at least one source that proves your claim? It is hardly my duty to sift through google sites to prove your claim.--Rafaelgarcia 20:30, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Vicipaedia provides one source where the meaning is ambiguous: Status Pontificius where one of the souces writes:

"In parte Mer. Italiae sunt ditio Pontificia, s. ditio Eccl. Stato della Chiesa, regnum Neapolitanum, Regne di Napoli, ditio magni Ducis Hetruriae s. Tuscia, Stato del gran Duca di Toscana, dominium Rei publicae Lucensis, il Luchese, Ducatus Massae, Ducatto di Massa, Principatus Plumbini, Prencipato di Piombino,".

Emphasis added. Ditio here at least is translated as state. However, the phrase in context suggests the better translation "dominion" instead since it is referring to the dominion/authority of a person "the pope" or "the great duke". Nowhere is Francia called a ditio if it is ruled by the French.--Rafaelgarcia 21:21, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Vocabulary: "... the only wikipaedia ..."

I wanted to add a comment on Tergum Violinae's remark: "Latin must be the only wikipaedia where a vocal contingent of users is so insistent on archaic terms in preference to more recent ones." Well, but one has to admit (quietly, not saying anything to the Language Subcommittee about it) that Latin is odd among Wikipedia languages. It has no modern speakers for whom it is a mother tongue; and its medieval and modern users, of whom there are and have been many, have always tended to look to earlier authority (from Cicero to Linnaeus) for their vocabulary and style. With many variations and with greater or less success, that's what we all do. We've all learned it at school (or after) and we all try to write it the way our teachers or "classical" models tell us to. That's the kind of medium Latin is, and has been for at least 1800 years. So this "vocal contingent" of which TV speaks are (for better, for worse) a fairly good reflection of the language community. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:05, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

That has never meant that we should reduce Latin to the rather jejune vocabulary of Cicero. Augustine certainly admired Cicero, and emulated his style, but he used a considerably larger vocabulary, partly because he was writing about things that Cicero hadn't thought of, but also because he wanted to make Latin do the job that Greek did, since, unlike Cicero, he couldn't speak or write Greek. Regarding civitas + city, in mediaeval Northern Europe, the only political entities generally thought of were regnum and imperium, so, in Bede, for example, places like Hexham and York are called civitates with no other sense than that conveyed by urbs. 82.36.94.228 12:13, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

It is also true that in medieval Europe, outside of the nobility, the only free citizens lived in cities (a phenomenon which strengthened kings and led eventually to nation-states); so that the cities in medieval times were civitates in a real sense. They weren't indepedent states, but more like modern states in the USA today, except they were subject to a king rather than a federal government. So I see no contradiction calling then civitates when referring to them in medieval times; today I think it would not be fitting since the government structure is entirely different; they are mostly administrative divisions I believe.--Rafaelgarcia 12:24, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Also, I've seen civitas translated as city in english, but in the sense of "the citizenship" rather than "urbs", particularly during the 1500-1600's. I assume at the time that the two senses of city in english were considered equivalent.--Rafaelgarcia 12:42, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

De Civitate Dei, the book by Augustinus, is conventionally englished as The City of God, but there may be no good reason it can't with equal accuracy be called God's Country. IacobusAmor 16:27, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Or the "State of God" with "state" in the sense of "political state belonging to God"; the english term "state" is similarly a morass of ambiguity!--Rafaelgarcia 16:32, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Although it is rather clear from the Vulgate, that by the 4th century, civitas only meant "city".82.36.94.228 20:02, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Re: "only meant "city"" Hardly. If Jesus had had Roman citizenship (civitas Romana) he wouldn't have been crucified.--Rafaelgarcia 20:35, 19 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

By the way, the German translation of "De civitate Dei" is "Der Gottesstaat" (which is: The state of God)--Utilo 15:21, 27 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Errata corrige...

Avete! How I can change the title Alaetrium? it is not correct, the latin name of this italian town is Aletrium (see en.wiki or it.wiki). Thank you. --Luca P 02:32, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure of the name. I can't find a latin source in the it.wiki article. Often in medieval latin ae-->e.--Rafaelgarcia 03:10, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I found a source for aletrium here: [7]. Our usual website for names don't seem to be working for me right now.--Rafaelgarcia 03:17, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

It turns out we already have a page named aletrium which is the ancient name for Calitri; According to [8]:"Aletrium

   * Place: usually identified with Calitri, province Avellino, region Campania, Italy
   * Name: Aletrium (Plin.)
   * Etymology: The name has an exact counterpart in Aletrium (Latium), in the same Italic domain. 
The name seems to be built with an IE suffix *-ter-, which denotes an agent. Thus, the stem could be derived 
from the IE root *al- 'to grow, nourish', or even from a parallel root with a meaning 'to grind', from which 
the Armenian word alauri 'mill', originally reconstructed as *alatrio-. The UTET dictionary at the entry 
Calitri mentions a pre-IE *galatro- 'a kind of grass'. "

--Rafaelgarcia 03:22, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! according Castiglioni-Mariotti dictionary (probably the most important latin dictionary edited in Italy): "Aletrium, ii, n., Alatri, città degli Ernici", and "Aletrinates, abitanti di Alatri (Cic.)"... Calitri is not mentioned. --Luca P 15:52, 18 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

"Anglice;" (&c.)

Programmers (UV especially), can you write a program to correct the misuse of the semicolon as shown in the heading above? We have an anonymous contributor who specializes in articles about countries and, despite having been reminded, continues to deploy in them a semicolon where the mos vicipaedianus wants a colon. (His current project is Botswana.) Correcting them all by hand might be a waste of human time. The same contributor has been seen to use a semicolon even to introduce lists; I don't know how a program could distinguish that blunder from correct uses of the semicolon, but maybe you could think about that too. IacobusAmor 14:11, 20 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

He's back, now working on Greenland. UV, any chance of a program here? IacobusAmor 00:20, 23 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Latino

Segnalo discussione sulla lingua latina, forse qualcuno può aiutare :-) --Superchilum 07:26, 22 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Nomen Sinarum seu Sericae

Vide, s.v.p., id quod nuper scripsi in Disputatio:Sinae ... et disputate! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:51, 22 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Population: persistent pattern

This pattern has been around Vicipaedia for years:

Fez quod ad incolas pertinet.

Fez . . . is a city of about 950000 inhabitants the third of Morocco as far as inhabitants are concerned.

Is this the best pattern for the data? Does anybody else miss the obligatory comma? IacobusAmor 16:51, 24 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

That's a good point that the comma after inhabitants is needed, but the entire last phrase reads stilted; wouldn't it be better: ". . . est urbs circa 950000 incolarum, de frequentiá tertia Maroci."--Rafaelgarcia 18:47, 24 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Translation help

Salvete! I wanted to create an article for my high school (en:Moeller High School), but, I guess I severely overestimated my English to Latin translation skills... Can somebody help? It's at Usor:Unionhawk/Moeller. Also, I need to have Archbishop Moeller High School deleted as an inappropriate redirect, but, I can't find the correct tag... Help!--Unionhawk 20:47, 24 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted the redirect and had a go at it: see Schola Superior Archiepiscopi Moeller. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:58, 25 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Language names

I think it's time to make sure that the names of languages listed on our pages are either good Latin, or not Latin at all. In other words, to get rid of invented Latin names, especially the dozens ending in -ica, and to tidy up the lists of languages. I am thinking that if a name such as "Occitanica" is used in botanical/zoological Latin, we may as well accept it as an adjective in the linguistic sense too; but if we can't find the adjective used in Latin at all, we should eliminate it. We have a higher proportion of invented Latin in this area than in most others. Does anyone agree or disagree?

We have one excellent page in this area (Linguarum officialium catalogus) and I thought I would start with that, verify Latin names, and work outwards. If anyone can suggest sources for Latin names of languages, please tell me now! But there aren't many. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:06, 25 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Linguists tend to reserve the suffix -ic for protolanguages: hence, Samoan (the Samoan language) and Samoic (a hypothesized ancestor of Samoan and certain other languages, or any of these languages); likewise, Tsou (a language of Taiwan) and Tsouic (an ancestor of, or any of, three languages—Kanakanabu, Saaroa, Tsou—of Taiwan). So while you're getting rid of -ica languages, be sure to retain any that happen to be protolanguages! IacobusAmor 18:19, 25 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, such forms could well be retained as names of families/protolanguages. The -ic termination, if already used internationally, fits neatly back into Latin. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:58, 25 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

So, lingua Italica denotes Osco-Umbrian, Faliscan, and other languages of the Italic family. That's what I've been suggesting ad nauseam... Or, should that be an exception, given the fact that for some reason that escapes me, people seem to consider "lingua Italiana" hateful? --Neander 23:02, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

(In haste.) Well, as I understand it, the rule is "every proto-Language should end in -ica", but by no means "every language ending in -ica should be a protolanguage". Lingua Italica is just 20-100 times more common than lingua Italiana, I don't think we can scrap traditional names in favour of scarcely used alternatives. Or do you think lingua Anglica, lingua Francogallica, lingua Iaponica, lingua Nederlandica, lingua Polonica are all proto-languages? How do you call their modern versions, then? Gabriel Svoboda 07:37, 2 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I need to clarify my position here. Iacobus must speak for himself, and no doubt will!

My studies of language classification tell me that any attempt to impose regular hierarchies with terminological rules for different kinds of language-family names (Burmic, Burmish, Bodic, Bodish etc.) turn out to be a fool's errand. Language change and diversification doesn't answer to definable levels of hierarchy. Some linguists enjoy thinking up names like that; others get their kicks in other ways! There's no universally accepted system.

All I mean to say is that if such words in -ic exist in modern linguistic literature, and represent a family or grouping that we want to make an article for, it would be easy and unobjectionable (I think) to adapt them into Latin.

Gabriel, I certainly don't mean to say that the termination -ic is always used for proto-languages. It's just a Greek adjectival suffix that has become familiar in Latin; it has many uses. And it is in fact used in Renaissance Latin, and after, for the names of quite a lot of individual languages. I see no problem with that.

According to Baldi (pp. 306–307), the Latin suffix -cus is a native suffix, which evolved directly from PIE *-ko-. Greek (though, I gather, it had its own reflex of *-ko-) was not involved. IacobusAmor 14:46, 2 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Neander, if you care to open a discussion in favour of a rule distinguishing Italicus/Italianus, I will support it. The two problems (as I see it, without careful study) are the rather weak support for Italianus in reliable sources, and the number of existing pages we would want to edit. But perhaps there's a bot solution to the second problem. To make the distinction would be highly desirable, I think. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:25, 2 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Rafael reminds me that there already has been such a discussion, to which several of us contributed, at Disputatio:Lingua Italica. Time to resolve it, I guess. Let's just go over there and see if we still agree with ourselves. I'll mention it to Helveticus, who I think is interested. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:35, 12 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Presumably that's where it came from! IacobusAmor 14:43, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly. The origin of the suffix is Greek. Those linguists took to using it in this taxonomic way in the mid 20th century, long after Latin had ceased to be used as a scientific language. So it would (I think) be hard to show that in its language-classification use it "came from Latin". But, as I say, it does fit conveniently into Latin if we decide to use it that way :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:08, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Vide supra. Et quomodo haec distinctio suffixorum -anus et icus in Italica linguarum subfamilia, commentario novo? OK? IacobusAmor 14:46, 2 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Need the Code of a Gadgets

Ave, On Specialis:Praeferentiae Gadgets, I can see options (in particular Vertere omnes "j" in "i", Vertere omnes "u" in "v", Vertere omnes "v" in "u") that interrest me for the French speaking Wikisource. But I dont where is the code for that. Can someone help me ?I’ve found Mediawiki:Gadget-vultus.js on others alone, thanx.
PS : why is the Quaerere box always in the middle an not of the top of the left side ? (is it voluntary ?) Cdlt, Vigneron * ^discut. 10:37, 27 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Its placement looks fine to me (but maybe that's cuz I'm used to it). IacobusAmor 17:05, 27 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

Ours is the default placement in the software. I like the placement at the top left that other wikis use, but don't like the top right placement used in the beta.--Rafaelgarcia 14:24, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

If there is consensus, we can easily move the position of the search box up from its default position. All that is needed is to edit MediaWiki:Sidebar accordingly. --UV 21:21, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer the top left position.--Rafaelgarcia 22:19, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Gaditani?

Just as a curiosity, why shouldn't Vicipaedia have a category for people from Cadiz? Wikipedia says it'll eventually include at least these people:

Elías Ahúja y Andría

Andy & Lucas

Arteaga (footballer)

Lucius Cornelius Balbus (minor)

Juan Bautista Aznar Cabañas

José Cadalso

Emilio Castelar y Ripoll

Pedro Antonio de Cevallos

Columella

Lucius Cornelius Balbus (major)

Carlos Javier Delgado Rodríguez

Didacus Joseph of Cadiz

Chano Domínguez

Enrique el Mellizo

Antonio Fabré y Almerás

Ismael Falcón

Emmanuel de Falla

Guillermo Fernández-Shaw

José de Iturrigaray

Juan Gutiérrez Moreno

Juan José Lerena y Barry

Elvira Lindo

Rafael Marín

Georgius Gordon Meade

Juan Álvarez Mendizábal

Merche

Moderatus of Gades

Segismundo Moret

José Celestino Mutis

Carlos Edmundo de Ory

Pablito de Cádiz

Carlos Pacheco

Paz Padilla

Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Alburquerque

José María Pemán

Esteban Piñero Camacho

José María Quevedo

Joaquín Rubio y Muñoz

Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, 1st Count of Venadito

Fermín Salvochea

Josefa de Tudó, 1st Countess of Castillo Fiel

José María de Urquinaona y Vidot

Salvador Viniegra

IacobusAmor 18:12, 30 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

What we currently do is to put people in a category for the country they are born in (e.g. Categoria:Incolae Hispaniae etc.) and also add them on the list of "well known inhabitants" for the town they were born in. That's why I've added Meade on the page Gades. I think that system will work well for some years ahead, and it's very easy to operate. When we are much bigger, the time will no doubt come to add categories for inhabitants of every town. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:54, 30 Augusti 2009 (UTC)

My POV: work should be done today so as to minimize work tomorrow. IacobusAmor 14:43, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

I've done enough with categories on Vicipaedia, I think. Someone else's turn. My last two words of advice: think laterally! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:16, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Redirects

(1) How does one delete a redirect? (2) How does one make a redirect? IacobusAmor 12:56, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

To make a redirect, you make a page with the redirect's name and add as its content #REDIRECT [[NAME OF DESTINATION PAGE]] (Eg. see the page named "CFA": To see the page directly click on CFA after you are directed or see [9]

To delete the redirect, go to the redirect by clicking on the link from the page to which you are redirected, and put a {{delenda}} on it. A sysop will then delete it.--Rafaelgarcia 13:17, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. See the redirect at Servus. IacobusAmor 13:25, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

It's a bad idea to delete that page. If you want to write a page Servus, all you have to do is edit it. Go to the page and click "edit". No need to delete it. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:53, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The discretiva page isn't to be deleted. IacobusAmor 13:59, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

So why do you want Servus deleted? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:11, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I want the iussum redirectionis deleted, so that Servus doesn't jump to a discretiva page. IacobusAmor 14:16, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

What Andrew is saying is that in order to create a standalone Servus page, anyone can just edit out text #REDIRECT [[Servus (discretiva)]] from the page and proceed the same as when editing any other page..But at least some kind of stipula should be placed there if you do so.--Rafaelgarcia 14:18, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Like this: Servus? Since other wikis don't have such a page, it may not be worth elaborating & keeping, but let's leave it there for a while and consider whether it should survive or be folded back into a discretiva. IacobusAmor 14:51, 1 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Since we distinguish between and have articles on Libertus and Libertas, we should probably distinguish between and have articles on Servus and Servitus, even if the other wikis don't. IacobusAmor 13:02, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Our servitus page is about easements not slavery, although slavery is the primary meaning. It's our servitudo page that talks about slavery. According to Justinian: from L&S: "servitus est constitutio juris gentium, quā quis dominio alieno contra naturam subicitur, Dig. 1, 5, 4; Just. Inst. 1, 3, 2:" I.e. it includes both slavery and easement as special cases. Thus I think a disambig page for servitus is called for.

