tfw you’re proud that you read it 『ツカダ』 without relying on mnemonics, only to realize it’s 『シカダ』。
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Marcus: Seruus audíóne? [Is that a slave I hear?]
Primus: Est seruus nón, ceruus est. [Not a slave, a deer.]
Hah, now I’ve started thinking about Latin puns…
Míles prímus, in Rhénó: Quid céna est? Gallí estne?
[First soldier, in the Rhineland: What’s for dinner? Chicken?
Míles secundus: Haud est, est Gallí.
[Second soldier: No, Gauls.]
Aedílis: Qui cónsul nóuus Nerónis est? [Who is Nero’s new consul?]
Senátor: Est collega aequus. [An impartial (equus, horse) fellow.]
Rómánós Britanniá déférit duplex rés: múrós et múrés. [The Romans bestowed two things on Britain: walls and mice.]
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Discussion: Short Words
What are short words in your target language? Is there any meaning to them being short?
In Latin, most words are either duo- or trisyllabic. Monosyllabic words are unusual and often grammatical.
Some examples are:
mé – abl. and acc. of “I”
tú – nom. and voc. of “you” (abl. and acc. té)
nós – nom., acc., and voc. of “we”
uós – nom., acc., and voc. of “they”
in – in, at, on, while
sub – beneath, behind
ad – to, for
dé – concerning (about)
rés – thing (abl. ré)
os – bone
ós – mouth
bós – cow
flós – flower
mús – mouse
Looks like the -s ending is common for monosyllabic Latin words. Although a lot of Latin words end in -s anyway, so that doesn’t really tell us anything.
a lot of words can be written by single kanji and most of them have 1-2 syllable long reading
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I. in
II. extra
III. not sure, perhaps the verb circumfundo
IV. super
V. in or super
VI. sub
VII. secus
VIII. prae
IX. post
Some listening practice for advanced Japanese learners.
I’ll do this one later, but for today I’ve got a topic
Colours!
Describe how colours are perceived in the language you’re learning. Especially what distinctions are made and which ones aren’t.
(I don’t mean the colours in the images, but the colours as usually connected a concept)
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You’ll have to provide the 日本語 perspective for this one, Vsotvep; I only know the stereotypical difference that we call the sun yellow, and them 赤い (red). I know 海色 and 朝色 are things, but I don’t know if they actually refer to them by that most commonly.
In Japanese, according to my native source:
The ocean (海 / うみ) is 青 / あお, which is usually translated as blue.
The sky (空 / そら) is 青 as well.
The sunset (夕日 / ゆうひ) is 赤 / あか, which is usually translated as red.
The sun (太陽 / たいよう) is 赤 as well, this one is surprising for most English speakers. This is why the red dot in the Japanese flag is red: it’s the sun.
Spring leaves (春の葉っぱ / はるのはっぱ) are 緑 / みどり in modern day Japanese, but used to be called 青 as well.
Autumn leaves (紅葉 / こうよう) are 紅 / あか, which is still red, but a different kanji this time.
Grass (草 / くさ) is, like spring leaves, 緑, but used to be called 青.
Fire (火 / ひ) is 赤 or オレンジ, red or orange.
Some other interesting things, the green light on traffic lights is called 青 in Japanese as well, and some green vegetables are still called 青 nowadays.
Also, mice are dark grey (ネズミ色 literally means mouse color), and tea is brown (茶色 literally means tea color), although black tea (like earl grey) is called 紅茶: red tea, but green tea is still 緑茶: green tea.
I asked, and she didn’t know these.
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Yeah, looks like those are constructions of my subconscious imagination.
We’re heading into a realm through which you would need someone with a real education in Latin to guide you, but I will do my best.
In Latin, both the ocean and sky would be described as caeruleus (or caerulus) which is the root of the English word cerulean. Caeruleus was properly a “greenish blue”.
