de re libraria

difficile erit nobis, ut opinor, rem librariam latine reddere. fieri potest ut, operibus emendatis, animi multorum sint offensi et alienati.

in hac pagina ergo tales res benigne disceptemus.

And of course we can do so in English, which -- I suspect -- will be much easier for most of us.

I've gotten things started, but my girlfriend insists on having dinner tonight ...

Okay, I'll play along.

Is there agreement on a "standard" for the necessary neologisms? Vicipaedia? They confirm, e.g., usor and ephemeris, the latter which you're already using.

Does the Vatican have something?

Failing that, do we go with more obscure words or ordinary ones in new senses? For instance, pittacia for 'tags'?

I'm relying on instinct and backing it up with Smith's English-Latin Dictionary, the Oxford Latin Dictionary, and Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary.

I'd like to see some creativity here, and I'd like it if we could justify the terms within this group, citing classical parallels for usage and the like, when appropriate. For example, we should be careful to be faithful to the way that Latin tended to say things, rather than trying to make literal translations. So, to choose an extreme example, Latin may sometimes use a relative clause ('those who do X') where English would use a simple noun. This isn't exact, but it's something to keep in mind as we go.

By the way, I like pittacia.

bibliotheca or libraria?
scriptor or auctor?

Should we just put in alternatives and use the cheer / boo or try to work them out beforehand here or use some other way?

I fear there may be a lot more variability in Sprachgefühl, depending on what one has read, than with the modern languages.

I did a few random bits from the "all untranslated" page, to see how difficult it is. My Latin tends to be epigraphic/legal/medieval rather than high classical, so it may be a bit divergent from what those of you with a more Ciceronian/Vergilian education might use.

As for the words mentioned above, I would have thought "tituli" (labels) rather than "pittacia" (patches). Definitely "bibliotheca" rather than "libraria" (things pertaining to books); either "scriptor" or "auctor" might work, but I think "auctor" might better match the modern concept of authorship.

Those of us for whom English to Latin translation = "Latin Prose Composition" = <schoolboys trying to write like Tully> certainly don't have any more legitimate claim to a 21st Century Web site than any other period. We just need to come up with a consensus. I think this is exactly where Tim predicted the exercise would break down. ;-)

If we go with tituli for 'tags', then what to use for 'titles'? pittacia is indeed 'patches' by the Vulgate, but I think classically in Latin and Greek was scraps of stuff you wrote on, sometimes as 'tags'. A good example of that basic decision. Myself, I'm happy enough either way.

I thought he predicted church Latin vs. classical as the breakdown. Mine is more vulgar than ecclesiastical ;)

I think "titles" of books could be called "inscriptiones", but it's a good example of the creative/arbitrary element, though, because I don't get the impression that the concept of a book's title was reified in the modern sense at all in Roman culture. In books, "titulus" normally means a subheading, at least in legal sources.

"Pittacia" does translate the idea of "tag" in the physical sense; it's the usual problem of lining up categories between languages that divide the world in different ways. You write a "titulus" on a "pittacium" (or on other things), rather than having it be all one word as in English. It's a question of which side of the meaning you want to stress. I also can live with either.

>6 E59F:

"As for the words mentioned above, (...) either "scriptor" or "auctor" might work, but I think "auctor" might better match the modern concept of authorship."

Could you please explain this to me, because I don't get it.

I thought an "auctor" was rather telling/writing on behalf of someone else, thus being some kind of spokesman or as you wish in PR business. FYI : I know that from Tacitus on, it could be a writer (or history writer) too.

On the other hand, a "scriptor" is a writer. It might have been a copiist or a secretary--though this meaning is rather rare, and in this case he is more often called "scriptor librarius"--but as I as my sources confirm, normally, a "scriptor" is just a writer or an author (!) (in Dutch: "schrijver, auteur" (sic), cf. i.a. Geerebaert 1955) (*), adding "rerum scriptor" for history writer and specifying a "scriptor" could be a history writer or even a poet, too, as in e.g. "Troiani belli scriptor"--the latter being Homeros, of course.

(*) Beknopt Latijns-Nederlands woordenboek

Please take into account I was learning Latin before I ever started learning English, thus I didn't look at Latin through English language glasses, but rather some knowledge of Latin helped with my learning English. And of course neither of those is my mother tongue. YMMV.

