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640

That surprises me. I thought that Japanese, being a very context-reliant language that does stuff like omit pronouns, would be difficult.

641

We still have to define what we mean with ‘complexity’. I assume we talk about morphologic complexity. Else, it would get kinda offensive: English isn’t primitive. Second, English, Norse and German where almost the same language a thousand years ago, like French and Italian. Still, which French, and which Italian? All these European languages are geographically so closely together, that they form a Sprachbund where features tend to get shared even if the languages themselves aren’t so closely related.
Japanese could be a good idea. Keep in mind that it is in an isolated island position and might have developed much slower than, say, english. Look at Icelandic, that’s still basically Old Norse.
Turkish, Persian and Arab are also influencing each other since 1000 years.
Take Egyptian, a Romance language, Persian, Japanese, Tibetan and maybe a Dravid language, Georgian, Armenian.

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642

Still, even than you only have a sample size of 6-10 languages out of >6000.

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643

A little comparison of Esperanto with other languages.

I would personally, probably, have been able to guess almost all of these (which is a success by Esperanto from my point of view.)

Esperanto Latin English
kato cattus cat
hundo canis dog (hound)
birdo avis bird
fiso piscis fish
muso mus mouse
rano rana frog
bovino bos cow (bovine)
safo ovis sheep
kapro caper goat (caprid)
serpento serpens snake (serpent)
rivero flumen (cf. ripa) river
lago lacus lake
monto mons mountain
agro ager field (cf. agriculture)
plago littus beach
boato navigium boat
caro currus cart
cevalo caballus horse (cf. cavalry)
viando caro meat (cf. viand)
salo sal salt
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644

I’m going to post a daily translation exercise from real Latin text.
This one is from a paragraph by Tacitus, discussing the Germanic deity Nerthus.

I. Est in insula Oceani castum nemus, dicatumque in eo vehiculum, veste contectum; attingere uni sacerdoti concessum.

II. Is adesse penetrali deam intellegit vectamque bubus feminis multa cum veneratione prosequitur. Laeti tunc dies, festa loca, quaecumque adventu hospitioque dignatur.

III. Non bella ineunt, non arma sumunt; clausum omne ferrum; pax et quies tunc tantum nota, tunc tantum amata, donec idem sacerdos satiatam conversatione mortalium deam templo reddat.

IV. Mox vehiculum et vestes et, si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur.

V. Servi ministrant, quos statim idem lacus haurit.

Translation

Warning: it seems that there isn’t a one-to-one comparison between the Latin and English sentences.

I. There is a sacred grove on an island in the Ocean, in which there is a consecrated chariot, draped with cloth, where the priest alone may touch.

II. He perceives the presence of the goddess in the innermost shrine and with great reverence escorts her in her chariot, which is drawn by female cattle.

III. There are days of rejoicing then and the countryside celebrates the festival, wherever she designs to visit and to accept hospitality.

IV. No one goes to war, no one takes up arms, all objects of iron are locked away, then and only then do they experience peace and quiet, only then do they prize them, until the goddess has had her fill of human society and the priest brings her back to her temple.

V. Afterwards the chariot, the cloth, and, if one may believe it, the deity herself are washed in a hidden lake.

VI. The slaves who perform this office are immediately swallowed up in the same lake.

645

Since I already saw the translation, I’m just going to (try to) explain the vocabulary, inflection, and grammar of one or two sentences (using the word translations already given.)

Not easy.

I.
First, we separate off the first clause.
Est in insula Oceani castum nemus

The “verb” (really a copula) is est (is).
The nominative is nemus (grove). Its adjective is castum (sacred).
The first ablative is insula (island). The second ablative is Oceani (ocean).
Finally we have a preposition: in (in).
There is a sacred grove on an island in the ocean

Now, the second clause.
dicatumque in eo vehiculum

The “verb” is eo (there)
The nominative is vehiculum (chariot).
The adjective is dicatum (consecrated), but I can’t see why it has -que (“and”).
There is a participle: contectum (draped), which employs an ablative noun veste (cloth).
in which there is a consecrated chariot, draped with cloth

And finally the third clause.
attingere uni sacerdoti concessum

The verb is attingere (touch).
We also have sacerdoti, which is in the dative case. Interesting.
He takes an adjective uni (only).
And finally we have a participle concessum (may.)
where the priest alone may touch.

646
Japanese reading English
シチョウ ladder (in go)
互先 たがいせん even game
局 きょく game (usually: office, bureau, situation)
序盤 じょばん early game, opening

シチョウ is sometimes written in kanji, all probably forms of ateji:

  • 垁 (irregular pronunciation, 垁 means subjugate),
  • 四丁 (irregular meaning, since 四丁 means fourth street)
  • 止長 (irregular meaning, since ć­˘ means stop and 長 means long or leader)

I’m curious to the etymology of this term, but it’s difficult to find…

序盤 is the proper term for the opening in Japanese. In English we often use fuseki (布石) more generally as a synonym of opening, however, fuseki are board positions at the beginning where the board is ‘divided’ in a very loose sense between the players. There are games in which the opening has no fuseki, since it immediately starts with a fight.