I’m not sure about the sun. Latin has a lot of words for “red”. There is rubeus, ruber, russus, and rufus. These meant red, or sometimes reddish / ruddy, or tawny, or red-headed. There is purpureus, which could mean dark red, purple, or reddish-brown. There is cruentus, meaning crimson or bloody. There is rutilus, a yellowish-red or strawberry blonde. Finally, there is roseus, rosy or pink.
My dictionary indicates that the Romans would been most likely to describe the sunset with roseus. As for the sun at midday, I don’t know, but I’d be tempted to use rutilus.
Spring leaves were uiridis (youthful green).
Autumn leaves I don’t know. Again I would tempted by rutilus.
Grass would again be uiridis.
For fire I’d just use rutilus again.
The most interesting thing about colour in Latin is that there are separate words for matte black (ater), glossy black (niger), matte white (albus), and glossy white (candidus).
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Wouldn’t the sun be candidus?
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It certainly could be, I don’t know. It’s hard to research the sociolinguistics of ancient languages.
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Oof, I haven’t been taking care of @bugcat’s latin lately. You put a nominative instead of an accusative or genitive in some places. So it’s felem alteram appetit, caudam felis atrae rodit and seruum adione?. Also felis atra asperata est. In the context of the story, irata or something along these lines works better. For 'attack, peto is maybe not a first choice. aggredior -edi, -essus/a/um or tempto, -avi are what I would have used. But peto is fine. You also took a male ending for adjectives and participles for the female cornix. Be mindful here.
The word order est seruus non sounds odd. The puns are brilliant, I love the one with the horse.
For the colours that dawn brings, Vergil and his epigon Simon Lemnius have Aurora drive a chariot and her colours are rutilans, croceus and roseus in variing combinations. As for the other colours, you probably read more about them than me by now. I didn’t know about the difference of glossy and matte for black and white! Virgil and Varro are probably the go-to sources here for colours of nature. See also Pliny’s section on the pigments artists use.
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See also Pliny’s section on the pigments artists use.
Here’s an abbreviated, although still somewhat lengthy, version of what he has to say about cinnabar in Healy’s 1991 / 2004 translation from Natural History: A Selection. I’m far too poor to have bought this in the Rackham translation from Loeb.
Cinnabar is also found in silver mines. Nowadays it is of great importance among pigments; formerly it was not only very important but also sacred. (…) On holidays the face of the statue of Jupiter used to be covered with cinnabar, as well as the bodies of those in triumphal processions (…) Cinnabar was added to the perfumes used at the banquet that follows a triumph. (…) One of the most important duties of the censors was to arrange a contract for covering Jupiter with cinnabar. I myself am at a loss as to the origin of this custom, although nowadays cinnabar is in demand among the peoples of Ethiopia, whose leaders cover themselves all over with this; all their cult statues are of the same colour.
(…) Cinnabar was discovered by an Athenian named Callias (…) [in] AUC 349. (…) Callias had hoped that gold could be extracted, by smelting, from the red sand found in silver mines (…) this was the origin of cinnabar. The mineral was, even then, found in Spain, but there it was a hard, sandy type. It also occurred in Colchian territory on a certain inaccessible rock from which the natives brought it down by throwing spears. This cinnabar, however, was of an impure quality; the best is found (…) east of Ephesus, where the sand is the red colour of cochineal beetles.
This sand is ground up (…) the powder is washed and the sediment rewashed. Skill makes a difference; some workers produce cinnabar after one washing, while with others the cinnabar is rather weak and is improved by a second washing. The importance of the colour comes as no surprise to me, for in Trojan times red ochre was valued highly (…) Cinnabar is also produced in Carmania, and (…) Ethiopia as well; but it is not exported to us from either place and indeed from hardly anywhere other than Spain.