Then again, I do not want to pretend any authority in Latin--please don't--but still I 'd like to understand the choice for "auctor" rather than "scriptor" for the English word author.

Perhaps even, some are having a different view on what an author is and does.

Furthermore, an "auctor" can be someone giving advice, too, as in "Quid mihi auctor es?" (What are you advising me?), or even someone promoting some act.

I think that, because of all this, we might even consider the publisher as being the "auctor". FYI: Yes, I know about the verb "edere", too.

Another translation I do not understand (and I think it is wrong in this case), is :
dressel26 transferit "original language" as "lingua principalis"
For, though I can understand the idea that lead to this, how would we translate primary as in primary language then?
Because of this, it might be preferable to have original language translated as "lingua originalis".

Finally, considering "pittacia" : I like that. =)

"Then again, I do not want to pretend any authority in Latin--please don't--but still I 'd like to understand the choice for "auctor" rather than "scriptor" for the English word author."

My thinking on that was that "scriptor" refers to the act of writing (without regard to who created the text), whereas "auctor" can carry the wider sense of "originator". On the other hand, it can also mean "seller (in a transaction)" or "proposer (of a law)" or "source (of a citation)" or various other things, so perhaps the specificity of "scriptor" is better, as you suggest. As I said, my Latin tends to be late and nonliterary (Diocletian's Price Edict is probably the center of gravity, so to speak), so my semantic ranges may not be standard.

For "principalis", my thinking was that, to my mind anyway, "principium" carries more the meaning of "starting point", whereas "origo" has more the sense of "ancestry" and "initialis" seems too much to imply something following. But I hadn't really thought as far as the "primary language" question - something like "praeponderans" would work, but I agree that "principalis" sounds more natural. And again, my feeling for "origo"/"originalis" may be off; it would certainly be the easiest translation for an English-speaker to interpret.

boekerij - your knowledge of Latin is undoubtedly more thorough than mine, so I'm happy to defer to your opinions on those choices.

I tried to post something last night that never made it, but the meat of it had to do with sodalis, sodalitas, and sodalicium.

Certain terms commonly used in English are vague or inaccurate. What exactly is an account, and what defines a user? If you try to find corresponding terms in Latin you either alter the meaning of words or have to resort to coining neologisms.

In my view, a user is really a member, so for this I've used sodalis.

Account in the context of a site like this is really an inaccurate analogy to banking and credit-based business relationships. It's essence, though, isn't the computer record of your relationship with the site, but the relationship itself: membership. For this I've chosen sodalitas.

It's for this reason that words referring to types of account, such as free or paid, have been put into the feminine, e.g., (sodalitas) gratuita.

And finally, to refer to groups, I've used a related term: sodalicia.

I think it makes sense to use related terms despite the variety of terms used in English, both because the basic ideas are related and because greater obscurity and lack of uniformity would mean fewer budding Latinists being able to understand much of the site.

I've changed Zeitgeist back to MMcM's 'Tempora' from EvaRaphaela's 'Ingenium aetatis', in part because ingenium doesn't seem right, but mostly because I find Tempora to be very elegant and in the spirit of good translation.

At first, I thought about finding another translation, but it put me in mind of O tempora! O mores!

I can't imagine a better translation than that.

By the way, EvaRaphaela: thanks for catching some of my slips (e.g., se for te). I was on a roll and careless.

Re msg 12: I defer to your superior latinity, thecardiffgiant, but I can't say I'm crazy about "tempora" for "Zeitgeist" -- yes, it's elegant, but my feeling is it can mean too many things. I actually found "ingenium aetatis" as a literal translation of "Zeitgeist" in a German-to-Latin dictionary I have lying around, and thought it was a pretty good solution.

As for slips -- my pleasure, and I hope you'll catch whatever slips I've undoubtedly made! :)

Thing about Classical Latin is, you might find it harder to get words which pertain to our conversations than if you were to use Medieval Latin, although from a Renaissance type's point of view only Classical Latin is pure enough to function well. So, I dunno, myself I borrow vocabulary from both Medieval and Classical Latin, kind of mix of Vergil, Cicero, Caesar, and Jerome.

Sed pernumerosi sunt qui linguam Latinam Cambriae alibique loquuntur et qui operum sensum emendatorum recte intuere non possunt?

Perhaps instead of titles, all books on the Latin LibraryThing wouldhave to be classified in the medieval manner by Incipits :-)

Felis apud columbas.