Questions tagged [late-latin]
Questions regarding the Latin immediately following Classical Latin (approximately AD 300–500)
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Do we ever see mixing of B and V word-initially?
In later Latin, /b/ between vowels merged with /w/, eventually leading to forms like modern Italian avere from Latin habēre. This only happened within a word: illa bucca became Italian la bocca, not *...
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When do the demonstratives ille, illa, illud become reduced definite articles?
More specifically, what are the first attestations of the nascent reduced forms of the definite articles in Latin (or Proto-Romance) e.g. Latin illam > la?
5
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2
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Why ipsa and not ipsae in Psalms 42:3?
Psalms 42:3 in the Vulgate has:
Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam. Ipsa me deduxerunt...
Why is it ipsa and not ipsae?
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0
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Has the word 'focus' ever meant 'fire' in Latin literature?
I ask this because in virtually all the Romance languages, the respective descendants simply mean fire, yet when I come across the term in classical literature specifically, it usually meant 'hearth'. ...
7
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What does "facti" mean in this sentence?
I am starting to read the "Novellae" in the Corpus Iuris Civilis and this sentence from the first one is confusing to read: 'et Tzanī nunc prīmum sub Rōmānōrum factī rēpublicā inter ...
7
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1
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Why is SoS 8.5 ‘dē dēsertō’ not interpreted as ‘from the forsaken’?
Sources and translations
Vulgate 8.5 opens with this passages:
Quæ est ista quæ ascendit dē dēsertō, dēliciīs affluēns,
innīxa super dīlēctum suum?
This is rendered in the 2011 translation to ...
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3
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1
answer
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How do the different numbering systems for Ambrose’s letters relate to each other?
Background
On p. 27 of Liebeschuetz and Hill’s Ambrose of Milan : Political Letters and Speeches in the series Translated Texts for Historians, vol. 43, they note that:
Latin Text: Otto Faller, ...
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0
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1
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recordings of eras of Latin
I'm not sure if this question is allowed here or not but are there recordings of eras of Latin (Old Latin, Late Latin, and Vulgar Latin) and also African Latin that are recited as perfectly as ...
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1
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Did perveniō acquire a new meaning in Late Antiquity?
Introduction
I am reading an article by Bowersock.¹ In a discussion of the removal of Āra Victōria from the Senate, he references Symmachus’ ‘ūnō itinere nōn potest pervenīrī ad tam grande sēcrētum’. ...
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5
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On the alleged ambiguity of the Ablative Absolute "Mutatis mutandis"
According to the wikipedia entry of Mutatis mutandis, "Mutatis mutandis is a Medieval Latin phrase meaning 'with things changed that should be changed' or 'having changed what needs to be changed'...
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How did Jerome pronounce the Latin language?
Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) lived between the 4th and 5th centuries. He translated the Bible into Latin as the Vulgate (Biblia Vulgata). How would he have pronounced the Latin language?
In ...
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Verbum Hispānicum "mientras" significat "-m" fīnāle prōnūntiātum esse?
In Was the final “-m” a “full-featured” consonant?, cēnsēbant "-m" fīnāle prōnūntiātum nōn esse, sed faciēbat nāsāle vōcālem praecēdēns. Sed invēnī verbum Hispānicum "mientras" ex ...
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1
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Analysis of Dative in >>Confessions<<
In Caput VI Liber II Augustine wrote:"Quamvis mihi nondum fideli......" (Although I was not a Christian...)
Here he used the dative case (mihi fideli). What's the dative case for? Why is it dative?
...
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0
answers
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Gender and etymology of name "Herena"
I found that Herena is the name of a Christian saint from the 3rd century. Virtually nothing is known about Herena's life, but my question is about the name:
Is it a feminine name or masculine, or ...
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4
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1
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Confessiones, sentence analysis
This is a sentence in Caput V, Liber II of Confessiones of Augustine:
Cum interea non satageret idem pater qualis crescerem tibi.
Here what's the case of qualis? According to the declension table it ...
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4
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1
answer
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Which Latin verb was closer to the current meaning of English "solve"?
Nowadays the English verb solve means:
Find an answer to, explanation for, or means of effectively dealing with (a problem or mystery).
The etymology of the word indicates that it comes:
from ...
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12
votes
1
answer
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Why did "cattus" replace Latin "feles"?
The word for cat is now, in almost every European language, derived from Latin cattus, as stated in Etymonline. It also says that the word was
[...] in general use on the continent by c. 700, ...
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11
votes
1
answer
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aret = aridus est?