The most famous cinnabar mine (…) is that of Sisapo in Baetica. The security precautions are second to none. Smelting and refining of the ore are not allowed locally, but as much as 2,000 pounds of crude ore a year are sent to Rome under seal and there purified. To prevent the price going sky-high, it is fixed at 70 sesterces for about a pound. The mineral is adulterated in many ways – a source of illegal profit for the mining company. (…)
Those who polish cinnabar in workshops tie loose masks of bladder-skin over their faces to prevent inhalation of dust as they breathe; for the dust is a very serious health hazard. (…) Cinnabar is used for lettering in books and it makes more colourful lettering for inscriptions on walls, marble or even tombs.
[This is the colour of cinnabar, a colour which is also called vermilion. If I remember rightly, cinnabar is the pigment in the paint that covers the tori gates of Shinto Buddhist shrines, which is where you’re most likely to see it in the modern world. The Japanese call both pigment and colour 朱 or shu.]
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Pliny on purple dye and the murex (Rackham, 1940)
Shellfish supplying purple dyes and scarlets (the material of these is the same but is differently blended) are of two kinds: the whelk is the smaller shell (…) the other is called the murex*. [*Rackham translates this to “purple” throughout the text.] (…) It is prickly all round, with about seven spikes forming a ring (…) Shells have as many rings as they are years old. The [whelk] clings only to rocks and can be gathered around crags.
Another name used for the murex is pelagia. There are several kinds, distinguished by their food and the ground they live on. The mud-murex feeds on rotting slime and the seaweed-murex on seaweed, both being of a very common quality. A better kind is the reef-murex, collected on the reefs of the sea (…) The pebble-murex (…) is remarkably suitable for purple dyes; and by far the best for these is the melting-murex, that is, one fed on a varying kind of mud.
Murex are taken in a sort of little lobster-pot of fine ply thrown into deep water. These contain bait, cockles that close with a snap (…) These (…) attract the murex which go for them with outstretched tongues. But the cockles when pricked by their spike shut up (…) so the murex hang suspended because of their greed and are lifted out of the water.
It is most profitable for them to be taken (…) before springtime (…) since when they have waxed themselves over with slime, they have their juices fluid. But this fact is not known to the dyers’ factories, although it is of primary importance. Subsequently the vein (…) is removed and to this salt has to be added, about a pint for every hundred pounds; three days is the proper time for it to be steeped (…) and it should be heated in a leaden pot, and with 50 lbs. of dye to every six gallons of water kept at a uniform and moderate temperature by a pipe brought from a furnace some way off.
This will cause it gradually to deposit the portions of flesh which are bound to have adhered to the veins, and after about nine days the cauldron is strained and a fleece that has been washed clean is dipped for a trial, and the liquid is heated up until fair confidence is achieved. A ruddy colour is inferior to a blackish one. The fleece is allowed to soak for five hours and after it has been carded is dipped again, until it soaks up all the juice.
The whelk by itself is not approved of, as it does not make a fast dye; it is blended in a moderate degree with sea-purple and it gives to its excessively dark hue that hard and brilliant scarlet which is in demand (…) For Tyrian purple the wool is first soaked with sea-purple for a preliminary pale dressing, and then completely transformed with whelk dye. Its highest glory consists in the colour of congealed blood, blackish at first glance but gleaming when held up to the light.
This isn’t even all he has to say.
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Japanese challenge for @Vsotvep : vintage Japanese adverts
what a qt
Others at https://missvickyviola.com/inspiration-japanese-adverts-from-the-1950s/
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Those are beautiful!
First one: “for a bright family, meiji’s cocoa”, an ad for meiji milk chocolate
Second one: “Both for mom and for me, Yamazaki bread”, they have two kinds of nutritious white bread, raisin bread (they call it “grape bread”) and honey bread.
The third one says to hurry up, advertising that the important important (sic) ingredients to make toffee caramel are brought from far countries by plane and boat. It also would be incredibly cheap nowadays, 20円 is about 20 dollar cent, and it contained 14 candies.
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At the moment it’s very close to a cent, 100円 being $0.94, or €0.81 or £0.76
I’m still amazed how cheap the pound has become since the last decade
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