Let's Play With Latin!

Well, piffka, it was the time before the final exams. Thus we (sic!) tried to translate: "How much trembiling for will bethere, once the examinator arrives."

Walter, that actually means "How much fear will there be, how great a judge will come". . . or "how great a judgement will come". . .

Eight years of latin. Boo Yah. . . :-)

If you want the grammar. . . venturus est and futurus est are future perfect tenses. . . "there will have been", actually. . . the future perfect is translated into english as a simple future.

Quantus is indeed a modifier. . . means how much. Tremor is fear, iudex is a judge or judgement. . .

So that probably should read "Quantus tremor futurus est, quantus iudex venturus est." Romans had no commas, but it makes it easier on us poor moderns :-)

(oh, and I have to posit: abilitis is not, technically a word, except in neo latin, to which those classicists among us do not subscribe. . . ability is facultas. . . ergo facultasIIscire. . . that is, of course, the "ability to know". . . able is posse, of course. . . but that's not quite the sense we're going for :-))

And I would like to offer up for translation one of my all-time favorite t-shirts:

Catapultam habeo.
Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis,
ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

Always get funny stares with this one. . .

princess

My 6 years of Latin (and a couple of years as aclyte and lecturer in church) are nearly forgotten by now - especially my poor knowledge of grammar.

tehe. . . I forgive you :-) Your german's still better than mine ;-)

Thanks ... and I really have nothing to do with this guy

Mr. Walters
Our teacher for Latin and all other classical studies

re your German: I definately speak better than you with your "Hessian tongue" (and most certainly my reservoir of naughty vocabulary is a little bit greater as well).

I'll give it a maccaroni try:

"I've got a weapon. (A catapult)
If you don't give me all of your money
I'll riddle your frightened head with bullets (rocks)".

I dunno, Walter. . . that naughty stuff is the first thing we young guns learn these days. . .

And that's pretty close, fbaezer :-)

I have a catapult. If you don't give me all the money, I'll throw a giant rock at your head :-)

princess

You really are a "Schnuggelsche"!

tehehe. . . awwww. . . you Westphalians. . .

Hmmh, all like me: calm, contained and decent.

LOL. . . <is flipping through her "Dialects of Modern German" book to figure out which consonants change in Westphalian>

Questions
Someone asked earlier if "felix" meant "cat." Felix actually means "happy" or "fortunate" as in the exegetical term Felix Culpa... that is "fortunate fall."

I have a question though for any who know their Latin well. I was under the impression that the word 'paganus,' though obviously meaning "a country dweller, was originally in old Latin applied to anyone who lived outside of Rome proper... I am wondering if anyone can shed some light on this for me. Thanks.

I just know about the later period:

"The follower of new belief ['Christian'] began to refer to as a proud name "Roman", opposing itself "Paganus" - to the pagan as whom it could be understood both the native of empire and the foreigner. Later the countryman was named Paganus (and not casually - in a countryside pagan rites longly kept). "

Welcome to A2K, vecna!

Thanks
My Latin isn't what it should be, but my stupid university only offers Latin 1 and 2... nothing beyond that. I think by the end of 2, we had only gotten to chapter 20 or 22 in Wheelock's Latin... its sad really.

I may have been confusing the word "barbarus" with "paganus," since these words come up often in the study of medieval history. I am certain that 'barbarus' originally referred to someone who lived outside of the empire. I have to wonder if those terms were ever used as synonyms though... <?>

Thanks for the welcome.

MY sig
I just made a signature, and am posting again to a) make sure that it worked and b) for others to make sure I got my grammar correct. If the sig doesn't work, it is supposed to say:

Sum quae ut sum non.

-vec

from a PIE-ish angle
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.  2000. 

pagan

SYLLABICATION:
pa·gan

PRONUNCIATION:
  pgn

NOUN:
1. One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially a worshiper of a polytheistic religion. 2. One who has no religion. 3. A non-Christian. 4. A hedonist. 5. A Neo-Pagan.

ADJECTIVE:
1. Not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. 2. Professing no religion; heathen. 3. Neo-Pagan.

ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English, from Late Latin pgnus, from Latin, country-dweller, civilian, from pgus, country, rural district. See pag-

Thanks, Flaminius - but do you really thing, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is THE expert source for Latin? :wink:

Hello Walter,

The Appendix I of AHDE is a concise but up-to-date glossary of Proto-Indo-European reconstructed roots. The 2000 version incorporates several roots that even Julius Pokorny (still the authority, I think) could not locate.

If one can find the PIE etymology of "pagan" in AHDE, the validity of the argument is corroborated by both PIE scholarship and Latin classical study. At least I think so.

You might be correct.

<Walter, making a knot in his handkerchief not to forget again to look that up in the university's Latin department library>