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Why don’t we analyse some text from Metamorphoses?

There is first an introduction, and then the first nested story, both of which we can skip over.

Let’s start when Lucius, our protagonist, arrives in the town of Hypata in Thessaly, seeking his acquaintance Milo in Section 21 of Book 1.

Note that Loeb prints without macrons to mark vowel length. This often leaves more ambiguity.

n. nominative ac. accusative v. vocative g. genitive d. dative ab. ablative

Apuleius: Ego vero quod primum ingressui stabulum conspicatus cum accessi, et de quadam anu caupona ilico percontor.
Hanson: I went up to the first inn I spotted after entering the town and immediately made inquiries of an old lady who was the innkeeper.

Apuleius: “Estne” inquam “Hypata haec civitas?” Annuit. “Nostine Milonem quendam e primoribus?”
Hanson: “Is this town Hypata?” I asked. She nodded. “Do you know someone named Milo, one of your foremost citizens?”

Apuleius: Arrisit, et “Vere” inquit “primus istic perhibetur Milo, qui extra pomerium et urbem totam colit.”
Hanson: “Foremost is the right word for your Milo,” she replied, “since he lives outside the city-limits and the whole town.”

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

  • | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | -
    Ego | vero | quod | primum | ingressui | stabulum | conspicatus sum, | accessi, | et | de | quadam | anu | caupona | ilico | percontor.
    I n.| specifically | that n. | first n.adj. | entrance d. | inn n. | that I saw (?) n. | I reached | and | about | from | an old woman ab. | landlady ab. | on the spot | I inquired
  • |
    “Estne” | inquam | "Hypata | haec | civitas?" | Annuit. | "Nostine | Milonem | quendam | e | primoribus?"
    “Is,” (Q) | I asked (said) | “Hypata n. | this | town?” n. | She nodded. | “(Do you) know (?) | Milo ac. | someone / a man ac. | from | the foremost?” d.
  • |
    Arrisit, | et | “Vere” | inquit | "primus | istic | perhibetur | Milo, | qui | extra | pomerium | et | urbem | totam | colit."
    She laughed, | and | “Indeed,” | she said, | "foremost n.adj. | your | the people name | Milo, n. | he who | outside | the city limits ac. | and | town (city) ac. | whole ac. | lives. (inhabits).

We can already get some sense of idiom.

Compare Hanson’s “from an old lady who was the innkeeper” to Apuleius’ brief quādam anū caupōna, which could be more tightly translated as “from the old landlady”.

quādam anū caupōna literally glosses as “from (that woman) the old-woman–landlady”, a very redundant sentence in an only lightly gendered language like English. Hanson is content to let lady alone indicate gender in his phrase.

In English, the closest words we have to anus (old woman) are crone (gendered but negative), elder (neutral but ungendered), and grandmother (a bit “folksy”). Note that anus =/= ānus (ring, anus). The most accurate single-word translation is perhaps elder-woman, but that isn’t natural in modern English.

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New video from NativLang

Also found this small series by Takumi:

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I just finished Metamorphoses in English.

Now I have to look at the left (Latin) pages!

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English translation from Loeb.

The story begins in relatively flowery style, as in typical for Latin works. The narrator, Lucius, addresses the reader (paraphrased):

At ego tibi … varias fabulas conseram … figuras fortunasque hominum in alias imagines conversas et in se rursum mutuo nexu refectas ut mireris. Exordior. Quis ille? Paucis accipe. Hymettos Attica et Isthmos Ephyrea et Taenaros Spartiaca … mea vetus prosapia est.

But 1 I would like to tie together different sorts of tales for you … so that you may be amazed at men’s forms and fortunes transformed into other shapes and then restored again in an interwoven knot. I begin my prologue. 2 Who am I? I will tell you briefly. Attic Hymettos and Ephyrean Isthmos and Spartan Taenaros 3 … form my ancient stock. 4

  1. As though the narrator was already in conversation with the reader.
  2. exordior: “I begin”
  3. Hymettos is a mountain near Athens, Taenaros is a mountain in the Peloponnesus, and the Isthmos referred to is the Isthmus of Corinth.
  4. prosapia, a “stock, race, family, or lineage”

Having thus introduced himself, Lucius sets the scene, introducing the overarching tale.

Thessaliam … ex negotio petebam. Postquam ardua montium et lubrica vallium et roscida caespitum et gelbosa camporum emersi, in equo indigena peralbo vehens, iam eo quoque admodum fesso … in pedes desilio … in gradum lenem sensim proveho

I was travelling to Thessaly 1 … on business. I had emerged from steep mountain tracks and slippery valley roads, damp places in the meadows and cloddy paths through the fields. I was riding 2 a native-bred pure white 3 horse; as he too was now quite tired … I jumped down to my feet …4 and led him along 5 slowly at a gentle pace.

