Thank you for the explanation, very interesting indeed. I love reading about differences in character usage among countries that use hanzi.
Please donât send me your æçșž.
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Oh, I just read out of the plural column on Wiktionary by mistake⊠.___.
I should at least have realised whilst I was doing it that -orum is obviously a plural form. I was probably tired (will be my excuse : P)
Iâll write out the conjugation as penance:
bĂștĂœrum butter
nom. bĂștĂœrum, bĂștĂœra
acc. ditto
voc. ditto
dat. bĂștĂœrĂł, bĂștĂœrĂs
abl. ditto
gen. bĂștĂœrĂ, bĂștĂœrĂłrum
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Sometimes I wonder about how the Japanese system of Kanji would translate to the conditions in Europe. Imagine using hieroglyphs or cuneiform. Then, âpsychologyâ might be written like 
and every student would have to learn when to pronounce a symbol with an anglo-reading, a latino-reading or a graeco-reading. And sometimes, we would write DINGIR in an Akkadian alphabet script but pronounce it âgodâ and to understand a well-made pun, we would need to know basic Sumerian.
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When you think of Latin poets, you think of Virgil, Ovid, Horace and so on (well, perhaps not Horace). But ironically, I think itâs only Martial who has written poems that English-speakers are actually familiar with (in their translated forms), with many people who enjoy them having probably never even considered their authorship.
Mollia non rigidus caespes tegat ossa nec illi,
terra, grauis fueris: non fuit illa tibi.
from a longer poem about the death of a young slave girl, became in English
Lie lightly on her, turf and dew,
She put so little weight on you.
Non amo te, Sabide, nec possum dicere quare.
Hoc tantum possum dicere: non amo te
became in English
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why â I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.
Perhaps the only other piece of Latin poetry in modern popular culture is Catullusâ dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (it is a sweet and noble thing to die for your country), which is now known only in its ironic form.
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âred wineâ, the best-travelling phrase?
(btw, near the end of making this list I found out that glosbe.com has pretty much every translation dictionary youâll ever want.)
It should be noted that all the variants of âwineâ derive from Latin uinum, whereas the words for âredâ often donât come from Latin at all, but rather some other Indo-European language.
| Language | Phrase |
|---|---|
| Latin | uinum rubeum |
| Italian | vino rosso |
| Sardinian | binu ruju |
| Romanian | vin roÈu |
| Spanish | vino rosado |
| Portuguese | vinho tinto* |
| French | vin rouge |
| Rumansch | vin cotschen* |
| German | Rotwein |
| Dutch | rode wijn |
| Danish, Norwegian | rĂždvin |
| Swedish | rödvin |
| Icelandic | rauĂ°vĂn |
| Breton | gwin ruz |
| Welsh | gwin coch* |
| Irish, Scots Gaelic | fĂon dearg* |
| Polish | czerwone* wino |
| Russian | ĐșŃĐ°ŃĐœĐŸĐ” ĐČĐžĐœĐŸ (krĂĄsnoje* vinĂł) |
- from Latin tinctum, tinted
- from Latin coccinus, scarlet, ultimately from coccum
- also from coccum
- dearg is an indigenous Celtic word
- like many other terms for red, eg. vermilion, this comes from a word that meant âwormâ in reference to the use of scale insects to make red dye. In this case, a reconstructed Slavic word.
- from a Slavic word ĐșŃĐ°ŃŃĐœêĐž (krasÄnyi), meaning âbeautifulâ
Hmm, I could really have just made this post about the words for wine. The fact that uinum is the root for âwineâ throughout all of Europe, even in non-Romance languages, really is interesting.
You can add áŒÏÏ ÎžÏÏÏ ÎżáŒ¶ÎœÎżÏ and ÎșÎżÎșÎșÎčÎœÏ ÎșÏαÏÎŻ. The modern Greek krasi means âmixtureâ because you used to mix wine with water.
The Georgian word for wine is ÉŁvino. The Georgians claim to have âinventedâ viticulture, so I suspect this is their native, Kartvelian word for it and everybody else borrowed it; but I canât say for sure.
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Apparently ÉŁ is a voiced velar fricative in IPA, whereas Ê (the s in pleasure) is a voiced palatoalveolar fricative, and z is a voiced alveolar fricative.
