49
votes
Accepted
Why is "ille" used in Winnie ille Pu and Hobbitus Ille?
It's true that in Classical Latin, ille is a demonstrative pronoun (corresponding to that), not an article; indeed, articles as we know them in English do not exist in Classical Latin. However, that'...
- 11.2k
45
votes
Accepted
Why speak in Latin in 2020?
The actual set of reasons varies from person to person, but here are some:
It's a hobby.
Why do people still shoot arrows with bows?
Surely it's not a very efficient way to attack prey or anything ...
- 110k
27
votes
Accepted
How to correctly say Star Wars in Latin?
Joonas' answer is right on grammar, but since we're not talking about a single star, an adjective based on sidus would have better semantics. I'd go with Bella Siderea.
Familiarity with modern ...
- 1,606
23
votes
Which scientific journals still accept papers written in Latin?
I will answer for Acta Mathematica, mostly because as a working mathematician I know the publication culture well.
Their submission guide says: "Allowable languages are English, French and German....
- 110k
21
votes
Accepted
Latin word for "code" or "program" (the verb)
For almost twenty years, the de facto standard for Latin technology vocabulary has been the Vocabula computatralia. You can and should use and peruse it for all types of programming-related vocabulary,...
cmw♦
- 50.8k
21
votes
ATM in Vatican City: "Inserito scidulam quaeso ut faciundam cognoscas rationem"
The source of this Latin ATM message, as confirmed is a few profiles (such as this one from the Catholic Herald and this one from The Telegraph) is the lately-deceased Reginald Foster, who was ...
- 38.5k
20
votes
Accepted
What is the process for translating modern words like "tablet" or "smartphone" into Latin?
Basically, your second option is correct. There is the Vatican's Lexicon Recentis Latínitátis, referred to in the comment, but its approach to Latin is very idiosyncratic; debates over neologisms ...
- 16.4k
17
votes
Accepted
Could one consider using Latin as a daily casual language these days?
You seem to be addressing several issues in this question.
To start from the bottom line: Latin is already being used right now as a daily casual language. Not even a small reserve about this ...
- 10.1k
16
votes
Accepted
Why is there no word meaning firearm in contemporary Latin?
It pains me to suggest that Latin Wikipedia is in error, but Latin Wikipedia is in error. The arma ignifera Nathanial suggests is in fact a word for firearm that some have used, but it's in the silva ...
- 16.4k
16
votes
How to correctly say Star Wars in Latin?
Indeed, you cannot use a plain noun as an attribute in Latin the way you can in English.
Instead of "Star Wars" you have to say "Wars of Stars" or "Stellar Wars".
Adjectives are a very natural choice ...
- 110k
15
votes
How to read mathematics out loud?
For basic mathematics, I’ve found some answers in the Institutiones Physicæ by Floriani Dalham, published in 1752:
1+2 = 3 would be read unus plus duo sunt tres
Additio est duorum, vel plurium ...
- 2,292
15
votes
Why speak in Latin in 2020?
Expanding on brianpck's comment above, as a 'dead' language anything you read or write in Latin now will likely be just as readable in another 1000 years. Something written in English, French, German, ...
- 8,412
15
votes
Accepted
Is Queneau's Latin in Exercises in Style good?
Not very.
Lexically, a lot of the words aren't Latin or aren't used with the meaning they had in (Classical) Latin: zenithi (French zénith < Medieval Latin cenit < Arabic samt (with the m being ...
- 8,647
14
votes
Could one consider using Latin as a daily casual language these days?
Latin is used regularly within the Vatican and Catholic Church, so depending on what you mean by daily usage I think that fulfills that requirement. There are also a lot of loan words that make their ...
- 8,412
13
votes
Does anyone learn Latin as a native language?
I know of five kids who are growing up speaking Latin, and I imagine there have to be more that I don't know about. One is Josiah Meadows, who does online spoken Latin lessons himself. You can see him ...
- 16.4k
13
votes
What is the name of the separator dots between the words?
It is called the interpunct.
Empty space to separate words as we do now is not a universal phenomenon.
Just as well the Romans might ask why we leave space between words instead of putting a dot in ...
- 110k
12
votes
Accepted
Latin words for “engineer”
Besides machinator, I found two words for engineer in classical Latin that are primarily directed towards the devising of buildings and fortifications.
aedificator A builder, derived from aedes (...
- 531
12
votes
Which scientific journals still accept papers written in Latin?
I do not think you will find any in natural sciences in the 21st century. In the 20th century it was still possible. Some journals were multilingual and many authors and readers went through their ...
- 1,013
11
votes
In contemporary spoken Latin, do people mark the 1st-declension ablative case?
tl;dr: as the risk of mistake is higher than for other suffixes, in contexts where analyzing the cases is difficult (like chanting psalms in a fast pace) people often distinguish the length less for -...
- 1,833
11
votes
Accepted
How would you say "cafe" in Latin?
There have already been a few answers, but I have always liked the Morgan and Silva Furman University Lexicon, so here are the terms it gives for "cafe":
thermopolium, -i, n.
taberna ...
- 3,958
11
votes
Accepted
Can someone translate this paragraph from the book "Proxima" for me? And is it grammatically correct?
This is garbled Latin that looks like the misguided effort of a first-year Latin student (or perhaps, more likely, Google Translate). The meaning (in outline) is clear to me as an English speaker:
...
- 38.5k
11
votes
Accepted
How do you say "online" and "offline" in Latin?
For “online” you could say:
colligatus (from colligare)
conexus (from conectere, note: long o, single n!)
Thus for “offline” you could say:
incolligatus
inconexus
Or you could go a different route ...
- 31.8k
10
votes
Historical recordings of ex tempore contemporary Latin used in university lectures?
Professor Wilifried Stroh's lectures on the history of Latin literature and on other subjects are incredibly entertaining, learned, and eloquent. I don't know when he made them, but since he was born ...
- 16.4k
10
votes
Latin word for "code" or "program" (the verb)
My dictionary translates 'to program' as programmare or programma conficere.
If you find a good noun for 'code', you can also combine it with conficere.
One possibility is nota, but I'm not entirely ...
- 110k
10
votes
Accepted
What does "novit in tali" mean?
I am using this edition of the Fabulae Divales as a basis for my below answer.
quam et
In general, Latin prefers to link clauses that would often be independent in English: propter quod, quam ob rem, ...
- 38.5k
10
votes
How to Practice Speaking Latin
A few comments about pre-requisites to teaching students to speak Latin.
Accent
Concerning the difficulty to reconstitute the accents of Ancient Latin, the question of "what should be the correct ...
- 271
10
votes
Accepted
Cum cucurbitis aegris ex aqua
Before the food industry tried to hide these things from us, everyone knew that food could be improved with bacteria.
Yoghurt with Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus
Cheese with, ...
- 8,623
10
votes
Accepted
Latin date abbreviation meanings
That's a superscript a, indicating that these are ordinal numbers rather than cardinal numbers.
Specifically, it's showing the ending of the word to disambiguate different ways of reading the number. ...
- 64.7k
10
votes
Accepted
Traditional English pronunciation of "dives"?
I agree with your guess of /daɪviːz/.
For comparison, the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for miles gloriosus mentions /ˈmaɪliːz/ as a former possible pronunciation of miles, which has the same ...
- 26.6k
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