Language Learners' Library

[bugcat]

Oooooh. Does it have anything to with the adjective meaning slow, then, etymologically?

And thanks for the welcome~

[bugcat]

Vocab Workout: The World of Work, a mixture of jobs both ancient and modern…

[Barbanaira]

Serica

Everything I know is from wikipedia.

And I think the connection to serum ‘slow’ doesn’t work because consonant-stems and vowel-stems don’t really mix.

[Barbanaira]

my latin translations

Farmer: agricola
Miller: molitor/pistor
Baker: panifex/pistor
Merchant: mercator
Soldier: miles
Innkeeper: tabernarius
Waiter: cauponarius puer
Taxi driver: autocineti meritorii rector
Doctor: medicus
Prostitute: meretrix
Builder: structor
Butcher: macellarius
Programmer: praeparator ordinis instrumentorum electronicum
Potter: figulus
Artist: artifex/pictor
Musician: citharista/musicus/citharoedus
Cook: coquus
Brewer: cervisiarius/cervisiae confector
Politician: magistratus, someone who holds an office; a politician is just ‘who gets involved in politics’ qui versatur in re publica. Maybe homo politicus works too.
Intern: tiro

Thank you, Mr. Pope, for the Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis.

[bugcat]

Exercise: Packaging Pronouns

_Explain the pronouns of your target language.

And, yes, I made this challenge to bully the Japanese-learners.

---

In Latin, there are only four basic pronouns, distinguishing by person and number. There are no third-person pronouns – he, she, it – I don’t know of any other languages that lack this. It’s not an easy thing to absorb as an English-speaker.

To an extent you can use words like hic (“this”), which actually conjugates to show both gender and number, to stand in for the third-person. But I get the impression that this was mainly a Late Latin or Medieval trope and that classical writers were using some other, less familiar structure. I’ve forgotten what I learnt about this .__. There also seem to be a set of reflexive ("-self") pronouns in the third person. Pretty confusing.

The “true” pronouns:

Person	Sing.	Plu.
1st	ego (I)	nós (we)
2nd	tú (you)	uós (you all)

And here are the third-person “pronouns” derived from hic-type words. If I remember rightly, like in modern Romance languages a group of people are addressed as male if there is even a single man.

Gender	Sing.	Plu.
Masc.	hic (he)	hí (they)
Fem.	haec (she)	hae (the women)

---

In the Latin language, of course, it’s no surprise that pronouns decline through the usual case system. Note that the genitive of pronouns doesn’t govern possession, like in nouns, but instead phrases like “I am proud of you”.

Sing.	1st P.	2nd P.
Nom.	ego (I)	tú (you)
Voc.	ego (I)	tú (you)
Acc.	mé (me)	té (you)
Abl.	mé (from me)	té (from you)
Dat.	mihi (to me)	tibi (to you)
Gen.	meí (of me)	tuí (of you)
Poss.	meus (my)	tuus (your)

Note that ego is irregular, like English I, me, my, mine.

Plu.	1st P.	2nd P.
Nom.	nós (we)	uós (you all)
Voc.	nós (we)	uós (you all)
Acc.	nós (us)	uós (you all)
Abl.	nóbis (from us)	uóbis (from you all)
Dative	nóbis (to us)	uóbis (to you all)
Gen.	nostrí (of us)	uestrí (of you all)
Poss.	noster (ours)	uester (yours)

[Vsotvep]

@bugcat

But I get the impression that this was mainly a Late Latin or Medieval trope and that classical writers were using some other, less familiar structure

It’s actually the same as in Japanese: Latin tends to just leave out the personal pronouns, because the verb conjugation already contains that information. The rest is done by context or by directly referring to names.

Thing with Japanese is that the verb is not inflected based on person, making it a bit more reliable on context even.

[bugcat]

Yeah, I was aware that Latin normally uses the verb to express that info. But there I was talking specifically about the third-person “pronouns” that really meant “this”, which is like saying “this [feminine-gendered thing]” instead of “her” because of the lack of a real pronoun for that job.

Whereas there are more “dedicated” first- and second-person pronouns, even if they weren’t used much.

[bugcat]

Lyrics Link: Return of the Song Challenge

The task: pick a fairly simple song and translate the lyrics. You can go familiar language --> target language or vice versa according to your fancy. If you want to try to achieve a pleasant rhyme and / or metre for extra difficulty then be my guest.

[bugcat]

Sheep-Crook and Black Dog, Steeleye Span, 1972

Or, Uirga et Canis

Chorus (x2):

Canem átrum et meus uirgam, tibi reddó.
(Here’s my sheep-crook and my black dog, I give them to you.)

Meus saccum et ínstrúmenta, salué loquor.
(Here’s my bag and my budget, I bid it adieu.)

Canem átrum et meus uirgam, relinquó.
(Here’s my sheep-crook and my black dog, I leave them behind.)

Belle laure, bella flórés, tú mala pródistí.
(Fair laurel, fair floral, you’ve proved all unkind.)