As a side note, I used to think zh in Pinyin represented Ê in Mandarin, but apparently it really stands for an entirely foreign sound ÊÊ. We Europeans can only try our best with Chinese phonologyâŠ
Secondary side note, I recently made a false claim that there were no word pairs in English distinguished solely by the difference between Ξ (the voiceless dental fricative, as in thin) and Ă° (the voiced dental fricative, as in then). Within thirty minutes or so, weâd found teeth / teethe, wreath / wreathe, loath / loathe, sooth / soothe, and thistle / thisâll.
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So, you want to kibitz in Latin?
Alright, letâs start by importing some Japanese loanwords which we might find useful.
moyo becomes moio; tsumego becomes sumego. Moio, sumego, and dango will decline like capo (capon):
nom., voc. dango, dangones
acc. dangonem, dangones
gen. dangonis, dangonum
dat. dangoni, dangonibus
abl. dangone, dangonibus
Latin nouns donât end in -i in the nominative singular, so weâll have to change them to -is.
Thus seki --> secis, joseki --> iosecis, fuseki --> fusecis, aji --> aiis, kakari --> cacaris, shimari --> simaris, hoshi --> hosis.
These words will decline like canis (dog).
nom., voc. secis, seces
acc. secem, seces
gen. secis, secum
dat. seci, secibus
abl. sece, secibus
There are also no normal Latin nouns which end in _-e_in the nominative singular, so our loanwords will take -a endings instead. dame becomes dama, and declines like puella (girl).
nom., voc. dama, damae
acc. dama, damas
gen. damae, damarum
dat. damae, damis
abl. dama, damis
tengen we will decline like carmen:
nom., voc., acc. tengen, tengina
gen. tenginis, tenginum
dat. tengini, tenginibus
abl. tengine, tenginibus
Now, we need some indigenous nouns.
player = lusor, -ris
Black = Ater
White = Candida
corner = angulus, -i
side = latus, -era
eye = oculus, -i
stone = calculus, -i
eg. âa black stone on tengenâ = calculus ater in tengine.
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Iâd say that tumego is closer to the original pronunciation. Many Japanese speakers are not consciously aware of the s, just like British speakers wouldnât think thereâs an h in âbutterâ (while American speakers wouldnât consider the middle consonant to be a d ).
Also, wasnât there a book in Latin describing the game of Go? Might be interesting to look for inspiration.
In the West, we invariably say sumego⊠but I see your point.
Where is there an h in butter?
Hereâs the book, we discussed it earlier in the thread.
There isnât, but British dialect pronounces it more like âbhuttherâ.
Similar to how thereâs no s in ă€ăă
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As an Englishman, I beg to differ.
Thereâs also no h in Wiktionaryâs IPA rendition of the word in British English.
There is: [ËbÉtÊ°É].
Perhaps not the b, but surely the tt in the middle is aspirated.
Also, by saying there isnât an h, youâre kind of proving my point that there isnât an s. 
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Iâd prefer them to decline like Isis, Isidis which is a usual pattern for loanwords from âbarbaricâ languages. In short words like secis, educated speakers familiar with Greek can sometimes use an accusative in -in, or assimilate the word to the i-declension (sitis, turris, puppis, febris) -im.
This is fine. But you can keep the -e and have it behave like Greek loanwords that in a Roman mouth will go something like *dame, damae; damen, damas; dames, damarum; damae, damis; dama, damis.
I wonder if we can even go as far and say tumego, retaining an Old Japanese pronounciation.
candidus is a good choice for white, even better the female as a ânameâ for the white player. The white stones are indeed quite shiny, and not just a regular bland milky-white. The De ludis orientalibus libri duo treats it as a Chinese game.
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I pronounce tengen with a hard g, as in âghettoâ.
I think probably latin would use a mild g, as in âgenderâ. Would it fit anyway?
I feel weird saying âtenjenâ 
(as in january)
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In the classical pronunciation Latin has alway a hard g.
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But what would âwesternâ Go terms be if it was invented or introduced here at a time where scholars would come up with graeco-latin terminology instead of German, English, French and whatever?
moyo - peritaxis
atari - kindynos, discrimen
seki - allelobiosis
joseki - solitum
aji - chymos
fuseki - kataskeue; anoigma
chugo - symbolé
dame - exodos
tengen - omphalos
semeai - pnigos
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What is chugo?
hoshi could be astrum, but ofc thatâs just a calque. A more inventive name would be nonus (a ninth). Or perhaps urbs, harking back to that geographical motif I talked about earlier.
As for eyes, they could really be any body part that comes in pairs, like manus (hands). Or, better, one eye could be Castor and two Castores (Castor & Pollux).
nares 
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papillae 
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