I wanted to do more, but I dropped my book, went to eat dinner and now I’m too lazy to pick it back up :stuck_out_tongue:

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647

fuseki isn’t a traditional term. The traditional terms are:

ishidate for opening (“establishment of groups”)
wakare for middlegame (“division of spoils”)
katame for endgame (“solidifying”)

citation: a post by John Fairbairn at https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?p=123988#p123988

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648

It doesn’t matter what the traditional term is when I’m reading modern books, though :stuck_out_tongue:

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649

It’s genitive, actually. There is, on an island of the Ocean a sacred grove….

It’s the ablative of the personal pronoun. inside of it (the grove).
…and a consecrated chariot inside of it, draped with a cloth;…

The dative sacerdoti with words denoting concession is natural: …permitted to touch only to the priest

So the clause is in fact only one: there is an island. dicatum, contectum, concessum are just attributes to the vehiculum.
On a side note, stay away from Tacitus for now; he has a reputation of being difficult and obscure.
http://dcc.dickinson.edu/tacitus-annals/introduction/tacitus-style

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650

@Sanonius

What do you think of us doing a few sentences from Natural History each day, providing I can find it on the Internet?

Seems like it would be interesting since the topic is continually changing.

651

Yeah, might be fun. Or the letter by his nephew about his death.

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652

Are we gonna do the sycophantic dedication he writes to the Emperor at the start? :stuck_out_tongue:

heh, I will look for a Latin translation and be back with something shortly.

My intention is to progress steadily through the books, going with the natural flow.

653

Whatever you want. I’m more at home in Greek literature anyway. As for Latin, I do mostly Vergil now and that’s poetry.

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654

I think I’m more of a prose man myself, I like reading about the world of the time and how they perceived it.

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655

Exactly. So some Pliny is fine.

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656

OK, we are going to skip Pliny’s preface, contents page, index, and biblography.

We begin in his first book, Astronomy and Meteorology.

Mundum et hoc quodcumque nomine alio caelum appellare libuit, cuius circumflexu degunt cuncta, numen esse credi par est, aeternum, inmensum, neque genitum neque interiturum umquam. huius extera indagare nec interest hominum nec capit humanae coniectura mentis.

sacer est, aeternus, immensus, totus in toto, immo vero ipse totum, infinitus ac finito similis, omnium rerum certus et similis incerto, extra intra cuncta conplexus in se, idemque rerum naturae opus et rerum ipsa natura.

furor est mensuram eius animo quosdam agitasse atque prodere ausos, alios rursus occasione hinc consumpta aut his data innumerabiles tradidisse mundos, ut totidem rerum naturas credi oporteret aut, si una omnes incubaret, totidem tamen soles totidemque lunas et cetera etiam in uno et inmensa et innumerabilia sidera, quasi non eaedem quaestiones semper in termino cogitationi sint occursurae desiderio finis alicuius aut, si haec infinitas naturae omnium artifici possit adsignari, non idem illud in uno facilius sit intellegi, tanto praesertim opere.

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657

So, what am I gunna do now?

658

Translate it? :slight_smile:

Remember the spoilers!

Or if that’s too easy, feel free to write a piece on peculiarities of the words used.
I was just writing about how mundum probably means “pure / elegant” here, but in Late / Medieval Latin it means “world!” What a throw-off!

You could even translate it into Greek ^^

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659
Space saver

Right, let’s figure out what we’re looking at here.

Latin Explanation
mundum Seems like the adjective mundus (pure, elegant). Not “world” which is Late / Medieval Latin.
et hoc quocumque This is some grammar. We’ll deal with it later.
nomine name (nomen)
alio another
caelum sky / the heavens
appellare we name (appello) (root of apply)
libuit it is pleasant
cuius relative pronoun
circumflexu bends around
degunt they live / endure
cuncta whole
numen divinity
credi have been entrusted with (?)
par equal? suitable?
aeternum eternally? constantly? (root of eternal)
inmensum boundless (root of immense)
genitum produced (root of genitive)
interiturum about to go among (neuter)
huius relative pronoun
extera outside
indagare inflection of indago (track, trace). Interestingly unrelated to English indigo.
interest it lies between (?). Unrelated to English interest.
hominum of men
capit it captures
humanae some inflection of humanus (human)
coniectura conjecture
mentis gen. sg. of mens (mind, reasoning)

Now to put it all together >:3

Another space saver

caelum looks like the nominative. So caelum appellare libuit = it is pleasant to call the heavens
quodcumque is “whatever” in the neuter singular. nomen is also neuter: let’s put them together.
quodcumque nomine = whatever name

So, my guess would be:

Mundum et hoc quodcumque nomine alio caelum appellare libuit,
It is pleasant and elegant to call the heavens by whatever name,