---

Meus Gallá grátae haec uerba loquorí,
(To my dear Dinah these words I did say,)

“Amáns crás maritábimus, crástimus est diem.”
(“Tomorrow we’ll be married love, tomorrow is the day.”)

“Properat nimis Quínte, aduléscéns sum,”
(“T’is too soon dear Willy, my age is too young,”)

“Únus diés sub núptiam est celer diés.”
(“One day till our wedding is one day too soon.”)

Plus two other verses. Some liberty taken to keep a feeling of the original rhythm.

[Barbanaira]

Did you forget about the nice wrap-up of pronouns I did earlier this year? Did you forget about is, ea, id and ille, illa, illud? True, they also have a demonstrative nature and can be used as adjective, so you’re not wrong with your statement that there are no actual third person personal pronouns.

About your lyrics, I’ll say the following:

• don’t forget to put make the agreement of meus to the word it describes. It is an adjective! So meam virgam, meum saccum etc.

• tibi do is enough, because you’re not giving them back, you’re just giving them. accipe ‘take’ isn’t bad either.

• loquor and dico are like ‘speak’ and ‘say’ oder ‘sprechen’ and ‘sagen’. The phrase for goodbye and adieu and the like is vale.

• the perfect of loquor is locutus sum (or locuta in this case, as it’s a female voice): a construction that looks like a passive but has active meaning.

• put amans into the plural. There’s two of them. ‘We will be married’ sounds like a Futurum perfectum to me, so mariti erimus. crastinum, -i ‘the morrow’ is the word you’re looking for. diem needs to be in the nominative, as it agrees with est. ‘Tomorrow is the day’ is something I don’t really know how to say in latin. If you want to keep this sentence like this, the verb needs to be in the future tense. Latin is quite strict about that, more so than us Germanians. So crastinum eris dies ‘the day will be tomorrow’ or crastinus erit dies ‘the day will be a morrowey one’, If that makes any sense. How about cras eris dies?

• The rest isn’t terrible, but I couldn’t do it better. We’re entering levels of language where I don’t understand how the English syntax really works and where I’m not versed enough in Latin poetry to recall a fitting phrasing in Horace or Catullus. I’m not sure about the preposition sub in this context. Maybe de is better.

• Quintus for Willy is splendid.

[bugcat]

put amans into the plural

In “Tomorrow we’ll be married love, tomorrow is the day.” amans is meant to be love, ie. a pet name like “sweetheart” directed to Dinah. So it’s in the singular.

---

Also I never used loquor in a female voice, in Meus Gallá grátae haec uerba loquorí, / “To my dear Dinah these words I did say” it’s Quintus / Willy doing the speaking. Same with Meus saccum et ínstrúmenta, salué loquor. / “Here’s my bag and my budget, I bid it adieu.”

---

Thank you for that point about meus! I often get confused about whether it declines based on the thing that’s being possessed or the person possessing it, and in this case I went for the latter.

---

I was actually going to use ille instead of crastimus in “Amáns crás maritábimus, crástimus est diem.” but I decided crastimus was the better rhythmical fit. Indeed, I’ve forgotten all about all the other words you listed in that sentence .___.

[Jirogo36]

It’s a mystery that the japanese actor 浅野忠信’s youtube channel, in which he posts offbeat short films of his own creation, has less than 2,000 subscribers. Now I don’t have youtube account myself but still.

(This one happens to have english subtitle.)

They tend to be terse, short, and pronunciation clear so might be good for dictation and such.

[bugcat]

The Cunning Crow, a simple & short story adapted from youtube – translate it into your target language and practice the past tense!

Córníx Callida
(The Cunning Crow)

Félis rúfa in téctó sedébat.
(A ginger cat was sitting on a roof.)

Córníx ad félem éscendit, tum citó recédit.
(A crow flew up to him, then quickly retreated.)

Illa félem altera tum appetit.
(Then it approached another cat.)

Caudam félis átra ter ródit.
(Three times it pecked the black cat’s tail.)

Félis átra asperátus est et félem rúfam petit.
(The black cat became enraged and attacked the ginger cat.)

Córníx oblectus est, uídit.
(The crow watched on, amused.)

[yebellz]

I learned a bit about counting in French today. Thought y’all might like this.

[bugcat]

Breaking down taxonomic names

I’ve been wanting to make a post about this for a while, so it might as well be now.

The discipline of the binomial categorisation of organisms began in Europe, in the mid-18th century. Educated culture was deeply rooted in the study of Latin and Greek, as it had been since the Roman Empire and still is today; so it’s natural that the base of this new system was in these languages.