As for having a separate slavery page, the english wiki simply redirects slave to slavery since the term slavery is there described and the various forms of slavery through the ages is compared. I think that is probably a wise way to do it, but there is room for different approaches on different wikis. The question is: besides the lemma, how do we distinguish the content of servus from servitudo?--Rafaelgarcia 14:22, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Justinian is rather late for Classical Latin. Cassell's defines servitudo as 'slavery, servitude' and servitus as 'the condition of a slave; slavery, servitude': nothing about easements. In the English-to-Latin section, Cassell's defines 'slavery' as servitus, servitium, and famulatus : nothing about servitudo. IacobusAmor 15:00, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Yes, servitus is the more frequent expression for slavery but apparently is also more ambiguous in having more attendant meanings, because it is a broader concept in Roman law (the ius gentium). I think Cassels recommendation is based on the context that most latin writers aren't trying to be legally accurate as much as classical sounding. However, we have the context of an encyclopedia which by nature aims to be all emcompassing. The less ambiguous "servitudo" = servitude works fine as an unambigious term....on the other hand it is infrequent.

We can move servitudo to Servitus (homo) and explain in the lemma "Servitus vel accuratius servitus hominis vel servitudo est condicio ..."

or we can leave the page on slavery as servitudo and begin "Servitudo seu servitus vel accuratius servitus hominis est ...." and make servitus a disambiguation page listing Servitudo for servitus hominum, servitus (ius) for servitus rerum--Rafaelgarcia 15:40, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The Infinitive

Salvete! Right now I am in the process of helping translate Facebook into Latin. I'm not sure if any of you have ever participated in it, but it is a terribly unorganized project (but I won't discuss the awful details right now). Basically, there is a little battle going on on the message boards for the translation app about whether to use infinitives or imperatives for buttons like "Search" or "Login". Many people have pointed out that both Vicipaedia and Latin Google use the infinitives, and that Facebook should, too, since everyone is used to it now. Others think "Search" and "Login" are commands to the computer and ought to be imperatives. The decision's pretty much split 50/50.

So I was wondering if someone could explain to me why we use the infinitive here (or direct me to an older discussion where this is discussed). It would be very much appreciated! I trust that most people know more of what they're talking about here than on Facebook. (correct me if I'm wrong) Thanks! --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 04:28, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why the infinitive was chosen just here, but [Quaerere] can be interpreted e.g. as "quaerere volo". To reveal my POV, my native Czech also clearly distinguishes infinitives from imperatives, and the standard practice is to use infinitives in these situations. Imperatives can be seen to, but they look somewhat inappropriately familiar — people today see their computer as a tool, not as an equal partner for 2nd person communication. Hence the infinitive — it is grammatically unclear enough for people to interpret it as they like. A similar level of unclarity could be achieved with [Quaeratur] ("let be searched"). Vernacular languages don't prefer such construction probably because it is too long, but we could take the advantage of this idea being expressed with one word in Latin. Gabriel Svoboda 06:36, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Gabriel: calling for actions on a computer is not the same thing as giving instructions to a person. What's required is the basic impersonal form of the verb, and that is the infinitive. The interface on the French Wikipedia also uses infinitives. English is maybe the odd one out. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:17, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the English "Go" and "Search" are infinitives with a space-saving omission of "to," rather than imperatives. IacobusAmor 13:03, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I like that! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:12, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I've become used to it, too, but for instance, Tharoth has argued in person that this was a shortsighted error, that we should be commanding the computer to do something. I think David Morgan agrees. I see both sides. I mean, let's take Jacob's example. I am certainly telling the computer to "go!" but I think I am saying "(I want) to search". I will invite Andreas (Tharoth) to comment here and make a case. --Ioscius ^(disp) 22:00, 2 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The French and Spanish wikis use the infinitive, whereas the Italian wiki uses imperative and sometimes even hortatory subjunctive, which is in line with the Latin usus. --Neander 02:22, 3 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Even then, what person to use? I can see justification for 1st singular, "Boy, I'd like to search!" 2nd sing, "Say computer, would you search for me?" 3rd sing, "Let it search!" and even 1st plural, "Let's search together, computer."--Ioscius ^(disp) 06:12, 3 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, if you were typing a command to the computer you might use the imperative (though not necessarily; I understand French interactive fiction games prefer the infinitive) but I would say a button or a link is not so much a command being issued but a label for a prepackaged instruction (or set of instructions), in the same way 'Microsoft Word' is a label for a program put on an icon. Seeing the button labels in the same way, for Latin anyway, this wouldn't be an infinitive per se so much as a verbal noun—i.e. it'd be the gerund, which just happens to be defective and uses the form of the infinitive instead of its own nominative. (It's an idea.) —Mucius Tever 14:31, 3 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I was thinking. Some person on Facebook was trying to translate "Home" in the accusative because when you click it, it takes you "to home". But, like you said, it's a label for Home, not a description of what the link does. --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 02:16, 4 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

It's most likely that Vicipaedia uses the infinitive because its interface was originally translated from Interlingua^[1], which uses the infinitive, and since there's no reason to label the practice as wrong, it was retained when it was translated. —Mucius Tever 14:12, 3 Septembris 2009 (UTC) ([1] See, e.g., the history of Mediawiki:Login.)

But there is a reason to label the practice as wrong. Except in poetry (and not commonly there) infinitives in Latin do not express orders or purpose. Most interface guides out there are quite clear that imperatives are what is required: e.g.

Ex Microsoft: "Start labels with an imperative verb and clearly describe the action that the button performs. Don't use ending punctuation." - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511453.aspx "Express the main instruction in the form of an imperative direction or specific question."

No, that's a language-dependent rule. Microsoft's Japanese translation of the document explicitly adds "英語の場合" ('in the case of English') to the clause stating to use an imperative. —Mucius Tever 05:55, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

"Don't use Done because it isn't an imperative verb." - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511331.aspx

Amusingly, the Japanese version of this rule translates that sentence exactly, but in the heading for the paragraph (in English, 'Use Close for Follow-Up and Completion pages') it says to use [閉じる] — which is just the regular present tense, not an imperative (the imperative would be 閉じろ). —Mucius Tever 05:55, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

- videas porro http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa974175.aspx

Ex GNOME: "Label all buttons with imperative verbs, using header capitalization. For example, Save, Sort or Update Now. Provide an access key in the label that allows the user to directly activate the button from the keyboard." http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/controls-buttons.html.en

Appears to be a language-dependent rule as well; there don't seem to be any translations of that particular document, but elsewhere on the site, you can see (e.g.) that in Spanish GNOME the translation of the English command 'Shut Down' is the infinitive 'Apagar'. —Mucius Tever 05:55, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Ex aliis: - http://www.designstrategy.ca/resources.htm

Sed, ex Apple: "Actions are verbs or verb phrases that declare the action that occurs when the user chooses the item. For example, Save means save my file and Copy means copy the selected data. Your action menu commands should begin in the same way, with an action verb in its base (simplest) form." -- quae possunt multis modis interpretari et magis videntur ad linguam Anglicam quam ad alios sermones spectare. - http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGMenus/XHIGMenus.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000356-TPXREF117 --Andreas 21:46, 5 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I NEVER in my life suspected the buttons were interpreted as COMMANDS. I interpreted them as ACTIONS to be taken, even in english, just like APPLE suggests.

If I saw a button "i", I would think the computer wants ME to go, or that by pressing I am ordering another person to go, not that I was ordering the browser to go since it does not have a MIND to accept an order or do otherwise than as a program tells it...

On the other hand, "ire" when pressed, naturally means to me "the browser goes to the location"..(or less likely "I go to the location" or "you go to the location" or "he/she goes to the location" as appropriate).

Thus I see absolutely nothing wrong with the infinitive for the button labels and I see much wrong with the imperative. With all do respect to MS and Gnome, they're wrong.--Rafaelgarcia 00:07, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

And we should beware of following interface guides like those of MS or Gnome that were written on the basis of one language (and maybe, who knows, with the unspoken assumption that really and truly one language fits all). Also, these instructions weren't necessarily written by grammar experts. I still think Iacobus's point, above, that the English words are not really imperatives at all, but infinitives with the to omitted, may be valid.

As to what is "right" or "wrong" in Latin, it's a broad church. I've been looking at instruction manuals in Latin today. Cato and Columella use an alternate imperative, typically ending in -ito (sometimes called "future imperative"). Don't let's do this because I suspect most students don't ever learn it. Apicius uses the normal imperative, but Apicius is in vulgar Latin more or less, so this may suggest that use of the normal imperative in such cases is a mark of vulgar/colloquial speech. Celsus uses the gerundive; this is good and impersonal and polite. Palladius usually uses the first person plural imperative ("let's dig the soil / we should dig the soil"); in pure logic this is possibly a good choice for us, because we are working with our computers and programs rather as Palladius was working with his farm hands; but, again, not everybody learns it. I still feel that since it's not really clear we are issuing instructions, the infinitive is a good neutral choice; and it is a form that everybody knows.

On Rafael's "If I saw a button "i", I would think the computer wants ME to go": -- The British Conservative Party's website, as first designed, invited users to register. The way they did this was to fill in a form and click a button that said "SUBMIT". Some visitors certainly felt that they were the ones who were being invited to submit. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:32, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The use of the second person imperative in any language is dangerous since it implies the speaker is one of superior position and authority and that the receiver of the instruction is inferior and under the command of the speaker. One orders slaves, lower ranking soldiers, and children; not work colleagues. I imagine that if one is writing a manual to be read by one's peers one would avoid it, lest one sound vulgar and crude. First person plural or gerundive are nice workarounds. THe future imperative was used for the leges XII Tabularum, so it is an impersonal way of stating a maxim or law or normative rule to be followed.--Rafaelgarcia 14:38, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

If one may clarify: I've never conceived these titles & labels to be commands, either by my computer to me, or by me to my computer. At the left of Vicipaedia's screen as it appears while I'm typing this, one sees three coordinate items: navigatio, communitas, and quaerere, in "literal" terms meaning 'a sailing, a voyaging', 'a commonality, a community', and 'to seek, to search for', respectively. In my mind, they exist in some absolute universe, utterly without person, tense, and mood, more nounlike than verblike. Part of the problem is that, in English (many programmers' language of art), the form of the imperative (e.g., "Swim!") happens to be identical to that of the infinitive ("She made him swim"). Among public signs, the closest to an actual imperative may be the roadway STOP sign, but that's not how a quaerere box is functioning. IacobusAmor 15:01, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The label on a button is a fragment of a sentence. If it is an infinitive, what is the full sentence? Is it "volo ..."? ... --Andreas 18:19, 13 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Categoria: "Auctores Anglici" &c.

This Anglici is apparently referring to the language, since the category includes English-writing authors who live(d) in the United States, not just those who lived in England (each of whom would be or have been an Anglicus). What's the noun to which Anglici applies? It's apparently not Auctores, and obviously not an understood Linguae (genitive). Is it sermo ? But why would that be better than lingua ? Likewise Auctores Italici &c. IacobusAmor 14:02, 5 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Anglicus is an adjective modifying auctores. Its sense is "of or pertaining to the English language" (as used by you at Vicipaedia:Taberna/Tabularium 9#Anglicum verbum relay, for example!).

OK, so "Auctores Anglici" really = Auctores Anglici [scil. verbi] 'authors of the English word'! And this Anglici is NOT modifying Auctores. IacobusAmor 16:26, 5 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Well, compare the more common collocation auctores Latini, which could theoretically mean "Authors from Lazio," but generally does not. --Iustinus 19:09, 5 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, but it's counterfactual to call American authors English authors! They're American, not English! IacobusAmor 21:35, 5 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Possibly even Scottish or Welsh, or even Kiwi! :)--Rafaelgarcia 23:50, 5 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Terentius Afer, Pliny the Elder, Erasmus &qs were not from Latium. Counterfactual? --Iustinus 05:40, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I've read about Desiderius Erasmus Rotterdamus, but who is this Desiderius Erasmus Latinus? IacobusAmor 14:33, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Semper tuatim, Iacobe! Well, e.g. here. I'm sure we can find more if you're going to insist. --Iustinus 21:23, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Naturally I do, since that's not an attestation of Desiderius Erasmus Latinus at all. ;) IacobusAmor 13:19, 8 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

But that's a red herring, as you know perfectly well. The only person actually making a point about Name+Gentilic vs. Auctor+Gentilic is you. The real issue is that even a man from Rotterdam can be an auctor Latinus. Just as you need not be from Latium to earn that title, you need not be from Anglia to be an Auctor Anglicus. --Iustinus 14:58, 11 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

If that's a red herring, it goes back to your man Breasted, who in his dissertation described himself as "Auctor I. Henricus Breasted Americanus"—as clearly as possible claiming to be an auctor Americanus, not an auctor Latinus. Nevertheless, by the stated rules, since he wrote in Latin, he must be an auctor Latinus, so I'll go fix that for you now. ;) IacobusAmor 00:39, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

For the full list of such categories see Categoria:Auctores secundum linguas digesti. The same sense of Anglicus (etc.) is used in categories forf books and literary texts by language: for the full list of these, see Categoria:Litterae secundum linguas digestae.

For the discussion which preceded their initial setting up, see Vicipaedia:Taberna/Tabularium 10#More categories.