Is there any semantic or aspectual difference between aret and aridus est (cf. rubet/ruber est; calet/calidus est, candet/candidus est, i.a.)?
Ager aret. (Col. 2.8.5)
Ager aridus erat. (...
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1
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Why can’t we wipe the slate clean in Latin?
After reading Luchonachos’ previous post, whose Latin text contains an adjectival resultative predicate (claudus effectus est ‘he became lame’), the following question came to my mind:
Why is it the ...
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11
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2
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What would a 5th-6th century learned Latin pronunciation have sounded like?
Is there any information on the status of learned pronunciations from the late imperial period up to 1000 CE? I am wondering because the Classical Latin reconstruction seems to make clear that by the ...
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4
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Most used word for "quince" in classical Latin
A typical Spanish dessert is the quince jelly (Spanish: carne/dulce de membrillo), which is also known as codoñate in areas of Catalan influence. Now, the Spanish word for quince is membrillo, which ...
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8
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1
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Does "plurimi" imply "vast majority" in Augustine's Enchiridion?
In Augustine's Enchiridion, §112, he writes:
Frustra itaque nonnulli, immo quam plurimi, aeternam damnatorum poenam et cruciatus sine intermissione perpetuos humano miserantur affectu, atque ita ...
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7
votes
1
answer
510
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Latin etymology of Spanish "tarde"
In Spanish, the word "tarde" has two different meanings:
The part of the day between noon and dusk. Equivalent to the English noun "afternoon".
Happening after the due, usual, or proper time. ...
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8
votes
1
answer
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When did the infinitive of purpose arise?
In Classical Latin, purpose would normally be expressed with ut, or ad with a gerund, or a supine with a verb of motion, or numerous other ways.
However, in later and vulgar Latin (most notably the ...
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5
answers
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What did "actuālis" actually mean in Latin?
The word actual is a false friend between the Spanish and the English languages. When we say in Spanish "la hora actual" we really mean "the current time" and not "the actual time". So in Spanish we ...
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13
votes
3
answers
622
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Why was Z used in digraphs?
According to this other question, Late Latin used various digraphs with the letter Z in them, for sounds which might have been /ts/, /dz/, and /z/. If the letter Z was used for /z/ at the time, the ...
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3
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1
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Virtue is the only Nobility
Juvenal writes in Satire VI, VIII, line 20:
Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.
Translated variously as "Virtue is the one and only nobility", "Nobility is the one only virtue",...
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22
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4
answers
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Why do some Latin adverbs have accent on the last syllable?
In the opening chapter of De Musica (written 387-391), St. Augustine gives an example of a Latin oxytone, i.e. a word with accentual stress on the ultimate syllable:
MASTER: Now when we pronounce ...
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8
votes
1
answer
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Did Boethius write in Classical, Late, or Medieval Latin?
Did Boethius write in Classical, Late, or Medieval Latin? His style does not appear medieval in the Peter of Spain sense of Medieval Latin; however, it does not appear to be classical in the ...
- 873
7
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1
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What does "suscipies et enutries omnes" mean in Augustine?
I'm studying Augustine's Sermon 46, "De Pastoribus," largely via translations into Spanish and English. There are a number of places where my English source and my Spanish source disagree, ...
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13
votes
1
answer
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How to tell when an inscription is post-classical?
When traveling in Europe, I occasionally come across Latin inscriptions.
Their ages vary greatly, and I would like to get some tools for quickly estimating their age.
How can I tell if an inscription ...
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9
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1
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Does "quidam Ciceronis" indicate respect for the person?
In Augustine's Confessions, book 3, chapter 4, he writes:
et usitato iam discendi ordine perveneram in librum cuiusdam Ciceronis (source)
Henry Chadwick translates the bolded phrase as "a certain ...
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10
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1
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Apicius' "sp[h]ondyli vel fonduli"
Apicius' de re coquinaria (Roman recipe book believed to have been compiled in the 4th/5th century CE) contains, in the book 3 "cepuros" on vegetables, a paragraph (XX, recipes 115 to 121) entitled "...
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When and why did Latin mutate into Italian, French and Spanish? [closed]
At which point in history was the language spoken not anymore called Latin but any of the succeeding languages like Italian, French or Spanish? What are the characteristics which made them different ...
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2
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When did “c” before “e” or “i” start to be pronounced as [ts] (in contrast to classical [k])?
In Classical Latin, "c" was always pronounced as "k". Since Renaissance Latin grammar reform, the correct pronunciation of "c" before "e" or "i" was codified to [ts]. So in Renaissance the true ...
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