The Latin Pool

[dianaholberg]

That's interesting. I really wonder why they are different. Any ideas how we could find out?

[littlepea]

i could phone up my latin teacher from school, i have his number. he was keen to keep in touch after i finished school and gave me his e-mail address and home address too but he takes months to reply to e-mails. i sent him one a few weeks ago but he hasn't responded.

if anyone knows, he'll know, i'm sure, otherwise your guess is as good as mine

[dianaholberg]

I would really love to know if there is a reason. I don't know quite why I would like to know... I'm not sure why it caught my attention. But it did, so I would

If you aren't able to reach him, I'll search over the weekend... not sure where to start though.

[littlepea]

i'll send him an e-mail then, i don't think it's really important enough to phone him up at home about. he porbably won't reply for a few months, but if he ever does i'll be sure to post his reply on here

[littlepea]

oh, i got a reply, that was unexpected he said he didn't know

basically it's all about convention and convenience and cross-reference. in an english dictionary if you look up "saw" you'd expect to see a cross-reference to "see", similarly "in the Greek lexicon you expect an awkward aorist optative passive to be listed with a reference to the first singular present active." he says ...

if i ever knew what an aorist optative passive was i've forgotten by now so don't bother asking me what it is

[dianaholberg]

lol littlepea... Thank you for asking him. As I mentioned I'll do some looking around and see if I can find anything more.

[dianaholberg]

I did some searching over the weekend and learned a lot about the origin of languages, but no answers to my question... oh well.

The reason I chose the Pater Noster to start with is that Catholics chant it... and I've always had an easier time memorizing words set to music. So next I'll tackle the Gloria.

There's a priest in Rome who has spent the last five years making literal translations of Latin prayers. His translations help to show the beauty of that language. The English translations commonly used just don't compare. Check it out.

[dianaholberg]

Here is the text I found for the Sanctus, followed by the English translation we use:

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus
(Holy, holy holy)

Dominus Deus Sabaoth
(Lord, God of power and might)

Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua
(Heaven and earth are full of your glory)

Hosanna in excelsis
(Hosanna in the highest)

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini
(Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord)

Hosanna in excelsis
(Hosanna in the highest)

In the Lord's Prayer, the web site I copied from had the word quotidianum, but after looking around a bit, I discovered that the better spelling for "daily" is cottidianum. Does anyone know why? Also, are there words in the Sanctus that have better spellings?

Also, Sabaoth looks like a Hebrew word to me... yes?

Finally, I've always found it interesting that we don't translate words like Alleluia ("praise the Lord!") and Hosanna ("pray, save us!").

[littlepea]

quotidianus is in my dictionary and it says "see cottidianus". there's also a word quotannis which means "yearly" and there's a few words around it beginning in quot- with similar sort of meanings, so maybe it was originally quotidianus (using quot- as a prefix) but through usage people found it easier to say cottidianus and stuck with that. both are correct, though.

i haven't seen the word Sabaoth before and it certainly doesn't look very latin, but the rest of the prayer looks about right to me.

there are quite a lot of words in english in general that we don't bother to translate because we would have to make up a new word to convey the same meaning anyway - kindergarten, baguette, psychology etc. here's one you might not have thought of before: there's a hebrew word that means to be at one with God and there is no english equivalent, so the people who first translated the old testament into english made up a word - at-one-ment ... atonement

[dianaholberg]

You're right... which is part of why there is often confusion over who Jesus Christ is. I started looking into this, and it's really interesting. I'll start a thread somewhere.

[dianaholberg]

I discovered Sabaoth is indeed Hebrew... but it doesn't mean "power and might" -- it actually means "host" (as in "Heavenly Host") or "army" (as in, the armies of Israel).

Since this is the Latin thread, I went ahead and looked up the Latin for "Heavenly Host". (It is in the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, who is "Prince of the Heavenly Host"). It is militiae coelestis. Another word translated that way is exercituum.

[littlepea]

in context it reads: Prince of the heavenly host - Princeps militiae coelestis. militiae coelestis is the genetive case, the nominative would be militia coelestis (i'm not sure why coelestis is the same but apparently it is ... i can't remember my adjective tables ... maybe one is pronounced "tiss" and the other "tees" at the end).

militia really means "soldiers" or indeed "militia" but i'm sure the translation of the prayer you linked to is correct, so i guess it can also mean "host" in a military sense (which is possible, given the context of the prayer).

also, i couldn't find coelestis in my dictionary, but i looked up "heavenly" in the english to latin half of it and it suggest caelestis, so perhaps there is a spelling mistake in that particular version that you have linked to? then again it could be one of those things that changes over time, like quotidianus and cottidianus ...

in fact, now that i think about it, militia coelestis/caelestis is probably just an attempt to convey the same meaning as Sabaoth, seeing as you mention that the hebrew word can mean armies of Israel too (hence "heavenly soldiers" which is what militia caelestis literally means) so it's probably one of those things that has technically lost its exact meaning in translation but through usage has managed to maintain its original meaning.

i'm struggling to think of an english example of the same sort of thing - more often than not we just use the foreign word in that situation like i mentioned before unless we're trying to make a point stylistically ... perhaps a smart-arse father will tell his wife he's taking the kids to the "children garden" rather than just say "kindergarten" like any normal american

[littlepea]

in fact, i found it so interesting that i e-mailed my latin teacher from school to see what he has to say, so i'll be sure to let you know if he replies

[dianaholberg]

I'm trying to find more on the Hebrew word... thank you for the Latin info

I tried to think of an example too but came up empty...

[richardw]

Hi there guys!
I am new around here and like you passionate about the Latin language. I'd like to share with you all a great online resource on the Latin language: the <ahref="http://www.babylon.com/define/112/Latin-Dictionary.html">Latin Dictionary</a>. It is one of the best collections of Latin English dictionaries I've found so far on the NEt. Hope it helps and keep on posting.
Rick