In accordance with the discussion, wherever such category names could be ambiguous, the text at the top of the category page explains exactly what the name means. Hope that helps! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:45, 5 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

bots

For the record: I have asked our Vicipaedia:Grapheocrates to grant the bot flag to Usor:MastiBot and Usor:BenzolBot, as they appear to do good work. --UV 22:55, 6 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Empresses

Empresses are two a penny these days, but my understanding is that the wives of Roman emperors didn't have any such title. "Imperatrix" was first used of an emperor's wife in the fifth century (according to Alexander Souter, A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D. (Oxonii: Clarendon Press, 1949. ISBN 0198642040)) by which time there wasn't much empire. Many of them had titles such as Augusta, but not necessarily. I raise this because Usor:CeleritasSoni is writing biographical articles about them, and they need a category. My suggestion is Categoria:Uxores imperatorum Romanorum. Other views? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:48, 7 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I've been absent during the summer. I would object about the empire not being much during the fifth century, but I reckon that that is not the point. It is rather that they were not ruling themselves, they seem to have been just consorts. Hence, Andrew's suggestion is our best solution.--Xaverius 22:45, 7 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Imperatrix should be reserved for female emperors rather than the wives.--Rafaelgarcia 23:20, 7 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Bellum editoriale

Editoriale habemus bellum inter scriptores Karkeixa et Stywerdoff. Vide Lingua Legionica. Uter est rectus? IacobusAmor 13:18, 8 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Gratias tibi ago. Pro tempore paginam protegi et sententias controversas removi. Usores possunt in pagina disputationis ... disputare. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:01, 8 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Bene est, amice. IacobusAmor 14:10, 8 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Poeta Civitati favens

In pagina de Naphtali Herz Imber civitati faventem poetam scripsi sed nescio an sit verbum unum apud Latinitatem recentiorem ad illos poetas sive alicui factioni faventes sive quorundam causarum causidicos exprimendos. Mihi in sinu est nullum lexicon de usu neolatino, qua re gratulabor ei qui mihi tale verbum praediceret. Consalvus 18:19, 10 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Centroamerica

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)

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 00:52, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this can be discussed better at the America Centralis page.--Rafaelgarcia 00:49, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

What needs to be discussed is how to distinguish among three varying conceptions of the area! IacobusAmor 00:52, 15 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Scorpio

Forte inveni hoc apud You Tube : Scorpio Martianus, quod vobis communico.--Rafaelgarcia 15:03, 16 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Nuntius de Academia c. n. Vivarium novum

Academia, cui nomen Vivarium Novum, iam pridem condita est, ut lingua Latina et Graeca viis rationibusque traderentur, quibus humanistae, qui dicuntur, per nonnulla saecula non sine uberrimo fructu usi sunt. Multos per annos iuvenes ex variis totius orbis terrae regionibus oriundi Montellam, in oppidum Campaniae, eo consilio convenerunt, ut inde a mense Octobri ineunte usque ad mensem Iunium exeuntem una vitam degerent communem atque magistros litteras Latinas omnium aetatum, linguam Graecam, historiam philosophiae, artem Latine Graeceque scribendi et loquendi docentes audirent. Non modo inter scholas ipsas cottidianas, verum etiam totum reliquum tempus usus linguae Latinae (et Graecae) est in Academia perpetuus et continuatus: discipuli et inter sese et cum magistris suis a mane usque ad multam noctem Latine loquuntur, neque ulla alia lingua admittitur praeter Graecam, qua colloquia statis temporibus seri solent. Academia est igitur unus fere locus in orbe terrarum, ubi nunc temporis homines sunt, qui perpetuo inter se lingua utuntur Latina. Inde fit, ut brevi omnes discipuli adeo Romanorum sermonem callere incipiant, ut sine ulla molestia nullaque animi contentione integra scriptorum et antiquorum et recentiorum opera Latine exarata expeditissime legere et intellegere possint. Praeter ipsam linguam, in Academia et magistri et discipuli humanitatem in universum omnibus modis omnibusque viis colere conantur. Academia praedita est sat magna bibliotheca, qua ad quadraginta milia voluminum continentur, instrumentis computatoriis et audiovisificis, auditorio scholastico, hortis et campis lusoriis satis amplis et ad discipulorum usus aptis et accommodis.

Hoc anno Academiae sedes Romam, in Urbem aeternam, transferetur, in aedes longe maiores et ampliores, in quibus multo plures discipuli excipi poterunt. Aedificium, ubi Academiae Lares collocabuntur, viridariis circumdatur amoenissimis, et omni instrumento est praeditum scholae necessario: praeter enim cubicula multa, sunt ibi atria et oeci magni, auditoria maiora et minora, culinae et triclinium amplissimum, natabulum et campi lusorii.

Scholae inchoabuntur inde a die V mensis Octobris et producentur usque ad diem XIX mensis Iunii anni insequentis. Excipiuntur discipuli inde a XVI usque ad XXV aetatis annum, qui iam aliquatenus elementis linguae Latinae imbuti sint: teneant scilicet satis bene grammaticae fundamenta et satis multa vocabula didicerint. Et victus, et habitatio, et scholae sunt omnino gratuitae: omnes impensae ab opere fundato, c.n. Mnemosyne, beneficiis academicis concessis tolerantur. Accipiuntur quotannis non plures quam quinque et viginti discipuli. Nunc quidem, cum sedes, in qua Academia est sita, ad religiosorum familiam pertineat, mares tantummodo admittuntur. --Alexis Hellmer 13:50, 17 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Curious political terms

Formula: Iudices praesides Summi Iudicii Civitatum Foederatarum

Appearing here & there has been a formula featuring the title "Judge-Presidents of the Supreme Court of the United States" (Iudices praesides Summi Iudicii Civitatum Foederatarum), which sounds rather curious, not least because the correct title is "Chief Justices of the United States" (perhaps Summi Iudices Civitatum Foederatarum or Summi Civitatum Foederatarum Iudices), not "Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States." Chief justices of the United States do more than preside over the Supreme Court: they administer the entire federal court system, and they preside over the Senate during the trial of impeached presidents. So it seems that this title wants changing. Americans, what do you say? IacobusAmor 00:26, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I imagine the writer saw that we use "praeses" in place of "praesidens" and was trying to translate "presiding" (="presidens"), so that we would have "Presiding Judges of the Supreme Court". --Rafaelgarcia 01:11, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I figured that out, but "presiding" is probably the wrong concept: since all judges preside, in one way or another, it adds nothing to the phrase; and the title specified in the Constitution refers this judge's power to the United States, not the Supreme Court. See below. IacobusAmor 01:21, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I think all of the supreme court justices can be said to be "Summi Iudices Civitatum Foederatarum", so this term is not precise enough. --Rafaelgarcia 01:11, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The Constitution (article II, section 2) calls them "Judges of the supreme Court." It's the court that's supreme, not the judges, so I'm unsure that they can rightly be summi iudices (unless perhaps the court itself is not summus, but something else, say, supremus) IacobusAmor 01:28, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The right term for "Chief" is in general either "principalis" or "princeps". I would guess "Principales Iudices Summi Iudicii Civitatum Foederatarum" would be the most precise term. --Rafaelgarcia 01:11, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

That ignores that they're chief justices of the United States, not chief justices of the Supreme Court. The chief justice is the highest judge in the land—for which Summus Iudex might work. ¶ For characterizing the court, we've been ignoring the Latin supremus. Fear of being too obvious? ¶ Is there perhaps an attestation in one of the Latin biographies of George Washington? IacobusAmor 01:35, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Summus Iudex (highest Judge) implies that he can act as sole judge in court, but he can't.--Rafaelgarcia 02:27, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I think each of the justices of the Supreme Court can act as a sole judge in any lower court, and can join other judges on multiple-judge panels, but of course I could be wrong. IacobusAmor 16:42, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Neither Summus nor Supremus mean chief or presiding.

I think both Summus (highest) and Supremus (uppermost) can be used to mean "supreme", but Summus is more idiomatic in this instance.

Perhaps Iudices Principales Civitatum Foederatarum (Chief Judges of the United States)?

I'll see if I find something in GW bio.--Rafaelgarcia 02:27, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Formula: Secretarii Status CFA

The formula "Secretaries of the Status of the United States" (Secretarii Status CFA) has been appearing, but the Merriam-Webster dictionary makes clear that the state in the correct English title, "Secretary of State," is the civitas kind, not the 'position, condition, status' kind: the pertinent sort of secretary is the one that's, as the dictionary says, "an officer of state," not an "officer of status." The customary Latin for the kind of state pertinent in the United States is civitas, as may be seen in the name of the country itself: Civitates Foederatae Americae, not (one shudders!) Status Foederati Americae. (In the political context of the United States, it's irrelevant that the Vatican has an officer locally called Secretarius Status.) In regard to the U.S. government, the distinction between these terms is particularly acute because the 'position, condition, status' kind of state is actually invoked in the title of the report that the constitution requires the president to give to Congress: a report on "the State of the Union" (clearly Status Unionis). Since Latin has different terms—civitas and status—for these importantly differentiated concepts, those terms should be used here. Americans what do you say? IacobusAmor 00:14, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Certainly. "Secretaria Status" is a attested latin name for the vatican's "Secretariat of State", but there it has the meaning "Secretariat of the Constitution/State of the Vatican Citizenship" since the official name of the Vatican is "Status Civitatis Vaticanae" ="Constitution/State of the Vatican Citizenship", to which "Status". This context does not apply to the US obviously.

For "Secretary of State", I would choose "Secretarius Rerum Exterarum" since in the US we call the heads of the departments "Secretaries" rather than "ministers", although the correct latin term for a secretary seems to be "administer" according to various sources listed in Morgan's gloss. Minister (servant) also has this meaning in the sense of public servant, but I personally find it funny since it is also the latin term for "restaurant waiter". :)

That's funny! ¶ We seem to be in agreement on the secretarius part, even though it's not Classical. However, the foreign-affairs part is problematic, for at least two reasons: there will have to be an article on the general concept of "secretary of state," which in many countries is not the minister for foreign affairs; and the secretaries of state of U.S. states don't deal in foreign affairs at all. Do we really want distinct terms for federal secretaries of state and state secretaries of state? IacobusAmor 01:44, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

For an internal secretary of state, we can take the example of some of the east cost states and use "secretary of the state" or "secretary of the commonwealth" = "secretarius rei publicae"--Rafaelgarcia 01:58, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Glass's life of Washington (which I checked last night) discusses the first cabinet of the United States on page 139, where we learn that the cabinet itself is the president's consilium intimum. Glass doesn't name most of the offices, but speaks instead to the duties. For the position of secretary of state, he says Washingtonius "rerum exteris cum nationibus gerendarum curam Thomae Jeffersonio tradidit." So that's a clue that the secretary of state should be the (pro)curator rerum exterarum, or something like your original try, secretarius rerum exterarum, the 'secretary of external affairs' (though in the attestation, it's tribes, rather than their affairs, that are external); in which case, something like [praesidis] administer rerum exterarum, the '[president's] attendant for external affairs' might be acceptable as a secondary & alternative formulation. ¶ We still have a problem, however: secretaries of state of the individual states appear to have the opposite function: they seem to be more like secretaries for internal affairs! So I wonder if the emphasis on external affairs for the federal office somehow obscures some commonality of function shared by the state offices. A term that, being neutral on this point, could be applied to all these secretaries (federal & state), like secretarius civitatis, would finesse that problem; but where's an attestation? IacobusAmor 13:26, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Formula: Procurator Causarum Publicarum CFA

Munus Attorney General sic attestatum est: "Edmundum Randolphium causarum publicarum procuratorem constituit" (Francis Glass, A Life of George Washington, in Latin Prose, ed. J. N. Reynolds [Novi Eboraci: Harper & Brothers, 1835], p. 139). IacobusAmor 13:32, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

U.S. "secretary" (head of an executive-branch department)

In place of administer and secretarius, perhaps procurator (or the semiattested curator) is the best choice. Aside from being attested, it avoids problems that have been raised with regard to (ad)minister and secretarius. IacobusAmor 13:48, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps procurator is the more classical solution and actually attested in the same book that we get CFA from. I say lets go with "procurator rerum exterarum" and give secretarius as a synonym.

Remember that "natio" means "nations" as much as it means tribe (especially in the modern context of glass); and by nations one of course includes the indian nations. The finesse that glass was aiming at is that the indian nations are delt with by the department of the interior; while the department of foreign affairs deals with nations like France and Britain in the exterior.--Rafaelgarcia 14:00, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Glass discusses Washington's diplomatic efforts with the Indians somewhere after page 140, but I didn't note (last night) what terms he uses for 'tribe', 'nation', etc. As we'd expect, he does call them Indi, -orum. He mentions one or more tribes by their tribal names. IacobusAmor 14:09, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Department=Departimentum?

This also brings up the question of what term to use for "Department". I have seen "Departimentum" used here in Vicipaedia and in a few Latin websites outside, but this term as far as I know has not further attestation in any compiled word list I know of.

For 'department' in the sense of 'branch, division', Cassell's offers pars and genus. The former seems adequate for the departments of a government (as for those of a faculty). IacobusAmor 01:25, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

As a descriptive synonym they are OK, but I don't agree they are good translation since the departments are not mere divisions or parts. The english wiki lemma is "A department is a part of a larger organization with a specific responsibility". In the USA, each department is separately standing entity created by law, which sometimes fight each other on some issues, although they each report to the president and congress who serve to integrate their functions.

I would have thought that "ministerium" =("office/ministry/service") would be the most obvious general term; but we don't call them ministries in the US (department of defense versus a ministry of defense). I think the purpose of the separate term is that we do not think of the departments carrying out a service for the people, but as coherent parts of the executive office (executing laws or functions delegated by the congress).

Separately, the term department is also used for a kind of province in many latin american countries. We could try to render it as pagus, which is the best latin term in general, for a defined area of land with a government responsible for its administration. But I think the word "department" in this instance is emphasizing the fact that the admininistration is part of a larger coherent whole.--Rafaelgarcia 02:16, 20 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Constituta, Instituta

What's the difference between Categoria:Constituta and Categoria:Instituta? IacobusAmor 15:16, 21 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

"Constituta ..." followed by a date, is one of the all-embracing terms used in our annual categories (for the complete list of them see Categoria:Annales). It means "Things that were set up/established/founded in ..." Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:35, 21 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll go fix Concordia now. IacobusAmor 16:35, 21 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Small request

Hello! I am a Polish wikipedian and I would like to ask you for writing a new article about former Polish President who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 – Lech Wałęsa. I have looked for his article in your Wikipedia but without success. Polish Wikipedians will be grateful for your help. Thank you so much in advance! PS article in English you can find here. Best wishes from Poland, Patrol110 19:59, 21 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I would like to start this article. To anyone, everyone who would like to, please do expand and improve (specially my poor latin) the article Lechus Walesa.--Jondel 04:54, 22 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Bad bot

Xqbot wrongly removed the interwiki link en:Bombus Pensylvanicus from Bombus pensylvanicus (which is where the text came from in the first place!) and questionably added spaces around a header title (changing, e.g., "==Title==" to "== Title =="). The latter is a stylistic point on which the styleguide in :en: expresses no preference, but the spaceless form is more efficient. IacobusAmor 13:58, 25 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

This is a curious situation. That link doesn't seem to work, but if you go to the article en:Bombus, scroll down to a picture of Bombus pensylvanicus, and click on the link, you'll get to the article that supposedly doesn't exist (Bombus pensylvanicus). A mystery! (So on that point, maybe the bot itself isn't at fault.) IacobusAmor 14:02, 25 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Ah! It appears to be an example of upper-case & lower-case sensitivity! Perhaps that's something that the bad bot might be told about. IacobusAmor 14:03, 25 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

What is "True Cross" in Latin?

Can't find the page, so I have to ask here. I'm sorry if this is kind of stupid.
I personally regard it as "Vera Crux", but I'm not sure it is quite formal.Gesalbte 17:31, 25 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

"Vera Crux" is OK. See for example the brief quotation in Latin on this page: [10]. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:11, 25 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Ambassadors vs. consuls

How are these to be distinguished in Latin? (Apparently they're to be categorized indiscriminately together; see how Nathaniel Hawthorne, a U.S. consul but not a U.S. ambassador, has become categorized as a legatus Civitatum Foederatarum.) Similarly, embassies and consulates? ¶ To make the situation more interesting, representatives to the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress are being categorized as legati. IacobusAmor 18:38, 26 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Apparently the Vatican uses Consul for English "Consul" and Consulatus for Eng. "Consulate"; legatus for "ambassador" and legatio for "embassy". THE LRL also uses civium procurator as a synonym for consul, perhaps to avoid the clash in meanings, but the term doesn't make sense to me.

Certainly the members of the house of Rep. should be recategorized as Repraesentantes.