  1. In northeastern Greece.
  2. The Latin idiom used, as is usual, is in equo … vehens, “on a horse I was carried”, ie. “I was borne by horse” or “I was carried on horseback” or similar translations.
  3. The word peralbo doesn’t occur in my dictionaries. This is natural. peralbo (per-albo) could in other circumstances also be translated as completely white or white through.
  4. The exact meaning of pedes seems a little ambiguous here. This might also be translated as I jumped down and continued on foot or I jumped down and continued as a pedestrian.
  5. proveho here means “lead” but elsewhere can have a very broad meaning, like English go.
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A good approximation is maybe from some innkeeper-granny. Hanson’s relative clause is quite adequate, because the two words anus and caupona are in apposition; like Oedipus Rex or Thames River.

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In response to Où s'arrêtera l'Intelligence Artificielle? - #20 by bugcat, but posting it here to not drag yet another thread off topic into focusing on language rather than substance.

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I consider myself warned ;~; hehe

I was just pleasantly surprised to see a thread in French.

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This seems to be the traditional thread for Jackson Crawford videos, so here are two good new ones:

For more information on Norse sea monster beliefs, see the work of Olaus Magnus (fl. 16th. C.).

I found two interesting tables at 1000 Years of Sheep in Shetland discussing how the colours of Shetland sheep are described.

In response to that, I also posted a comparison between Japanese/Chinese

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I was a bit downcast looking at the latest addition to the bubblegum collection on the floor of the basketball court and while thinking that there is a decline in terms of manners/character it occured to me that there might be an English word missing maybe entirely or, at least, from my vocabulary.

Knowledge in Greek is gnosis (γνώση) and the process of acquiring it is katartisi (κατάρτιση ) or epignosi (επίγνωση).
Education in Greek is pedia (παιδεία) and with it comes the meaning of “being able to process the knowledge you have and use it in a practical way”
now what I was lamenting about is morphosis (μόρφωση) which literally means “to take shape/ being shaped” which has the meaning of a next level above education which is evaluating all you know and using them to shape and re-shape your character in a better way, to be a better person.

Is there a similar word in English?

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A fictional work showing a character’s development in that sense is usually called a bildungsroman.

But Roman means novel in the original German, and Bildung, which is the important and many-faceted word in this compound, isn’t used alone.

Another translation is maturation. But it reads a bit oddly when applied to a person’s character – you’d generally expect it used more literally, eg. of a wine or a cheese.

You could also just say growth, but of course this is a bit vague. A more specific sense can be made with personal growth.

We also have this phrase character-forming, which is usually applied (often ironically, these days) to some challenging situation which is perceived to strengthen one’s personality.

There’s a similar adjective to morphosis as well: formative. This is often used as formative experience, an event which is seen to have molded a person’s character.

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There is a phrase in Chinese has the exact meaning though - 修身養性, meaning to shape your own body, and develop your character, and it is believed that body and soul needs to be in one and in harmony.

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The uncial d reminds me of the δ, the Greek d (delta), especially how δ looks in some fonts.

This is probably not a coincidence, given that uncial writing emerged in Late Antiquity: the capital of the Roman Empire was moved to Byzantium, Greece in the early 4th C. (which was promptly renamed Constantinople, for obvious reasons).

The defining feature of uncial script, really, is how round it is. That gives it a consistency in letter shape which is more lacking in modern fonts.

I might look for uncial font for Word or other editors, since the character forms aren’t distinct in Unicode. It’d be nice also to find a shortcut to quickly change between black, red, and blue – that’d be great for quick Medieval flair.

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Luke’s video on Ecclesiastic Latin, as you can see – I’ve timestamped it to about seven minutes in, where he shows and explains a comparison graph.

I had a discussion earlier and I explained to them the difference between a pirate and a privateer/corsair and it just downed to me that the word pirate (πειρατής) and experiment (πείραμα), have the same root! The greek word “πείρω” which means “to try, make an effort”

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Another stupid pair that can be easily confused, got me again
洒 酒

Lots of Chinese characters are just different by one stroke, or even just a slight difference in one stroke, even the width of a stroke.
己 已 巳(the simplest one, little kids got scorned with)
人 入
王 玉
土 士
未 末
干 千
田 由 甲 申
母 毋
勿 匆
市 巿
采 釆
因 困 囚
孓 孑
祖 袓 (the most confusing of them all, one extra stroke, lots of examples)
祗 袛
祇 衹
汩 汨 (these two are just different by width)
亳 毫
荼 茶
戊 戍 戌 成
妹 妺 (the different of 未 末)
迴 迥
間 閒
捐 損
薜 薛
And there are some, looked alike but came from completely different compositions
祟 崇

And btw, the ancient form of word 圍 for Go 圍棋, is 囗, which is just a larger 口. literally just encircle an area.

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there are 10 katakana that are identical to kanji in some fonts

left right
which is katakana?
  • left
  • right

0 voters

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When I learned Japanese, I actually have to “unlearn” some of them to not be confused with their sounds in Chinese, although some of them do help like
(mo) came from the Chinese character 毛 mao

It’s easier to remember some of them, if you know where these simplified forms came from

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