Lingua Latina sive in alia verba, " the Latin language"

[xilman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

a factor of 10 - Additive, multiplicative, logarithmic, what? And which factor of 10, 2 or 5?



My webpage on the history and various useful applications of what is these days commonly known as the Newton-Raphson iterative-approximation method notes this re. the ancient Babylonians:


Getting back to the Latin, I came across a useful phrase recently in the context of one of the Sopabox threads: "Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi." I believe Orwell's version of the concept was "some animals are more equal than others." Paul, help me out - is the c in 'licet' pronounced like the one in 'license' or like the ch in linchpin'? And the pronunciation is the same as in 'vici'? (E.g. J. Caeser's famous 'veni, vidi, vici'.)

After your needlessly obtuseness summarized by yout first question, I feel disinclined to give you a straight answer to your final question. You bloody well know that I meant that, IMO, at least 100 people alive today can read the language.

I'm feeling generous. The evidence is overwhelmingly in favour that Brutus, his friends, Romans and countrymen would have pronounced it with a hard second consonant and two short vowels as in "lick-ett". Softening the c before e and I came much later.

Have you read "1066 And All That"? I guess not, otherwise you would be familiar with the "Weeny, Weedy, Weaky" joke.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Nick

Up until a few centuries ago, Latin was the international scholarly language.
But I doubt that the pronunciation used throughout the centuries was the same as in ancient Rome.
We have the Roman books and statues (which is how we know how to spell Caesar) but no recording of speech or music.

What we do have is the descendants of Latin words in many other languages, we have transliterations of Latin words into other languages and those of other languages into Latin.

For instance, the three-headed guardian of Hades, is called Cerberus in Latin. The original Greek began with a kappa, not a sigma. Another example is Caesar, which survives as Kaiser and Czar (or Tsar), again suggesting a hard consonantal c.

These are just two examples of many, chosen because they will be familiar to most modern readers.

You are quite right in that pronunciation changed. The c softened after e and I some centuries after the classical period.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

My webpage on the history and various useful applications of what is these days commonly known as the Newton-Raphson iterative-approximation method notes this re. the ancient Babylonians:

Perhaps it is now time to reconsider the proposal made in post #42 in this thread.

[storm5510]

Not long ago when doctors still used prescription pads, it amazed me how anyone could read the Latin scribbles they would write. Pharmacists had no problems reading them either. It was a dialect only they could understand.

[Batalov]

A certain scientific confererence set up the abstract template and instead of the usual latin placeholder (Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet etc) they used:

Abstract Upload Example

Title of Abstract
John Smith¹, Pat West², Sarah Johnson³

School ABC
Company XYZ
Institution PQW

Catullus in California Monterey Cannery Row, fetor, stridorem, qualitatem lucis tonum habitum desiderio intellexit quod esset somnium. Cannery ordo congregati et dispersi sunt, et rubigo, et stannum, et ferrum, lignum et ficum, et concisa et in alga, opus sortem et junk in tumulos, sardini canneries de CONRUGIS ferrum, Tonks, restaurants, et domum meretricis, et minus frequenti groceries, et laboratories et flop domos. Et habitatores ejus sunt quasi vir quondam, meretricum lenonumque flagitia, aleatores, lunamque et filii, quibus quisque vellet. Aspiciunt ac si per alium puteum potuisse aspexit: et sanctorum martyrum et sanctorum angelorum et hominum, et tamen hoc intelligitur.

A bold passage including pimps and prostitutes, among others. Quirky!

[LaurV]

Haha, brilliant, I almost can understand that, but I put it in google translate anyhow, to be sure I'm not dreaming.

[Uncwilly]

We need a scandal involving Latin, that way the media can call it: Vulgate

千里之行，始于足下_百度百科

Milia passuum itinere uno gradu incipit ...praesertim cum pereunt.

Lost in (google latin) translation:
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step..especially when you're lost.

[Batalov]

There is a great guy who does Lingua Latina channel and recently he had two excellent experiments:

[xilman]

Gratias ago tibi, quia haec, sunt mira!

Loquens Latina Romani civium esse simile Ænglisc ad cives London.

[Dr Sardonicus]

There is a quotation, often misattributed to Seneca (See e.g. the epigraph to Edgar Allan Poe's story The Purloined Letter) but, apparently actually due to Petrarch (De Remediis utriusque Fortunae):

Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio [Nothing is more hateful to wisdom that excessive cleverness]

I have often noticed, on this Forum and elsewhere, the practice of using gratuitously arcane jargon. In some cases, this appears to be aimed at adopting an air of superiority over those who simply don't know the jargon, regardless of how well they may understand the underlying concepts. In other cases, it seems to be aimed at disguising the mundane nature of what they are presenting.

This led me to think of a slightly different sentiment than the above,

"There is noting more hateful to wisdom than excessive obscurity."

I have tried to render this into a Latin phrase modeled on the above quotation. I fear I may have botched the grammar. Could somebody who knows Latin please check the following, and indicate any necessary corrections? I have seen "Nil" rendered as "Nihil" in some renderings of the quotation from Petrarch.

Nil sapientiae odiosius obsuritate obscuritate nimia