These suggestions seem OK to me, but Andrew will want to weigh in. I don't have a problem with using at least three definitions of consul: (1) an ancient Roman magistrate, (2) a magistrate of the French Republic from 1799 to 1804, (3) a foreign commercial agent of a modern government. A discretiva page will be in order. IacobusAmor 15:01, 27 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I agree with all of this, and the placing in "Legati Civ. Foed." was only meant as temporary until a better category exists. But I was doubtful whether we should use the term "consules", so familiar classically in a different sense, for the modern "consuls". I would have preferred a different word. The Vatican doesn't have this problem because they don't have to write about classical Rome. But what different word is there? Nescio. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:16, 27 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary blankspaces

Why does the UVbot insert a blank space between the "==" marks and the text of headings? Wikipedia's styleguide calls these blankspaces optional. Their absence makes for more efficient programming, no? Vide Novacula Guillelmi de Ockham: lex parsimonia! IacobusAmor 14:09, 27 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I find the spaces make the heading easier to read when editing: so I agree with UVbot on this point :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:16, 27 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I find the absence of spaces easier to read. So there! ¶ Likewise the absence of a blankline under headings. IacobusAmor 15:45, 27 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Andrew on this. Besides, blank spaces have scarcely anything to do with efficiency. --Neander 21:39, 27 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Is this preference for spaces perhaps a European thing? Compare other punctuation marks involving allegedly optional spacing:

1. This is a phrase—and this is a phrase.

2. This is a phrase — and this is a phrase.

3. This is a phrase – and this is a phrase.

4. This is a phrase - and this is a phrase.

To my eye and (if one may go by what one sees in professional resources) that of most other American academic editors, #1 is the norm, the standard, the most beautiful & "readable" typography (it's certainly the ordinary traditional typography, even in England); #2 and #3 don't look so good; and #4 is hideous. One suspects that our European friends, and maybe Americans who've never carefully examined the typography of elegantly printed books, will prefer #2 or #3. IacobusAmor 23:41, 27 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Yes, my continental European eye finds #2 best. So it seems to be the classical continental vs. Anglo-Saxon thing, compared to metric vs. imperial, decimal comma vs. decimal point, continental law vs. common law, milliard vs. billion etc. See en:Dash#Em_dash. Gabriel Svoboda 07:46, 28 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I like 2. I like metric, detest the decimal comma (though I would prefer an octal or duodecimal system), and have never heard of a milliard... --Ioscius ^(disp) 17:03, 28 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

I like #2 and #3, whereas #1 and #4, I find almost equally repellent. --Neander 21:23, 28 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

See Disputatio Usoris:UV/2008#Page format and Disputatio Usoris:IacobusAmor#Sectiones paginarum. Greetings, --UV 21:27, 27 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Mutatio nominis

Vorrei cambiare il mio nome utente, da Marcus XC a Markos90 (per avere l'account unificato). Come fare? --MarcusXC 11:08, 28 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Scrivi nella pagina del nostro vescovo.--Ioscius ^(disp) 17:01, 28 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Markos90 iam existit. Nonne ambo es? Adam Episcopus 17:52, 28 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Sum. Però vorrei avere solamente "Markos90". --MarcusXC 17:56, 28 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

Factum est! Adam Episcopus 02:01, 11 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Comitatus Angliae

Where English counties have a one-word name, perhaps their articles should begin with it, followed by their larger name, as in:

Lancastria, vel Comitatus Lancastriensis, est. . . .

That pattern would match the pattern seen in:

Viti, vel Insulae Vitienses, sive Insulae Fisienses, sunt. . . .

At the moment, "Lancastria" in the table of English counties redirects to Comitatus Lancastriensis, which begins:

Comitatus Lancastriensis est comitatus. . . . IacobusAmor 15:32, 29 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

The LocalisationUpdate extension has gone live

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Why localise at translatewiki.net

When you localise at translatewiki.net, your messages will be used in all Wikimedia projects and eventually in all MediaWiki based projects. This is how we provide the standard support for your language. When messages change, at translatewiki.net you will be prompted to revisit your translations. Localising is more efficient because we have innovated the process to make you more efficient; there is text explaining about messages and we have applied AJAX technology to reduce the number of clicks you have to make.

Translatewiki.net update

• Currently 76.16% of the MediaWiki messages and 7.90% of the messages of the extensions used by the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been localised. Please help us help your language by localising and proof reading at translatewiki.net. This is the recent localisation activity for your language. Thanks, GerardM 10:48, 30 Septembris 2009 (UTC)
• Currently 75.17% of the MediaWiki messages and 7.62% of the messages of the extensions used by the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been localised. Please help us help your language by localising and proof reading at translatewiki.net. This is the recent localisation activity for your language. Thanks, GerardM 12:48, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)
• Currently 75.03% of the MediaWiki messages and 8.08% of the messages of the extensions used by the Wikimedia Foundation projects have been localised. Please help us help your language by localising and proof reading at translatewiki.net. This is the recent localisation activity for your language. Thanks, GerardM 15:15, 7 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

• PS Please help us complete the most wanted messages..

How can we improve the usability for your language

We expect that with the implementation of LocalisationUpdate the usability of MediaWiki for your language will improve. We are now ready to look at other aspects of usability for your language as well. There are two questions we would like you to answer: Are there issues with the new functionality of the Usability Initiative Does MediaWiki support your language properly

The best way to answer the first question is to visit the translatewiki.net. Change the language to your language, select the “vector” skin and add the advanced tool bar in in the preferences and check out the new functionality. And make some changes in your user page. When there is a need to improve on the localisation, please make the necessary changess . It should update your localisation straight away. We would like you to report each issue individually at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability_issues.

When there are problems with the support of MediaWiki for your language, we really want to know about this. It is best to report each issue separately. In this way there will be no large mass of issues to resolve but we can address each issue on its own. Consider issues with the display of characters, the presentation of your script, the position of the side bar, the combination of text with other languages, scripts. It is best to try this in an environment like the prototype wiki as it provides you with a clean, basic and up to date environment. The prototype wiki is available for five languages but you can select any of them, change the preferences to your language and test out MediaWiki for your language.

We would like you to report each issue individually at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_issues. The issues you raise will all be assessed. It is important to keep each issue separate, because this will make it easier to understand the issues and find solutions.

PS This text has been approved by Naoko, Brion and Siebrand. Thanks, GerardM 10:48, 30 Septembris 2009 (UTC)

IRC channel for la.wikipedia.org?

Salvete! Is there any IRC channel where people from la.wikipedia.org can gather together? It would be nice to be able to talk to anyone here in real time. If not, can I suggest the creation of one official IRC channel for la.wikipedia.org, maybe in http://freenode.net/ and name #la.wikipedia.org (irc://irc.freenode.net/la.wikipedia.org)?

-- ah, just found this :) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_channels, which lists all the IRC channels associated with wikipedia; la.wikipedia.org is not listed there, but somehow a #wikipedia-la IRC channel already exists at irc://irc.freenode.net/wikipedia-la with a chanserv bot already set up to keep it. I'm going to hang in #wikipedia-la whenever I'm online, I hope to see you all! Cheers, Pyxis 22:11, 4 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we've ever used the IRC for discussions. We just usually discuss everything here.--Rafaelgarcia 02:15, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Translation for 'Coven'

I intend to work on a translation of the en.wikipedia pages - Coven, and Coven of the Far Flung Net ; but I am having difficulty with the term 'Coven'. Conventus from which Coven seems to be derived, is a very general term, used for any kind of meeting or convention. Would Conventus Wicciae be an acceptable modification? Jpb1301 23:12, 4 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Conventus "a coming together, a gathering" seems fine to me.--Rafaelgarcia 02:06, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

OK, Conventus and Coven both mean meeting. But Conventus lacks the specific meaning of a meeting of witches or wiccans, it could equally apply to a PTA meeting, or even an AA meeting. I can hardly title a page Conventus i.e. 'meeting', and then only describe a specific kind of meeting to do with neo-paganism; when the latin word has a much more general meaning. Jpb1301 03:14, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Secundum OED, nomen Anglicum coven de nomine Francogallico covent, cuvent, couvent deductum est, ipsum de nomine Latino convento (casu nominativo conventum) 'meeting, assembly, company'. Coven ergo = convent et covent (ergo Covent Garden Londinii). Merriam-Webster autem docet verbum de convenio (casu nominativo convenium) deductum esse. Definitio in en est "A [?] Coven or covan is a name used to describe a gathering of witches or in some cases vampires"; sed fortasse melius sit definitio in Merriam-Webster: "A coven is an assembly or band of usually thirteen witches." ¶ In general (as discussed elsewhere), articles should define things, not their names, so "Coven or covan is a name" is a bad start. If all our articles did this we might have, for example, an absurdity like: "William Shakespeare was the name given to the baby that grew up to become the most respected English playwright." IacobusAmor 13:15, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Conventus Wiccae or Conventus Wiccensis would be more specific title, of course. Wicca doesn't have an i in it. --Rafaelgarcia 13:34, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

If Shakespeare's name was unknown or supposed or quickly changed to something else and the difference was important then I could see a variety of alternative formulations. For example, making something up: "William Shakespeare is the name by which X is known, however in his time he was generally known as Xavier, which was especially important because by being so named he was made eligible to become king."

Yes, that's fine, as long as the word is the thing in play; but in maybe more than 99.9% of articles, the thing being defined is the thing itself, not its name. (All nouns are already names.) IacobusAmor 13:42, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Also, I've been using "vocatur" or "appellatur" to indicate names that are unrecognizably neolatin, borrowed, controversial or uncertain. --Rafaelgarcia 13:34, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

The obvious answer to our querist's question seems to be to start a disambiguation page Conventum and have it distinguish between what in English would be convent and coven, and then to write the article on the latter, perhaps Conventum veneficarum 'meeting of witches'. (You can have a coven of professors, you know, and of corncrakes, for that matter.) Shouldn't we already have an article on the former? and shouldn't there be an article on Wicca itself? IacobusAmor 13:42, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Yes we should have a page on Wicca, as well as on all other pagan religions (Magia).

I should point out however that Venefica is not a proper synonyn for witch. A Veneficus is a person who brews poisons (venenum). A veneficus in today's culture would be a person who sets up a meth lab in his basement, NOT a witch.

A witch in latin is called Magus or Maga according to his/her gender. Yes I am aware that certain latin dictionaries cite all sorts of terms for witches put they all express a specific medieval and/or bigotted view of them. I am also aware that Magus is also the term for Magician, Witch-doctor, pagan doctor, Zoroastrian priest and Wise-man.

It is true that many pagan witches did brew potions, which were intended as medicines and cures; some of the hallucinogenic ones were poisons if taken in excess or narcotically but they did not intentionally make poisons for their own sake unless they were bad witches (maleficus). --Rafaelgarcia 14:49, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

For the record: Cassell's defines 'witchcraft' as veneficium (the ordinary word), ars magica (the poetical word), and magice (Pliny's word). It defines 'witch' as venefica and saga : it defines the former as 'a sorceress, a witch', and the latter as 'a prophetess, fortune-teller'. It defines magus as 'a learned man among the Persians' (Cicero's word), and in a transferred sense, 'magician' (Ovid's word). In Old English, according to Merriam-Webster, wicca is masculine ('wizard'), and the feminine is wicce 'witch', whose first sense is 'one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers, especially a woman practicing usually black witchcraft[,] often with the aid of a devil or familiar'. IacobusAmor 15:24, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

It could be a problem for us that most attested terms will be pejorative. Note the title of the medieval Malleus maleficarum. It was assumed, there and elsewhere, that all witches were bad; and the people making those assumptions were the ones who wrote Latin. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:42, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Cassell's is evidently wrong about this. About the meaning of veneficium see also [11] and [12]--Rafaelgarcia 15:59, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

According to many sources, it seems conventus (not conventum) is the more common form of the word when meaning the abstract idea of "assembly whose attendees are drawn from many locations". According to "The Roman assemblies from their origin to the end of the Republic, By George Willis Botsford" Varro distinguishes: "Concilium est convocata multitudo, conventus ex diversis locis populum in unum contrahit, coetus fortitu congregatur." Later Willis also distinguishes contio as originally being any meeting whatever, but especially in Ciceronian times meant a nonvoting assembly for the purposes of listening (and sometimes the speech itself). Comitia were organized assemblies especially for voting (in general elections). Later apparently coetus took the place of contio as the general term for meetings of all kinds, from chance ones to planned ones, legal and/or illegal.--Rafaelgarcia 21:58, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I have drafted a disambiguation page at Usor:Jpb1301/experiri which I hope might be a starting point to addressing some of the above issues. I would be grateful for comments before it is posted as a new page. Jpb1301 02:36, 10 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

This disambiguation page is now posted at Coven Jpb1301 10:53, 12 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Returning to my original enquiry - would "conventus reticulum coniectus late" be a correct rendering of 'Coven of the Far-Flung Net'? Jpb1301 02:24, 21 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

To 'set' a net is ponere, but to 'fling' one may or may not typically have an association with a particular verb. According to Cassell's, the likeliest verb associated with a flung net may be tendere, and that might give you Conventus Retis Late Tenti. Or for late maybe longe? There's an idiom longe lateque 'far & wide'. IacobusAmor 03:27, 21 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Quarere

Estne anglica prima lingua omnium usorum? Is English the first language of everybody here? Another question I had was why do some article say e.g "Stephanus Speilberg" why have Stephanus if the english name is Steven? It's a lot like saying Nick son of Sergei Krushchev. - BennyK95 - Talk 23:44, October 4 2009 (UTC)

Since 200 years ago or so it is standard to translate first names when writing Latin. We are just following the standard practice.--Rafaelgarcia 02:08, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

The question might profitably be asked the other way round: since the Latin word Stephanus has the authority of precedent, having been in continuous use for many more centuries than the English word Stephen, why shouldn't English speakers abandon their newfangled form and revert to the Latin one? ;) IacobusAmor 13:35, 5 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Nomina chartarum

Salvete, Vos rogo, ut me adiuvetis: Nam incertus sum de nominibus Latinis colorum chartarum et ♦XXX et ♥Corda et ♠XXX et ♣XXX atque de nomine Latine reddendo chartae, quae alias superet. Eam adhuc chartam triumphantem appellavi, incertus an triumphus dicere secundum Latininitatem sit et in mente habens, quod similitudo verborum chartam istam appellantium inter linguas novas, ut Anglicam (trump) vel Theodiscam (Trumpf) vel alias, e lingua Latina exoriri potuerit. Iam gratias vobis ago. Monkeypoo 22:59, 6 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Morgan protulit Vivem, qui dixit in suo 'Ludus chartarum seu foliorum' dialogo, "chartae enim Hispanae, quem ad modum et Gallicae, in quatuor sunt genera seu familias divisae: Hispanae habent aureos nummos, carchesia, baculos, enses; Gallicae corda, rhombulos, trifolia, vomerculos seu palas seu spicula. est in quaquae familia rex, regina, eques, monas, dyas, trias, quaternio, pentas, senio, heptas, ogdoas, enneas, Gallicae habent etiam decades..."; "trump" vocavit "familia dominatrix." [13] —Mucius Tever 17:18, 7 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Gratias plurimas tibi ago, quod operam in istam fontem quaerendam dedisti.Monkeypoo 22:42, 7 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Categoria pro "Plants named for people" (ex en:)

We have categoria "Plantae de hominibus dictae," but that doesn't seem right. What's the best Latinity for the concept? ¶ Ditto for animals, if any. ¶ These could presumably be subcategories of a general category, covering all sorts of things named for people (buildings, diseases, processes, ships, things). IacobusAmor 12:42, 9 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

I'd say "Plantae ex hominibus appellatae". Or why not "Plantae ab hominibus appellatae" (despite a slight possibility of misconstrual due to constructional ambiguity). --Neander 14:28, 9 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Let's go with your first suggestion since it's unambiguous. Now how about plants named for mythological people, e.g. Narcissus? IacobusAmor 16:55, 9 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest something like "plantae ex hominibus nominatae" might be better. (exact, exact, exact). But apparently that category was deleted from en: a while ago; they didn't think it was a good idea (it's more suitable for a list entry than a category, since being named after a person doesn't really suggest any other characteristics held in common). —Mucius Tever 19:51, 9 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

That's possible, but I'll temporarily keep going with "Plantae ex hominibus appellatae," so we'll eventually have a better idea of how this list (index) is going to look. IacobusAmor 14:43, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps its an admission that I don't quite understand, but I would have thought that the required expression would be "plantae a nomine homininis nominatae" or perhaps "plantae homini nominatae"--Rafaelgarcia 23:31, 9 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