At first, it was rather easy. Names could be adopted directly from their ancient Latin counterparts of common speech. Some examples of this are the genera Cancer (crab), Bos (cattle), Ovis (sheep), Anguilla (eel), Squalus (shark), Erinaceus (hedgehog), Canis (dog), Felis (cat), and so on. However, three challenges were to emerge over the following century:

1. In distinguishing between multiple genera that shared a common name in Latin;

2. In describing exotic animals from places like the Americas, Australia and other places that weren’t known to the Romans; as well as many micro-organisms, insects, and other newly-discovered extant life;

3. In categorising unfamiliar, extinct animals and plants uncovered in the fossil record.

And so, a new ad hoc format was gradually established. A normal generic name would have two or three components, each one an individual Greek or Latin word (often, in fact, Latinised Greek). Common components are:

1. The organism’s group, eg. bird, fish, mammal

2. A part of the body, eg. jaw, foot, ankle

3. An adjective eg. large, small, ancient

4. The location of its discovery. This is common in specific names, where it is suffixed with ensis, eg. sinensis (from China).

5. A surname. This is often tributive to a past scientist in the field, eg. Mantellisaurus, an iguanodontid named after Charles Mantell.

6. A prefix that describes how it relates to similar genera, eg. pro- (before, ie. an ancestor) and para- (besides, ie. a close relative)

Some organisms, however, do not follow this mold and instead use Chinese or other foreign words, often in tribute to local indigenous people in the area of discovery. A good example is Kelenken, a terror bird named after a demon in Native American folklore.

Category One components (group names) are not always accurate in reference to their classical use, but have recieved a new meaning in the binomial system.

Here are some examples:

Name	Meaning	Application	Notes	Example
avis, ornis	bird	birds	avis is Latin, ornis is Greek.	Argentavis
myrmex	ant	ants	From Greek. A Roman would say formica.	Agroecomyrmex
raptor	thief	Dromaeosaurs.	This is an interesting case in which originally only Velociraptor (“quick thief”, 1924) had this element. After the massive success of Jurassic Park, dromaeosaurs acquired their common name, and this in turn filtered back into the scientific community.	Atrociraptor
saurus	lizard	Applied most famously to dinosaurs, but also to extinct marine reptiles and certain other extinct “reptilian” tetrapods, such as rhyncosaurs. Confusingly, it is not applied to actual lizards.	A Latinisation of a Greek word, sauros. A Roman would have said lacertus or stellio.	Tyrannosaurus
suchus	name of a crocodile god	crocodiles, stem-crocodiles, and even some reptiles that were in fact more closely related to birds	Latinisation of Soukhos, in turn a Hellenisation of Egyptian Sobek, a crocodile chimaera deity. The Latin word for crocodile was crocodilus.	Deinosuchus
therium	wild beast	mammals	Latinisation of Greek therion. A Roman would say fera.	Arsinoitherium

PS. I found this chonky lad in the course of my research. Felis chaus, the jungle cat:

Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commonly_used_taxonomic_affixes

[bugcat]

Japanese summer vocab

See, I’ve read enough Dagashi Kashi for this~

アイスクリーム // ice-cream (loanword from English)

ラムネ (らむね) // ramune (loanword from English (lemonade). A nondescript but very popular soft drink, distinguished by its wide range of flavours and marble-sealed Codd-neck bottle.

角氷 (かくごおり) // ice cube

かき氷 (かきごおり // shaved ice. Simple powdered ice with a flavoured syrup poured over it, essentially an unmixed slushie.

蝉 (せみ) // cicada. As an ancient term, there are ofc a number of hyogaiji variants.

鍬形虫 (くわがたむし) // stag beetle. In the summer, young Japanese boys collect these beetles from trees and and encourage them to fight one another. Stag beetles can sell for surprisingly high prices on the internet, which perhaps diminishes from the spirit of the custom.

流しそうめん // nagashi somen. These are noodles dropped into a stream of cold water which runs down a bamboo half-pipe; the diners pluck out the noodles as they descend the flow.

浜 (はま) // beach. Interestingly, this also means “captured Go stones”.

水着 (みずぎ) // swimsuit

[Vsotvep]

@bugcat

かき氷 (かきごおり // shaved ice. Simple powdered ice with a flavoured syrup poured over it, essentially an unmixed slushie.

They sell these at summer festivals a lot, which is necessary with the Japanese heat, often with several flavours of syrup, in various bright colours, labelled “strawberry” or “melon” or “lemon” and so on.

When I tried one last year, I took the lemon flavour, looking for some refreshing sour shaved ice, but I was thoroughly disappointed that it was just sweet. Then my girlfriend explained that the “flavours” are only for show, it’s actually all sugar syrup / condensed milk with food colouring. I could indeed not taste the difference between them. (Perhaps this story only holds up for cheap festival かき氷)

---

@bugcat

蝉 (せみ) // cicada. As an ancient term, there are ofc a number of hyogaiji variants.

I made up a Japanese pun while walking on a mountain once, when we saw a deer jump away:

「その音はセミ？」
「違うよ、セミじゃなくてシカだ。」

[bugcat]

Care to explain the pun for us 外国人?

[Vsotvep]

Translation:

“Is that sound a cicada?”
“No, it’s not a cicada, it’s a deer.”

The pun is that “it’s a deer” in Japanese is シカだ, pronounced homophonous to how a Japanese would pronounce cicada.

[Samraku]

@Vsotvep

シカだ

tfw you’re proud that you read it 『ツカダ』 without relying on mnemonics, only to realize it’s 『シカダ』。