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Two phrases needed

 
 
Joymp
 
Reply Sat 10 Mar, 2007 04:47 pm
I'm brand new to this forum - it looks great! What would be the Latin for "face to face"; also for "voice to voice" (referring to a telephone conversation.

Thanks!
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contrex
 
  1  
Reply Sun 11 Mar, 2007 02:51 pm
Quote:
I'm brand new to this forum - it looks great! What would be the Latin for "face to face"; also for "voice to voice" (referring to a telephone conversation.


As for "face to face", I guess "visio ad visio" might be as near as you'll get, (on here!) and perhaps for "voice to voice" I have seen "vox ad vox" used. Both these phrases blatantly ignore the elementary rules of Latin grammar, so any spurious respectability gained by using fake Latin phrases will be very spurious indeed. "Face to face" wasn't really a concept the Romans had much need for, since practically all human contact was face to face anyway. There wasn't any other kind. "Voice to voice" even less. (See next paragraph).

Joymp, I don't know how to break this to you, but the Romans didn't have telephones! Or telemarketers or cable TV or Cheez Ums or Britney Spears.

Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. It gained wide currency as the formal language of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire.

The Roman Republic existed between roughly 509 BC and 27 BC. The Roman Empire lasted from then until roughly 476 AD. The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell some 1400 years after that.

I had never even heard the phrase "voice to voice" in English, although a quick Google showed me that is in use among telemarketing professionals and people who work over the phone.
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Joymp
 
  1  
Reply Sun 11 Mar, 2007 03:41 pm
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LOL, Thank you for all this information!
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Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sun 11 Mar, 2007 03:46 pm
Contrex has a selective and western prejudiced view of history. The Roman Empire dates from before the end of the Republic--there were two Roman Empires, the Republican Empire, which was succeeded by the Principiate Empire. Principiate comes from the title which Octavian--Caesar Augustus--adopted, which was Princeps, meaning "First Citizen." The word "prince" derives from this.

The empire lasted until the Osmanli Turks took Constantinople in May of 1453. The only provenance i can think of for the date 476 would be the advent of the Lombards. That simply heralded the collapse of imperial authority in the west, not the end of the empire.

He is, of course, complete correct about the absurdity of attempting to apply 20th and 21st century concepts to the Roman Empire, in whatever era.
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Joymp
 
  1  
Reply Sun 11 Mar, 2007 03:54 pm
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Thanks for the history lesson. History was not, unfortunately, my forté. Obviously I wasn't trying to apply today's concepts to the Roman Empire. <S> Just some e-mail joshing with a friend where we like to substitute Spanish or Latin words for the English.
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