I haven't gotten to studying the usual constructions of 'nominare'; I only went with 'ex aliquo nominare' because exact listed three examples of it (e.g. 'amor ex quo amicitia est nominata'). —Mucius Tever 03:59, 10 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

"Recensere"

"Recensere" superscriptio minui non potest, quemadmodum in Italica Vicipaedia (superscriptio "modifica" - exemplum in hac pagina)? --MarcusXC 21:45, 9 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Modificare Latine dicit "limit/control"; quamquam Hispanice "modificar" dicit "mutare" (Anglice: to change). Recensere autem dicit Anglice "revise/review/edit".--Rafaelgarcia 00:49, 10 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Male intellexisti!:) Hoc dicere volo, superscritionem "recensere" (quae nunc dextra est) sinistrorsum transferre, quemadmodum in Italica Vicipaedia. --MarcusXC 09:26, 10 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Mihi ambo botona "recensere/modifica" sunt in eodem loco, ad sinistram "historiae". Forsitan aliter apparuit tibi quia aliquid instrumentum "gadget" adhibes? Idem videsne si ut usor anonymus paginam inspices?--24.183.186.151 20:46, 10 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Non "recensere" ad sinistram "historiae", sed "recensere" ad sinistram omnis partis tituli! --MarcusXC 21:29, 10 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Exempla: ad sinistram titulorum "Quarere", "Nomina chartarum", "Categoria pro "Plants named for people" (ex en:)" et ceterorum. --MarcusXC 21:31, 10 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Me paenitet, Marce. Dicis quidem de iusso "recensere" viso supra illas sectiones quas quaeque commentatio habet. De positione istius mihi nihil refert, et non obsto si alii eam mutare volunt. Nescio autem egomet quomodo positionem mutare. --Rafaelgarcia 22:32, 10 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Two taxobox problems

(1) For three commands,

unranked_divisio = Angiospermae

unranked_classis = Eudicotyledones

unranked_ordo = Asteridae,

the taxobox prints one, that of the Eudicotyledones. For examples, vide ordinem Gentianales, familiam Rubiaceas, genus Morindam, et speciem Morindam citrifoliam. (2) Verbum quod laeva in taxobox stat est verbum Anglicum unranked, non idoneum verbum Latinum (inordinat(a/us)? non ordinat(a/us)?). IacobusAmor 12:29, 14 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

I fixed them both! They were both very easy to fix. First, I just copy-and-pasted the most recent version of the en:template:taxobox into our template. This solved the first problem. Then I just went through the coding and translated the output text into Latin. I also began translating some other text ("Kingdom", "Order", etc.) and if you see any other English that needs fixed, feel free to fix it yourself or let me know if you are scared to touch the code. --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 05:03, 16 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Latinisation of Words

I’m currently trying to expand the topics on British Prime Ministers and politicians, and am first working on Gordon Brown. Thing is, I don’t know how to Latinify ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’.

Hanc paginam lege. --Markos90 17:47, 14 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

"Cancellarius de Scaccario" is given in several places on Google books, e.g. http://books.google.com/books?id=TmcIvUAIlHsC&pg=PA135 here]. —Mucius Tever 19:30, 14 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

And the better-quality "Cancellarius scaccarii" without the Romance-genitive 'de' appears, too. —Mucius Tever 19:32, 14 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

(Well, I say better. Maybe he really is meant to be the chancellor from the exchequer? I'm leftpondian.) —Mucius Tever 19:39, 14 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Thanks guys. —Veritaslux 19:48, 14 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Auxilium

Auxilium eget. Pie Jesu Anglica fitne? Gratias tibi ago.--Nathan M. Swan 00:15, 16 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Mihi nescio quid dicere vis...: Help lacks (something). Does he become English conscientious of Jesus?--Rafaelgarcia 00:24, 16 Octobris 2009 (UTC)c

I could be wrong but I believe he means "Auxilium requiro. Quid Pie Jesu est Anglice?". To which I would ask him "From where does this come, because Pie can mean a few things, but its probably "O Pious Jesus", as Jesus takes "Jesu" in the vocative genitive dative and ablative. Hope this helps, feel free to ask more! CeleritasSoni 01:19, 16 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

According to Cassell's, the basic sense of Latin pius is 'dutiful', and the basic senses of English pious are 'pius', 'religiosus', and 'sanctus'. IacobusAmor 03:37, 16 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

If you are wondering what I mean, I'm asking what it means. I am only just learning Latin. Thanks for all auxilio.--Nathan M. Swan 17:07, 16 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Of course, and Celeritas answers the question. But it isn't easy to translate this word pius (vocative pie). For more information you could look at the article en:Pie Jesu on the English Wikipedia. That article suggests at least four translations for pie Iesu domine, one of which is "kind Lord Jesus". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:17, 16 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Yes from the description of pius at LS ("that acts according to duty, dutiful; esp. that performs what is due to the gods and religion in general, to parrents, kindred, teachers, country; pious, devout, conscientious, affectionate, tender, kind, good, grateful, respectful, loyal, patriotic, etc. (of persons and things):") and the meaning of pietas ("dutiful conduct towards the gods, one's parents, relatives, benefactors, country, etc., sense of duty."), I surmise that the primary meaning of pius is "acting out of geniune concern/responsibility/duty for ones' own" and that this became expanded with secondary senses that relate to christian religion and to the general sense of goodness.--Rafaelgarcia 23:09, 16 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Care Nathan, phrasis "Pie Iesu, Domine, dona eis requiem" e missa defunctorum, de qua, ut conicio, hic agitur, optime reddenda est Anglice: "Gracious Lord Jesus, grant them rest". 82.36.89.155 08:58, 21 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Categoria:Species extinctae species

Haec categoria a taxobox ipsum generatur, sed quid est "species . . . species"? IacobusAmor 15:29, 17 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Programmers!

Nobis necesse est localizatio formulae "Paraphyletic group" in taxobox (vide Algam). Etiam, vide "Two taxobox problems" et "Categoria:Species extinctae species" supra. IacobusAmor 19:25, 17 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Word order in translated titles

In a title, ceteris paribus, should adjectives/genitives go before or after the noun? Cf. Lithii chloridum and Natrii Chloridum, but Dioxydum carbonis and Elementum chemicum. (Also, as you can see, the capitalization is very inconsistent. For chemical compounds, should the cation or the anion go first?) -- King of Hearts 02:10, 19 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

It all depends. Sometimes the order of such words varies freely, and sometimes it doesn't. (Here's an example of the latter situation: according to Cassell's, in humanum genus 'the human race', the adjective regularly goes first, but in gens humana 'the human race', the adjective regularly goes second.) Contributors discussed the names of chemicals here some time ago; perhaps one of the local archaeologists would like to do a little digging. IacobusAmor 02:47, 19 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

For chemical names, the rules of chemical nomenclature should be followed which requires the genetive to be placed first. See the links for the page on Basis (chemia). For capitalization of article titles, I believe the standard here is to capitalize only the first word and proper names. CHemical names are not proper names.--130.215.96.89 02:44, 19 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't know those chemical nomenclature rules. Yes, you've stated the rule on capitalization as we apply it: I have now moved Natrii Chloridum to Natrii chloridum to comply. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:37, 19 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Concerning chemical names see the discussion at Vicipaedia:Taberna/Tabularium 10#Nomina chemica: carbonatum (n.) aut carbonas (m.). --Fabullus 13:03, 19 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

32,000

Si recte numeravi, commentatio no. 32 000 est ‎Aemilius Portes Gil, ab amico anonymo creata. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:15, 21 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Political Vocabulary

There are a lot of political words that I don't know, and I was wondering if you could fill me in. The ones that I'd really like are: member, national, far-right and front. Thanks. -Veritaslux 17:51, 23 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Intendis rem scribere de Nicolao Griffin, annon? Suggero haec: "socius" (potius quam "membrum"), "ultradextralis" sive, fortasse, "ultradextristicus" et "frons". BNP reddendum est "Factio Britannica Nationalis" (sive, melius, cum sententiae eorum considerantur, "Nationalistica").82.36.89.155 18:00, 23 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Nationalis will be preferred. But can "gentius" (gens- genitive) be used instead? Estne potius?--Jondel 23:24, 21 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Note: the genitive of gens is gentis :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:12, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Nationalis might be unavoidable, but if Cassell's is to be believed, it isn't a Classical word; nor is gentius. The adjective genticus = 'belonging to a nation, national', but according to Cassell's, the Classical sense of natio is 'a tribe, race, people, esp. uncivilized'. ¶ For 'national', Cassell's says not to use an adjective at all, but to "render by genit. of word for 'nation', with or without addition of proprius (= peculiar to): the — cause, respublica; in the — interest, e republica." IacobusAmor 02:22, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Cassell's gives wrong advice about Natio; by "uncivilized" apparently is meant "not conquered by the Romans/not part of the empire"; e.g. among the nationes was Persia which had as advanced a government system as Rome and practically the only known "independent state" (in the modern sense) other than the Roman empire itself and China. A natio is a group of people related by common birth in culture, language, race and law: examples, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Jews. A gens is a clan, a set of families and individuals related by birth and sharing a common name or ancestry, but sharing in a wider culture in society: examples are the Julians, Cornellians, the Fabians. In the bible the non Jews are called Gentiles because they were distinguished by having a nomen Gentile (Genticilium) as their middle name such as Gaius Julius Caesar; Julius meant that Caesar belonged to the Caesar family branch of the Julian clan and his given name was Gaius. By contrast the Jews typically had only two names in the bible, the second of which either was the father's name or the place of birth. A civitas is a set of persons related by their participation or citizenship in a common government.--Rafaelgarcia 15:30, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Genticus took me by surprise, but you're right of course. It's a very rare word, though. It's worth noting the existence of gentilis, a commoner adjective from gens. But gentilis would be almost excessively appropriate in the present context: it was used from a Jewish point of view to mean "the other nations/peoples", "the gentiles". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:12, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that so many people use natio when civitas by your definition is meant; e.g. natio Germanica doesn't include Sorbs, civitas Germanica does, yet many people will use natio Germanica (in whatever language) even if they mean all German citizens (and their common civitas) regardless their etnicity. Which is why feel the necessity to avoid the technically clear, but in practice ambiguous word natio, and to use gens for the concept you suggest to be described as natio. Gabriel Svoboda 18:32, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for insights, Iacobus. I didn't notice there were so many other sections to political terms in this Taberna today (sections of dicio natio, etc)I am still digesting them. As I understand your response, use genitive of republica, ie republicae. Scibasne athirdway online dictionary?(nunc solum paginae)--Jondel 02:55, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Note: the genitive of respublica is reipublicae Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:12, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Does Cassell's give situational/contextual examples (like athirdway.com)? btw, I have Collin's, Langenscheidts and another green latin dictionary (forgot the name, ssh :( ) --Jondel 03:06, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Programmers iterum!

Yet another issue for those absent programmers: the formula "Formula:Clade" isn't printing right; vide commentarium Orchidaceae, quem ego novissime amplificavi. IacobusAmor 17:20, 24 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I misunderstand, but there isn't a page called "Formula:Clade". --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 21:45, 25 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

There! It seems that Formula:Clade isn't a meta-template (or whatever fancy word they use), so I copied the source and created our own template here on Vici (as you see, the link on my previous post is blue now). It looks like it's working on Orchidaceae! Hurray! --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 21:51, 25 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Yay! I invoke a round of applause! IacobusAmor 21:58, 25 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Vicipaedia commentario de Malaya caret?

Eum non invenio, nomine vel Malaia vel Malaya. Ubi est? IacobusAmor 19:11, 25 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Quem non invenis? Nonne commentarium est 'id'? [Scripsit usor ignotus.]

Inveni: Malaesia! IacobusAmor 14:10, 26 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Secundum Cassell's, commentarius est verbum masculinum. IacobusAmor 14:26, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Subcategoria categoriae "Plantarum utilium"

What would be apt terms for plants whose fibers are useful (coconut, cotton, linen, raffia, &c.)? Also, whose leaves are useful for actions other than eating (e.g., banana & breadfruit leaves used to wrap food, sugarcane & other leaves to make thatch, pandanus leaves to make mats)? Also, the bodies of whose fruits are useful for storing things in (coconut, for oil & water; calabash for almost anything, but often food; &c.)? Also, I suppose, branches & stems (fences, fishing-weirs, &c.)? So far, the subcategories here are Categoria:Flores and Categoria:Plantae medicinales. IacobusAmor 14:10, 26 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting question. (I wasn't sure incidentally whether Categoria:Flores belonged here or not: it all depends whether one considers beauty to be useful!) [[[Usor:Andrew Dalby|Andrew Dalby]] (disputatio) 15:32, 26 Octobris 2009 (UTC)]

It comes directly from en, where it has 193 (!) pages and five subcategories. The point (I guess) is that the listed flowers have an economic & social value ("beautiful" or not), just as the value of chemicals that some plants produce puts those plants in Categoria:Plantae medicinales. IacobusAmor 16:15, 26 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

I must stop using that word here! What I meant was, I wasn't sure whether Flores belonged as a subcategory of Plantae utiles. I inserted it there dubiously. But I'm glad you agree! Flowers are, in any case, useful to florists :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 16:37, 26 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that various subcategories can be devised, but they will never cover all eventualities (because people use plants in so many ways for so many purposes); thus certain pages will still remain in Categoria:Plantae utiles. My method (I mention this diffidently, knowing that your approach to categories starts in a different universe from mine!) would be (a) to add appropriate pages to Categoria:Plantae utiles while (b) considering what subgroups they seem to fall into; then (c) devise names for those subgroups. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:32, 26 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

That's a reasonable proposal. Do people have suggestions at least for the first example (plants with useful fibers), which seems to be the most clearcut of those listed above? IacobusAmor 16:15, 26 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

The commonest oblique-case uses of utilis seem to be dative of beneficiary and ablative of instrument. Unfortunately, dative and ablative are often identical in Latin, leading to potential ambiguity ... Anyway, as a start, Plantae fibris suis utiles or, unambiguously but less neatly, Plantae ob fibras suas utiles. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:29, 26 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Plural of virus?

I can't find a suitable source on how to write the plural or genitive of virus. The best I could discover is this quite interesting discussion here: http://web.archive.org/web/20040208152350/www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html
Does anyone here have more pointers to this topic? Gratia [Scriptor ignotus]

For Latin declesion as opposed to english, you may want to look at the discussion at our Disputatio:virus page.--24.183.186.151 00:39, 29 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Sicut vulgus, carbasus et pelagus. Unum virus, multa vira.

Non sequitur. Unum pelagus, multa pelage; una carbasus, multa carbasa, et vulgus iam indicat multos homines... —Mucius Tever 02:37, 31 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you guys just use Whitakers? Let's take the plural neutral:vire, vire, virorum,viris viris--Jondel 04:38, 31 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

I don't think 'virorum' and 'viris' are disputed (at least, outside of the camp that sees 'virus' as a mass noun like English 'slime', without a plural). But Whitakers doesn't support your view for the nom. and acc. Yeah, it lists vire as the plural of virus, but it also lists vira as the plural of virus, too! (I'm not a fan of Whitaker's in any case. It may be decent for parsing a word you come across, but not to look things up in; the author flat-out states on the front page that it uses prefixes and suffixes to generate results that would be nonsensical in Latin[14], and that the inflections are done programmatically and "There is no claim that the resulting arrangement is consonant with any grammarian's view of Latin, nor should it be examined from that viewpoint." [15]) —Mucius Tever 13:17, 31 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

sheesh, you're right! Both vire and vira are listed as plural neutral. --Jondel 23:30, 31 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

The second half of your question seems to have been ignored — the genitive of 'virus' is 'viri', no complications. (Well, there's no reason it'd be unusual for a second declension noun; some people debate whether the second declension is correct, but most dictionaries, I think, have it so.) —Mucius Tever 16:02, 31 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

Most dictionaries have "viri" as genitive - as you say - once the genitive "virus" is attested: copia virus (Amm. 18,4,4). Menge-Güthling (a latin-german dictionary) adds: klass. nur im nom. u. acc. sg. gebräuchlich (in classic times only nom. and acc. sg. used).--Utilo 15:44, 27 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Are 'san' and 'santa' in Latin names usual abbreviations for 'sanctus' and 'sancta'?

I found words like sanpetrinus, meaning from a german town called Sankt Peter and sangallensis from St. Gallen. Recently I read this sentence: "qui in Romana curia rotae auditor episcopatui praefuisse perhibetur vel Santamarianam et Monasterianam, ita inter illas comparatum est" I did not find further evidence for 'santa'. Maybe 'Santamariana' is only a Romanic place name, for the book is about medieval Raetia.

Do these only occure in latinized place names or could I write about 'Saint Peter' as 'San Petrus' aswell? It is a bit tricky to find it out if you don't happen to read it in a book.

Thank you /Caps Capsicaciolum 16:32, 31 Octobris 2009 (UTC)

A lot of people here would like to preserve classical latin, and thus use classical whenever possible. Thus even if it was written in latin, santamariana would be frowned upon, and the preferred form, would be Sancta Mariana. For the second question, that would be Sanctus Petrus.(I don't know about St. Gallen)--Jondel 00:23, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Yes.'san' (and santo )and 'santa' in Latin names are the usual abbreviations for 'sanctus' and 'sancta'.--Jondel 00:41, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

It's true that forms like "sangallensis" exist, and, if they are attested -- if you find them in a book! -- we can use them. But we would not invent new abbreviations of that kind. The Latin for St Peter is Sanctus Petrus. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:27, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Sangallensis is attested by many books and by texts on the internet. It is a standart form. :) Capsicaciolum 12:43, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

The monastery of St. Gall was an exceedingly important site for the copying & preserving of manuscripts. I'm pretty sure I've seen the adjectival form Sangallensis in print. IacobusAmor 14:48, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps shortening Sanctus to prefix San- maybe the standard formula when creating an adjective: Sanctus Gallus-->Sangallensis; Sanctus Petrus-->Sanpetrensis; Sanctus Franciscus-->Sanfranciscensis; these san+nameadj are all attested.--Rafaelgarcia 15:07, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Haec est difficultas quod saepe nomina locourum consistunt in duabus partibus, ut puta Novum Eboracum, attamen adiectiva ab eis derivata nomina unica esse debent, ex quo formae abbreviatae nonnunquam formantur

These forms, though, wouldn't be Latin formations per se — they'd be the Romance language forms, semi-translated. —Mucius Tever 17:44, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Why not?--Rafaelgarcia 17:46, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

I think Mucius is right. The form "San" = saint is typical of medieval languages, not of Latin per se. Yes, it's been adapted back into medieval Latin in many particular cases, e.g. Sangallensis, as we all agree. My view would be, that doesn't entitle us to invent new forms of the same kind. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:26, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Haec est difficultas quod saepe nomina locourum consistunt in duabus partibus, ut puta Novum Eboracum, attamen adiectiva ab eis derivata nomina unica esse debent, ex quo formae coniunctae formantur, nonnunquam parte prima abbreviata seu mutata, ut puta Neoeboracensis. Similiter Fanum Sancti Francisci > Sanfranciscensis.82.36.89.155 21:21, 1 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

I find Sanctus very long when it is used als some kind of prefix .62.47.255.117 16:07, 2 Novembris 2009 (UTC) (Sorry for my name, the -aci- is Langobardic Latin, Capsicaciolum)

Familia tree

What would "family tree", "start", and "end" be in Latin? I want to copy the template from English Wikipedia, but I don't know the latin equivalents of the english words. Help would be great.--Nathan M. Swan 19:23, 5 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Family tree is stemma (gen. stemmatis, n.); "start" = initium (gen. initii n.); "end" = finis (gen. finis m.). --Neander 14:11, 6 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

"melius notus ut X"

Would this phrase have made sense to Cicero? Would he have thought it meant 'better recognized, as is X'? What should be done with it? IacobusAmor 13:04, 6 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't look too Ciceronian, but grammatical generalisations are riskful. Could you give an example from a running text? Generally, though, the English semiprepositional "as" can't be translated as "ut". --Neander 14:21, 6 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

That example seems to have disappeared, but it has many brothers & sisters (which sound like Anglicisms to my ear):

magis notus ut: 25 commentarii, e.g.:

Franciscus Franco: Teodulus Franco y Bahamonde Salgado Pardo de Andrade, magis notus ut Franciscus Franco.

Henricus Dunant: Ioannes Henricus Dunant, magis notus ut Henricus Dunant.

Ricardus Broschi: "Frater eius fuit castratus theatri lyrici cantor Carolus Broschi, magis notus ut Farinelli."

magis nota ut: 4 commentarii, e.g.:

Ludovicus XV: "Ioanna Antonia Poisson magis nota ut Domina de Pompadour."

etiam notus ut: 14 commentarii, e.g.:

Cyrus II (rex Persarum): Cyrus II (Graece Κῦρος) etiam notus ut Cyrus Magnus.

etiam nota ut: 6 commentarii, e.g.:

Iucunda: Iucunda etiam nota ut Mona Lisa.

nota ut: 2 commentarii, e.g.:

Monterrey: Monterrey. . . . Quoque nota ut "Sultana Septentrionis" (La sultana del norte) propter regionibus circumdantibus magnam prioritatem, utque idem "Urbs Montum" (La Ciudad de las Montañas) ob montes plures qui in eam introeunt, est opulentum centrum negotiorum et mercaturarum. (?!)

notus ut: nonnulli commentarii, e.g.:

Iacobus Rubenstein: Iacobus Rubenstein notus ut Jack Ruby.

dictus ut: 2 commentarii, e.g.:

Verismus: "Musica, est dictus ut Verismo initiaverit" (?!).

antea nota ut: 1 commentarius:

Antananarivo: Antananarivo (antea nota ut Tananarive, vulgo etiam appellata Tana).

communiter appellatus ut: 1 commentarius:

Maung Maung (praeses): Doctor Maung Maung (sic communiter appellatus ut ab homonymis).

olim nota ut: 1 commentarius:

Tamil Nadu: "Huius civitatis caput est urbs Chennai (olim nota ut Madras)." IacobusAmor 15:09, 6 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

A good collection of cases in need of some retouching. I started from the beginning of the list but run out of motivation when attacking Monterrey... --Neander 17:23, 6 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Inveni in rete (quod non idem est quam supra): Notus ut in Plauti comoedia moechus. (Aulus Gellius.) --Alex1011 21:30, 6 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Profecto recte dixisti "Notus ut" ('bekannt wie') illud non idem valere ac loci supra allati ('bekannt als'), nam "ut" comparationem significat. § Ceterum miror, quo ex fonte locus ille Gellio ascriptus in rete irrepserit — scimus omnia et vera et falsa ut fulmen velociter in rete multiplicari! — nam in Noctibus Atticis 1.7.3 videmus Gellium haec scribere: "neque dubitabant, quin liber emendandus esset, ne, ut in Plauti comoedia moechus ... ita in Ciceronis oratione soloecismus esset «manifestarius»." Dicit igitur soloecismum Ciceronis aeque manifestum vel, ut dicit Plautus, «manifestarium» (id est: "in actu captum") videri ac moechum illum «manifestarium» apud Bacchides 918. --Neander 00:09, 7 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Latinitas?

The Categoria:Universitates secundum civitates digesti needs moving, because "digesti" is in the wrong gender. But what about the phrase? "... secundum civitates digestae" is the form that I used to use to create supercategories of this type: Iacobus now uses the form "... civitate digestae". Neater, I admit. Should we prefer it? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:10, 10 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

I'm conceiving it as an example of the (bare) Ablative of Respect, as in non tota re, sed temporibus errasti 'You were wrong, not with regard to the whole business, but with regard to your dates' (Cicero); also uno oculo captus 'blind in one eye', umero saucius 'wounded in the shoulder', maior natu 'older in age', Cicero nomine 'Cicero by name', etc. Since forms with the bare ablative are the most succinct, I'd suggest that they be preferred (if they're idiomatic). ¶ Also, according to Cassell's, 'in accordance with' can be rendered with ex, de, pro + abl. and secundum ad (not just secundum) + acc.; but under secundum it does have an example of secundum without ad, in secundum naturam vivere (used by Cicero, Caesar, and Livy). IacobusAmor 14:54, 11 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Fine, thanks. The ablative is neater, as I said; evidently it's well-supported. Let's adopt it as standard. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:17, 11 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

De barbarismo in Pagina prima

Nescio et scire nolo quis "Henricem" in sectione Scin-tu scripsit sed propterea anathema sit ! Nescio autem quomodo iste barbarismus deleri potest. Itaque gratissimus erga tam necessariae emendationis auctorem ero. ThbdGrrd 13:26, 11 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Feci! mea culpa. Semper potes barbarismos mutare apud paginam formulae. Etiam potes quaestiones novas suadere apud disputationem.--Xaverius 13:39, 11 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

De nominibus paginarum quae species biologicas tractant

Confer et amabo te da opinionem tuam apud disputationem de nominibus paginarum quae species biologicas tractant, quae disputat an moveantur paginae nominibus vulgaribus intitulatae ad nomina biologica.--Rafaelgarcia 20:31, 11 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Liber nomine "Kauderwelsch - Modernes Latein für unterwegs"

Salvete! This question is chiefly for people from the German-speaking lands. Although I've never studied Latin scolastically, I bought the book mentioned aboved from the Kauderwelsch series (vol. 174). Just as the title "modernes Latein" suggests, it contains a lot of words to describe rather modern concepts, such as telephony, computers and the internet. Reading your article on computers and the corresponding discussion, I got reminded of this little book and the "problem" I had with the translations contained. When I first browsed it, I found a few translation I've never seen before (e.g. hard disk) and searched for them on the internet. I was mildly surprised that quite a few of their terms only yielded little or no results in search engines, others are completely different from what I found here in Vici (can't give exmaples now, it was quite a while ago). I would like people who know this book to tell me their opinions and experiences. Can I trust the terminology used in it or did the authors just make up terms they couldn't find? --Kazu89 22:23, 11 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, the book's terminology isn't trustworthy at all. I suppose you are able to understand a German text, so I put here part of a review from amazon.de: ... allerdings halten allzu viele begriffe dieses sogenannten "modernen " lateins einer genaueren überprüfung nicht stand. so wird beispielsweise "supermarkt" mit "supervenalicium" wiedergegeben,was kein römer verstanden hätte, denn "venalicium" bedeutet eben nicht "markt", sondern "handelszoll". darüber hinaus haben die autorinnen leider auch immer wieder probleme mit der morphologie (z.b. cum conexione internationale ,statt internationali) und auch mit der syntax (z.b. telephonarem statt telephonare velim für"ich möchte telephonieren"). fehler dieser art finden sich leider nicht vereinzelt,sondern nahezu auf jeder doppelseite. warum etwa "guten appetit" "bene commende" heißen soll,bleibt ein geheimnis der autorinnen. ebenso, welchen nutzen die der deutschen übersetzung vorangestellte wort-für-wort-wiedergabe haben soll, wenn es z.b. heißt "hervorfließen frauen monate fließen habe" für: "ich habe meine tage". resumée: dem zweifellos vorhandenen engagement der autorinnen stehen doch recht zahlreiche sprachliche mängel gegenüber, sodaß sich ein recht zwiespältiger gesamteindruck ergibt. --Utilo 15:21, 27 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Vicipaedia forever

Dementia valde magna est elogium "Vicipaedia forever" istud. Nominatur-ne illa lingua Englatina? Quis transmisit merdam istam?--Henriculus 20:11, 15 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Si vis hunc nuntium meliorare, amabo te i ad [16]. Ecce nexus ibi super ad versionem veterem anni 2008.--Rafaelgarcia 20:20, 15 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

See [17]. Please comment if you disagree with what I said.--Rafaelgarcia 01:58, 16 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't quite have said what you did -- being aware that some policymakers argue there's no point in having wikis in secondary/classical languages on the grounds that everyone speaks at least one other, so it doesn't increase the total availability of the Wikipedias. I admit, of course, that there's much truth in your comment, though I guess we shouldn't assume that because most of us active editors speak English quite well, all the readers of our pages speak it too. Anyway, I think that Vicipaedia -- in aeternum is much more suitable, so thanks to whoever changed it. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:02, 16 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Nunc paene omnia Latine reddita sunt, quae hic poscuntur. Restat, ut fine facto ultimá limá poliantur. --Neander 01:10, 17 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Nunc omnia Latine reddidi. Sed nescio, quomodo in publicum proferatur. --Neander 14:23, 17 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Macte Neander, Pro te rogavi Chris Brown apud Mediawiki ut ea omnia in publicum proferantur.--Rafaelgarcia 15:56, 17 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Gratias ago. Nunc autem nescio, quid intersit inter statús "published" et "ready". Translatio Latina, prout vidi, "ready" est, non autem "published". Fortasse nihil interest? --Neander 13:42, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Neander, nescio quid, sed timeo fortasse culpam meam fuisse quia illi Chris dixi non necesse esse paginam donationis Latine reddere, eo consilio ut novae translationes titulorum celere monstrentur. Fortasse iterum debeo Chris petere ut eae communicentur....

Si peteam, credo autem morem eius esse novas translationes miscere cum veteribus anni 2008. Confer illas hic [18] ; ibi errata nonnulla manent hodie, sicut "cursum publicum" loco "cursus publicus" et quoque sunt differentes translationes ab eis quas hodie habemus, e.g. invenitur ibi "tabella creditaria" loco quam hodie habemus "charta creditaria". --Rafaelgarcia 14:52, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Non nego mihi parum liquere, cur Chrisio illi visum sit prioris anni paginá uti, quamquam novam huius anni paginam nobis dedit Latine reddendam. Frustrane oleum et operam perdidimus? --Neander 20:34, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Me paenitet Neander. Translationes tuas non perdemus. Nunc enim rogabo eum cur omnibus novis translationibus non utitur.--Rafaelgarcia 22:55, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Omnes translationes nunc ostentantur! Optime videtur. Ecce explanationem Chrisii hic--Rafaelgarcia 14:23, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Rafael, grates tibi ago quam MAXIMAS!!! Ipse quoque rem egissem, nisi tam incertus essem grapheocraticarum rerum, quomodo rite & recte habendae sint. --Neander 17:24, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

"Vicipaedia patet cum tibi ea opus est — nunc ea te requirit." nunc bene videtur! Sed quomodo quiscumque fecit transmissam rectam? Antequam reprehedi elogium latinum, volueram transmissam facere in Vicipaediam Sygeltram, sed non inveneram paginam transmissa ubi facienda est. Nunc ibi aliquis fecit transmissarum unam. Adhuc nonnullae res faciendae sunt nihilominus... --Henriculus 14:07, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Hendricule, quid? Nescio quid significas cum transmissa dicis. (=Anglice crossing/passage/sending across!? What?)

"transmittere" est Anglice "translate", ergo "transmissa" Anglice "translation". Num verbum falsum est? Concedere debeo: Non saepe linguam latinam scribo.--Henriculus 16:33, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Minime credo hoc rectum esse quia numquam vidi "translate" in "transmittere" versum. In quo lexico id invenisti? Saepissime translation versum est Latine translatio. Latine autem translate redditum est reddere, transferre, interpretari, vertere. Omnia haec verba sunt ubi homo creat rem novam. Sed qui transmittit nullum novum creat, solum id quod alius creat mittit trans. --Rafaelgarcia 17:58, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Secundum Cassell's, Anglicum 'translate' est (con)vertere, transferre, reddere, et interpretari; e.g., 'to translate from Greek into Latin' est e Graeco in Latinum (con)vertere et e Graeco Latine reddere. Verbum transmittere Anglice significat 'send across, send over, convey across, pass through, transmit'. IacobusAmor 18:28, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

De nominibus institutionum

An recte dixi apud Disputatio:National Gallery (Londinium) nos nullam regulam de nominibus institutionum habere? Nunc enim Helveticus Montanus (ut credo) pinacothecas et "orchestras" sub nominibus vernacularibus describit, ego autem et Hendricus academias, bibliothecas, musea et societates eruditas sub nominibus Latinis. Quid melius? An debemus regulam in pagina VP:TNP exprimere? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:39, 18 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Credo melius esse haec nomina Latine reddere, sed mea sententia licet qui quomodo reddere non scit dare nomen lingua originali.--Rafaelgarcia 13:00, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki categorical incompatibilities

I started climbing the category tree beginning with those in Ne falsum quidem, working from the plan given in other main wikis, but incompatibilities arose. Is this branch of knowledge an area that hasn't been thought out (and therefore categorized to any respectable degree of thoroughness)? Or has Vicipaedia (perhaps long ago) actually chosen to make itself incompatible with the major wikis? (Details of today's attempt could perhaps be improved; maybe for termini scientifici a phrase like lexica scientifica would be better, or maybe the singular would have been, as in en:Category:Scientific terminology, but those niceties are beside the point being made here. Also, I see that Vicipaedia has a category for languages, but none for language—a different concept, coordinating a different set of articles.) A little work uncovers a big mess. This tree-making enterprise closely resembles the biological problem of cladistics. Clades are often shown as genealogies, where the descent is obvious at a glance. (See, for example, the small chart in Pandanales.) That style of presentation might be useful as a point of reference. Accordingly, would someone like to prepare an article showing the clades of Vicipaedia's major established categories? In their absence, one gets trapped in excessive clicking and back-&-forthing, and then the branches of the tree have to be held in memory, rather than seen on a screen. IacobusAmor 14:49, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Personally I think starting from classifications in other languages is a waste of time (but then, as you know, I'm a Whorfian). So far as I know, others up to now, like myself, have generally aimed to categorize the pages we have in our language, without close assimilation to other languages -- and I think that's mostly what people do on other wikis too. Hence the other wikis aren't, as you are perhaps assuming, all similar to one another. English, German, French, Italian wiki categories are all quite distinct in their structure. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:31, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Vicipaedia apparently didn't have a category for "Philosophy of science." Forty wikis did. That level of interwiki agreement should tell us something. That's all's I'm sayin'! IacobusAmor 15:39, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Since you seem to be trying to make a point, I'll reply to it as I understand it. Vicipaedia is about 40th to 50th, depending on criteria, among the wikipedias. Hence it is perfectly logical that 40 wikipedias should have had a category of this kind and that Vicipaedia, until now, didn't. What a good idea of yours to create it now :)

But look, Iacobe, you and I are in different universes when thinking about categories. I'm concentrating on better pages now. It's all yours! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 16:01, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

I must add that you've transformed (and in the best possible way) our botanical categories. Linnaeus redivivus! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:21, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but now I've taken a look at the zoological categories, and they're in a worse mess than the botanical categories were, their creators often having ignored or mistaken or contradicted the commonest Linnaean conventions. I've started with one of the genera of the dolphins, but the whole zoological system is suspect. IacobusAmor 15:48, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Since the whole wiki project is an extremely collaborative project, don't you think we should have more dialogue between wikis, aiming for better interwikis links and intercompatibility? I know that no such dialogue really exists now, but I think it would be a good idea. There is no reason why every language should be on its own island, cut-off from the rest of wiki! But, where would I propose something like this? --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 23:20, 17 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

There is or was a project to create a metawiki which would operate the interwiki links separately. In the long run something of the kind may be necessary -- imagine the terrifying number of interwiki links when all 275 languages (or more) have as many articles as the English Wikipedia has! I read it up a couple of years ago: at that time my impression was that it was bogged in dispute on whether to pivot everything on English or not. I expect it still exists; maybe someone else can remember what it was called ...

But as for categories, I know of no such discussion. Each language evidently developed their own at quite an early stage. The result is that categories are fairly often matchable across wikis at the most detailed levels, but never wholly, and sometimes have different structures and different nodes at the more abstract levels. Sometimes interwiki links can be made, sometimes not. As a linguist I find this natural and satisfying -- it's just what one would predict -- but I know that others disagree! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:20, 18 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

The tree structures you want are already available ... Go to any supercategory, e.g. Categoria:Scientia humana. Look at the subcategories: each has a [+] symbol to its left. Click on the +. A tree structure of subcategories will begin to appear. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:31, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

The + shows just one level down. I want the whole tree, or as much as will fit on the screen in small type, say at least six generations. IacobusAmor 15:36, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Each of the subcategories you see has the same symbol. Click on it. Continue to do this as required. Eurekas! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:44, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Still not what I was hoping for, as it takes dozens of clicks to generate not half of certain trees. I want to see all clades at many levels, but that kind of depiction must so far be infeasible. IacobusAmor 15:51, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

There's also Specialis:Categoriarum arbor (Categoria:Omnia). --Amphitrite 16:02, 20 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'd forgotten that! And still another one I have just found is this. It looks helpful but somewhat out-of-date, based on an older dump of the data. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 21:00, 17 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

It is possible to display fully open category trees to a maximum depth of two at this wikipedia. Any deeper requires a system admin to increase a limit in LocalSettings.php. I have ported Formula:Category tree all from the English wikipedia. Sorry for the non-Latin name, Categoriarum arbor omnia? See the Formula page for documentation and Disputatio Categoriae:Scientia humana for some example uses. -84user 08:50, 16 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

That looks very useful. Unluckily, admin though I am, I don't know about LocalSettings.php. I expect someone will turn up who does ... Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:58, 17 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

To modify that file I believe you have to be a steward not just an admin.--Rafaelgarcia 13:12, 18 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Wikitranslation

I pass this translation request from Wiktionary on to this page, because I do not understand fully the background. Maybe someone of our English speakers / wikipedia technicians can help:

"Hi, could you verify this translation wikt:en:User_talk:EncycloPetey#WiktLookUp_on_LA? It will be really helpfull. Regards, Otourly 20:18, 21 Novembris 2009 (UTC)"

--Alex1011 23:15, 21 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Online dictionary-athirdway

I just want to share this, maybe some of you know this: http://athirdway.com/glossa/?s=gens

It is really good. --Jondel 02:45, 22 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Cogitatum de ordine verborum

While it is not technically incorrect to put a latin sentence in SVO format. It is more common in Latin prose (which is what Vicipaedia should be striving to be) to put sentences in SOV (e.g. Ego eam amavi) and just generally move to putting the verb at the end of sentences. [ Usor:Iudaeus ]

Equidem miror, quantá peritiá litterarum hoc iudicium feceris. Si enim nihil nisi libros a Caesare scriptos pervolutamus, ita ut dicis res se habere sane videtur. Sin autem Tullium legimus, extemplo videmus, quam libero verborum ordine suam construat orationem. --Neander 15:22, 23 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

This information about Tullium mihi vehementer utilis est! --Jondel 00:32, 17 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

The only sacred principle is that the EMPHATIC positions are the beginning and end of the sentence; for this reason SOV is the usual order because it is the SUBJECT and his ACTIONS that are emphasized in any sentence by default. When these emphases are not appropriate, deviate from the order. For example, a frequent exception is when using esse as a linking verb (not in the sense of existing but only as a way of predicating an adjective A of the subject or identifying another noun N with the subject); in such cases what is emphatic is the subject and the adjective/noun identified, and the verb is an afterthought: then the usual order is SVA or SVN.--24.183.186.151 02:04, 17 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Hac lingua tironis sum. I apologize when I don't follow the SOV. It is good to follow and support a standard, else things could become too chaotic. It is also good to know that, SOV order is recommended when there is no special reason not to. As in the above, when there is need to use the linking verb or the emphasis is different (or when using 'est' (S est 'Adjective clause') as recommended by IacobusAmor)) then we deviate from SOV . Byt the way, in Japanese, SOV is followed.--Jondel 02:51, 17 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Verbum "Mughal" in Latina

Salvete,

Quomodo est verbum "Mughal" in Latina? Gratias vobis ago. Sahmeditor 03:59, 23 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Mogoles vocabantur. "Mogoles, Gallis les Mogols, populi Asiae, qui ex Tartaria Meridionali profecti, maximam partem Indiae intra Gangem sui iuris fecerunt, versus Boream, sub initium seculi praeteriti." Hofmannus, Lexicon Universale —12:11, 23 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Grates Ago Vicipaedianis

Cras die grates agendi Americano adventuro, volo grates omnibus Vicipaedianis agere ob omne hic discitum et disciturum.--Rafaelgarcia 18:42, 25 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

'Grates' solum Deitati agi possunt - nobis mortalibus tamen 'gratiae' agendae sunt.

Me paenitet te non inter deos Vicipaediae numerari. :)--Rafaelgarcia 21:40, 29 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Et tuis gratias meas gratiis ago et meae novi divinitati. =] Reddo sententiam. --Ioscius ^(disp) 13:32, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

No. 33,000

Credo paginam Iecur Placentinum, a me hodie inceptam, n. 33,000 Vicipaediae fuisse. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 21:37, 25 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

De nomine sanctorum

Salvete, I'm rather new here, but I would like to be of some use to the Latin Vicipaedia. My (first) question (here): Is there already a standardised form for the names of the saints? In Vicipaedia I find for example: Augustinus, Mauritius, Polycarpus Smyrnaeus, Sanctus Stephanus, Sanctus Cyprianus, Benedictus de Nursia. But there are often more than one of a name, so I’d suggest: Benedictus de Nursia, Benedictus Anianensis, Benedictus Biscop, Benedictus Josephus Labre, Augustinus Hipponensis, Augustinus Cantuariensis, Augustinus von Galen, Mauritius (Sanctus), Polycarpus Smyrnaeus, Stephanus (Protomartyr), Stephanus I (Rex Hungariae), Cyprianus (Sanctus) and so on.--Utilo 20:42, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Karlmann latinizatus?

I would like to point out another ambiguity: In Vicipaedia Latina there are at least two spellings for the German name “Karlmann”: Carolomanus and Carlomanus. Besides, I can’t see why writing the name with one “n” should be better than writing it with “nn” (basis ist the German “Mann”). Google shows the following results: Carolomanus 342, Carolomannus 3240 (seems to be the more educated neolatin "baroque" version),Carlomanus 854,Carlomannus 2540 (seems to be older version: Regesta!). There are at least 6 Karlmanns to be distinguished, the spelling should be clear before (The following from the German Wikipedia): Karlmann (von Landen-Austrasien,† 615), Karlmann (Karolinger, 714–754), Karlmann I. (751–771), Karlmann (Ostfrankenreich, 876–880), Karlmann (Frankreich, 879–884), Karlmann, der dritte Sohn Karls des Großen wurde noch zu Lebzeiten in Pippin umbenannt.--Utilo 20:48, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Have you taken into account that each of those different people may have spelled their Latin names differently? For example, there are many Iohannes and Ioannes; they both translate to John, but for each person we use the name that is attested for them in the literature, and preferring the spelling that they themselves preferred. The standard is to find the person's Latin name as attested in the literature.--Rafaelgarcia 21:14, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

You won't have a chance to find out the spelling they themselves preferred: In manuscripts you'll find all these forms and probably some more of them (in the French area by trend with one "n", in German areas with two ones, sometimes beginning with "C", sometimes with "K": Later historians wrote according to their education: Renaissance and Baroque writers tended to "latinize" the names, modern historians are trained to render the exact form they find in a manuscript. For my hometown Kremsmünster you'll find many medieval variants like Chrembsmunster, Chremimonasteriensis or Cremsmustuorensis vicus and so on. Since about 1600 it's called Cremifanum (of course a very artificial or let's say learned "new" form) and not a single person has written since the "original" Chrembsmunster in a Latin text. Maybe the Karlmanns preferred "Karlmann", but even if you found it in Latin manuscripts it were of no prove at all.--Utilo 21:53, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

One rather old example for the K-spelling: "Karlmannus vero regnum illius nullo resistente ingressus cunctas civitates et castella in deditionem accepit; et ordinato regno atque per suos dispositio ditatusque gaza regia revertitur." Annales Fuldenses, p. 70.

Before modern times there are normally many writings and forms with equal rights among them and no fixed spelling; that is why libraries and encyclopaedias use standardised forms. Confer Saint Bernhard: The standardised form in libraries is Bernardus <Claraevallensis>, other forms found are e.g.: Bernardus <Abbas>, Bernardus <Burgundus>,Bernardus <de Cistercio>,Bernardus <Divus>, Bernardus <Mellifluus>, Bernardus <Sanctus>, Bernardus <Claraevallis>, Bernhardus <Abbas> etc. - which one is the right one? --Utilo 22:13, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Once more: I've just found the librarian standardised form for Karlmann II (king of France, 866-84); Felix Grat published in 1978 the "Recueil des actes de Louis II le Bègue, Louis III et Carloman II, rois de France"; Carloman II is put there as Karlmann <Frankreich, König II>, being a "German" king, his Latin name as "Carolomannus".--Utilo 22:39, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Hoffmannus noster Carlomannus dat, sed certe permultae versiones possibiles sunt!--Xaverius 23:30, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Einhardus in Vita Karoli Magni scribit 'Karlomannus'. --Fabullus 08:37, 1 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Orthographiam Hoffmanni secutus novam paginam discretivam "Carlomannus (discretive)" scripsi. Administratores, quaeso, paginas "Carlomanus (rex Franciae)" et "Carolomanus I" illic referant.--Utilo 21:27, 1 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

sunt qui Sinicum colunt...

Scitne quis quid significent figurae Sinicae 西 et 菊? Fortasse tantummodo "masculinum" et "femeninum? Gratias agam ei qui casu sciat. --Ioscius ^(disp) 23:24, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Graecus Sinicus est, non legitur (heheheh). Iosci, mirabilis est voluntas tua ad linguas discendo--Xaverius 23:32, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Noli mirari hoc in momento, Xaveri. =] Nullo modo colo Sinicum, tantum peto significationes ad hunc locum melius intelligendum. --Ioscius ^(disp) 23:40, 30 Novembris 2009 (UTC)

Primum est occidens (west). Secundum est Chrysantheum. Legere possum.--Jondel 01:32, 1 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Esne certus? Nihil scio de figuris Sinicis, sed cum aliis figuris, hae significant masculinam (plantam) et femininam (plantam)... --Ioscius ^(disp) 14:27, 1 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Vide quod inveni:[19] et [20] --Rafaelgarcia 14:46, 1 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Aha. Jondel noster recte dixit. Gratias ambobus!--Ioscius ^(disp) 15:23, 1 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

De Dreguro nostro

Following up what I first noticed at Romae exordium and what was commented afterwards in its disputatio page, it seems that Drengur has been creating articles copying and pasting info from other Latin-written texts, mainly from De viris illustribus urbis Romae (1779). Well over 50 pages of his have been created in such a way. I'm not sure if some of these should be deleted, but all should be corrected and wikified, and most need to quote the source. Most texts, as Iacobus has noted in Romae exodium, take myth as a fact. --Xaverius 10:50, 2 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

This I notice seems to be expanding to most of our articles on Greek history (historia Graeca, Graecia Archaica, Graecia Antiqua)--Xaverius 10:56, 2 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Actiaca Pugna Aeschylus Alcibiades Aristides Bellum Peloponnesiacum Aulus Posthumius Dictator Caius Fabricius Caius Licinius Stolo Caius Marcius Coriolanus Caius Marius Caius Popilius Laenas Cineas Claelia virgo Claudius Nero et Marcus Livius Salinator Demosthenes Diogenes Cynicus Epaminondas Fabii Trecenti Sex Hercules Historia Athenarum Historia Spartae Horatius Cocles Iason Ilias Iunius Brutus Lucius Lucullus

Lucius Mummius Achaicus Lucius Papirius Cursor Lucius Paulus Aemilius Macedonicus Lucius Scipio Asiaticus Lucius Virginius Centurio Lycurgus Manius Curius Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Marcus Cato Uticensis Marcus Claudius Marcellus Marcus Livius Drusus M. Porcius Cato maior Menenius Agrippa Miltiades Mucius Scaevola Olympia (certamina) Perseus Persicum bellum Pericles Philippus II (Macedonum rex) Philopoemen Pompeius Porus Primum Civile Bellum Prometheus Publius Decius Publius

Publius Rutilius Rufus Publius Scipio Aemilianus Publius Scipio Nasica Publius Valerius Laevinus Publius Valerius Publicola Pyrrhus Epirotes Quintus Metellus Macedonicus Quintus Metellus Numidicus Quintus Metullus Numidicus Quintus Sertorius Romae exordium Secundum Civile Bellum Spurius Posthumius Sulla Tertium Bellum Punicum Thebae Themistocles Tiberius Gracchus et Caius Gracchus Titus Manlius Torquatus Titus Quinctius Faminius Triumphus Troia Valerius Corvinus Vestalis virgo Xenophon Xerxes

This list is very useful! Drengur stopped work in December 2005, so all this happened a long time ago. At that time there were very few active contributors able to write Latin, and this was, I guess, seen as a way to develop Vicipaedia without trouble. The problem is, the Abbé Lhomond was not writing an encyclopaedia and of course knew nothing of modern historical research. So the articles are quite inappropriate, and remain so even after much work has been put into them (as with Pericles, which still reads like a saint's life). The proper thing, rather than delete them, would probably be to reduce them to stubs from which one can start again properly. That's my suggestion, anyway. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:46, 2 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Nomen Vichipaedia

In italicus (neolatinus idiomus) "Wikipedia" VicHipaedia dicta est, idem ispanicus atque portugueisis. Sic, ponere H debemus!

Vicipaediam scribimus Latine non lingua Italiana. Modos pronuntiatus classicos praeferimus. Vale--Rafaelgarcia 21:54, 3 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Linguam neolatinam appellamus linguam Latinam hodiernam quamquam linguam Italianam, Hispanicam, etc. appellamus Romanicas.--Rafaelgarcia 22:07, 3 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

At inter latinis elementis ("litteris") K quoque invenimus, sicut in latinissimo verbo Kalendae. Optuma mihi videtur electio scripturae "VIKIPAEDIA", praesertim quia lectio traditionalis in Italia (alibique) sonum litterae C ante vocali I mutat, quod efficit ut vocabulum "VICIPAEDIA" scriptum non bene legatur. --Vermondo 14:26, 4 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Nego nos debere pronuntiare "Vicipaedia" ut "Wikipedia" Anglice. Cur? Da rationem tuam cur. Et dic cur pronuntiatum classicum non licet nobis praeferre in encyclopaedia dicata ad mores classicos!--130.215.96.89 14:31, 4 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Classicum quidem praeferimus morem (Vicipaedia = /wikipaedia/), sed probe etiam dicit Vermondo: litteram c Italos decipere (aut eos se fortasse decipere!). IacobusAmor 14:45, 4 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Humiliter opinor VIKI kappaticum optumum esse, non solum, sicut supra dixi, quia hoc modo omnia problemata dictionis solvi possent, verum etiam quia pars prior verbi, idest "VICI" verbum alium indicare videtur (vicus id est "pagus") quasi haec nostra encyclopaedia "rustica (non urbana)" esset. Animadverto autem sero nos hodie de hac re disputare, cum iam permultae paginae hoc nomine usae sint. Quare censeo potius esse nos articulos scribere quam hanc vanam disputationem longius agere. --Vermondo 19:58, 4 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Vici-paedia suo modo est idoneum nomen quatenus "vicum" indicat, ut dicis, et vicus itelligi potest "communitas", ideo "vicipaedia" = "eruditio communitatis" (quamquam vocabulum horribile est Graecolatinae commixtionis!)82.36.89.155 22:11, 4 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Cur semper debemus de his nugis disputare. Hic habemus Vicipaediam, quae est encyclopaedia fere 7 annos. Non habuimus vikipaediam, nec eam habebimus. Cur semper debemus eundem equum mortuum verberare? Si quis vult pronuntiare vicipaedia modo ecclesiastico (vel modo Italica, si vis esse tam superbus), intellegeturne? Procul omne dubio. Deinde rem relinquas, quaeso, quia haec disputatio omnino inana est, nec adiuvare fini nostro, quod est sane scribere encyclopaediam. --Ioscius ^(disp) 22:42, 4 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Assentior! --Neander 22:47, 4 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

"Nec eam habebimus" — Num iam oblitus es vikipaedia.gif quod ILVI fecit et olim erat in summa parte paginae primae? ;) —Mucius Tever 13:54, 5 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Lingua Anglica rulez - OK?

"There is never a day without Wikipedia." "My amount is little but my support is sincere." Miror unde haec Anglicae sententiae in nostram paginam irrepserint, quamquam iam dudum illas Latine reddidi. ("Nullus dies sine Vicipaedia." "Nil nisi assem dono, corde quidem aureo.") Nonne satisfaciunt? --Neander 23:05, 4 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Absint omnes linguae barbarae his paginis, etiam huic. Quicunque hic barbare loqui audeat expellendus sit.

Neander: Nescio. Bona quaestio, cui respondendo conabor.

Ignote: Relax, dude.

--Ioscius ^(disp) 21:57, 5 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Hodie tandem versiones urbanas a Neandro factas in summis paginis video. Gaudeamus igitur! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:40, 8 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Attamen mihi potius videtur "nulla dies sine V." (ubi dies foemininum genus habet), sicut in celeberrima sententia nulla dies sine linea. --Vermondo 12:11, 8 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Complures quaestiones

Salvete! Sum homo novus in Vicipaedia latina et me interrogo ubi reperire paginam explanantem quae res satis magni sunt (and because I have the slight feeling that my Latin is not comprehensive, I have another try in English: Where are your Notability criterias?).

My second question will be asked completely in english: I am wondering about the declination of villages whose name is not transferred into latin like Pulheim. I assumed Pulheim to be male, declinated like e.g. dominus. BUT Pulheim has in nominative singular no -us suffix. Would a declination like senator make more sense? --Fecchi 10:33, 5 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Salve, Fencchi. First of all, welcome to the Latin vicipaedia. On your first question, we do not have those, as far as I know. Certainly most articles will be welcome in our wiki, as far as their are written in good Latin. If you are not sure about your Latin text, then add the {{tiro}} template to the articles you write. Regarding your second question, if a place hasn't got a Latin name, it is simply easy to leave it as an undeclinable noun, unless it has an ending which could be latinised (-heim is not easily latinised into a third declension noun, so it may as well remain indeclinable). Of course, pother people may have further comments on this.--Xaverius 11:37, 5 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Hi Xaverius, thank you for your answer here and your welcoming on my discussion page. I have yet another question: Is there a list of latinised names? I couldn't find one so far and I wonder how to find out the latinised form of Jürgen (which is Guergius I think). For articles in future this could be helpful.--Fecchi 17:59, 6 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Check the index praenominum if in doubt. As for Jürgen, it is Georgius.--Xaverius 18:11, 6 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

"Amabo te"?

Unde haec phrasis? E latinitate antiquiori Plauti? Nonne "quaeso" est mos usitatior?

Etiam Tullius noster saepe hac phrasi utitur. Sed fieri potest, ut "amabo te" familiarius sonet, "quaeso" autem distantiam quandam servare videtur. --Neander 11:45, 5 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Commentariis tuis cum --~~~~ signatis, te amabimus.--Xaverius 11:57, 5 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Does "sodes" have the same meaning as "quaeso" or is it more like "amabo te"? Is it common to use that? Capsicaciolum 19:41, 20 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

I think it means,

sodes ="I'm not asking any kind of favor, but if you don't mind, please..."="excuse me but would you be so kind as to please..." ="pardon sir but please..."

What you would say to ask someone to get out of your way...

as opposed to

ambo te ="It would make me very happy if you would please..."="I would be eternally grateful if you would please..."

What you would say when asking someone for a special favor...

as opposed to

quaeso+inf="I beg your pardon sir, please..."="mercy sir please..."="please sir do help me by..."

More formal, when asking a judge for forgive a heavy crime...

--24.183.186.151 19:57, 20 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Quaestio de categoria

Pro 'flightless birds' (Anglice), quis est melior: Aves sine volatu aut Aves volatu carentes? Vel est in litteris (aliud) nomen usu receptum pro 'flightless'? IacobusAmor 13:35, 7 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Credo 'aves involatiles' melius fore, quod adiectivum inveni per Google.--Rafaelgarcia 14:02, 7 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

OK, gratias. Secundum Cassell's, fuit nomen involatu, quod Ciceroni significavit 'by the flight'; ergo mea anxietas. IacobusAmor 14:14, 7 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Google nunc adhibito, ibi invenimus nullum (!) exemplum locutionum "avis involatilis" et "aves involatiles"; sed ecce "aves sine volatu" hic. IacobusAmor 14:22, 7 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Re vera quod inveni fuit "aves volatiles" de quo deduxi "involatiles" pro "sine volatu". --Rafaelgarcia 15:10, 7 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Mihi constat, aves qui volant volucres appellari, atque non volantes involucres. Humiliter opinor, "involucres aves" pro anglicis verbis supra dictis nobis scribendum esse. (Vide hic quoque) --Vermondo 09:59, 8 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Assentior. Involucer,-cris,-cre adiectivum etiam apud Gellium (2.29.5) legitur. --Neander 10:18, 8 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

"Involucres" sunt aves quae in praesens volare non possunt, sed postea volatum habebunt ("pulli") "frumentis flavescentibus pulli etiam tunc involucres erant". "Volucres" idem significat "aves" tamquam "alis instructum est". Qua re "involucres" ambiguum est et pro 'flightless birds' ego antefero Aves sine volatu. --Ilario 23:12, 11 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Ita quidem, si locum Gellianum inspicimus, quia de pullis loquitur. Sin autem verbum ipsum involucris inspicimus, nihil in eius compositione est, quod 'nondum' significet, nam 'nondum' illud e contextu concluditur. (Ipse quoque dicis involucrem ambiguum esse.) Differendum igitur est inter SENSUM COMPOSITIONALEM (in 'non' + volucris 'volandi potens') et SENSUM CONTEXTUALEM. Id est: si de pullis nondum volandi potentibus disserimus eosque "involucres" describimus, 'nondum' e contextu additur. Item, si de struthionibus disserimus, nihil obstare videtur, quin eos quoque "involucres" describamus, quippe qui in+volucres sint. Non nego aves sine volatu etiam dici posse (variationis causa), quamquam adverbialia non libenter nominibus apponuntur. --Neander 00:21, 12 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Ecce quod dixit Poematis Virgilis glossarium de volucre, volatile, etc..--24.183.186.151 01:09, 12 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Discrimen inter impossibilitatem absolutam et impedimentum momentaneum de uno loco deducere audax mihi videtur. Si hoc adiectivum apud Gellium semel sensum temporaneum habet, non est necesse hunc sensum semper et ubique verbo dari. Ceterum censeo, si locutione uti volumus in loco unius verbi, potius quam "aves sine volatu", aves impares volatui dicendum esse, adiectivo, non praepositione, nomini addito. --Vermondo 09:46, 14 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

"Passion settings"

What would be good Latin for this category-name (ex en:)? It refers to musical settings of texts drawn from the Passions; it's a subcategory of "Art of the Passion," which presumably is Ars Passionis. IacobusAmor 18:15, 15 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Passio in artibus mihi videtur potius quam Ars Passionis (quasi Ars patiendi...). In qua cathegoria pariter Passio in musica locum invenire possit. --Vermondo 12:58, 17 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Animated Films

What is all this commotion with animated films in the past few days?! I'm talking specifically about Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas‎ and Bambi II and The Rescuers and Brother Bear, etc. There seem to be editing wars and sock puppets and IP addresses and all kinds of nonsense! Does anyone know what is going on?! --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 04:35, 16 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

For a start, see this. --Neander 09:30, 16 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

I'll protect them for the time being, as it seems that this keeps going on.--Xaverius 09:45, 16 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

"Fasciculum" vs. "File"

I am having a problem with the taxoboxes. I am trying to upload these Latin pictures from the Commons (e.g. "File:Status iucn3.1 VU la.svg") to formula:taxobox/species, but something is automatically converting the word "File" to "Fasciculus", and "Fasciculus:Status iucn3.1 VU la.svg" doesn't exist! How do I stop it?! Or should/can I just change the file name in the Commons? But why have I not had this problem before? I use Commons images all the time. I am very confused. Any help would be great! --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 00:08, 18 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

I think you are misusing the word "upload"; uploading from the commons would mean that you are trying to load the file onto Vicipaedia's filespace; but what you are trying to do is show the image from the commons:. As you can see it shows fine here, so if there is a problem, then it is with the codes in the template that you are trying to port. The word Fasciculus: is not a part of the file name, no more than is File:; Fasciculus: only identifies what follows after the colon as a file.--Rafaelgarcia 00:17, 18 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Ah! I'm sorry, I did misuse the word upload. I converted the coding from "file" to "fasciculum", but it did't work. And then I found that the file names all ended in "la.svg" but I had "La.svg". And then it worked! Coding is so specific! But now it works! Check out the taxobox on leo: it has a beautiful picture with LATIN in it! Thanks for the help! --SECUNDUS ZEPHYRUS 00:35, 18 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

O taxobocem formosissimum! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:05, 20 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Homo sapiens

"Homo sapiens evolutione ex specie Hominis SEXGEILI in Africa evolutus est." Re vera? Obstupefiunt homines ipsa admiratione! IacobusAmor 13:03, 23 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

An nescis quid "geil" germanice significet? [21] --Vermondo 13:42, 23 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

No importa. El nombre correcto es Homo erectus. (Germanice non geil, sed Geile, non?) IacobusAmor 13:52, 23 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Geil = "libidinosus" germanice. Geile foemininum sive plurale est. --Vermondo 23:06, 23 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Feliz navidad

Carissimi amici Vicipaediae nostrae! Vobis omnibus sit hodie laetus dies. Feliz navidad a todos! Et vobis offero carmen hoc meum --Xaverius 18:28, 24 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Macte, Xaveri! Et ego omnibus felicissimum Christi diem natalem iubeo -- Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 17:12, 25 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Iam adsum a Nova Caesarea redditus--felicitatem his in diebus volo omnibus.--Rafaelgarcia 23:52, 29 Decembris 2009 (UTC)

Natale hilare et annum faustum!

Cuisine: eel alert

A tiny Christmas present for Andrew, Xaverius, and others who like food: in the greatly amplified article Anguilliformes, you'll find mentioned the use of eels in the cuisines of Japan, China, Korea, New Zealand, the Basque country, Italy, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Britain. Feel free, as always, to improve the text with additions, corrections, links, etc. Happy holidays! IacobusAmor 15:04, 26 Decembris 2009 (UTC)