E
Etaoin Shrdlu
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Maybe, but I doubt the word has been used to refer to eyes for several centuries. In any case, without an actual Latin example, it's worthless.
people with disabilities/disabled people
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Well yes, there is what Pacifica mentioned about the definition. If mancus implies a maimed member (usually but not exclusively the hand), and we consider an eye a member / part of the body, and if this is not a distortion of the semantics of mancus, then it is not such a bad idea to think it could be extended in this direction when we want to approximate a contemporary idea without any very close equivalent in Latin. We are moderns trying to use ancients' words. I think there should be something living and creative and practical about our usage. Otherwise we are like Englishmen trying to speak only as Shakespeare or Milton spoke. (Why...???) I realize others of this community do not agree with this approach, but I enjoy Latin partly for its larger reach through time and space.
But people have been reading this verse repeatedly all the years of my life...and yours too: https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-29.htm . (Search for "member" on the page and over 22 instances will be highlighted.)
Matthaeus 5:29 Biblia Sacra Vulgata (VULGATE)
29 Quod si oculus tuus dexter scandalizat te, erue eum, et projice abs te: expedit enim tibi ut pereat unum membrorum tuorum, quam totum corpus tuum mittatur in gehennam.
Even allowing for creativity and all that, is it not more logical to settle for something general like debiles, imperfect though it may be, than for a word that normally denotes one specific sort of disability?
A good and fair question. We can ask which is closer to covering the cases covered by disabled. Debilis is a fine choice...and maybe the best. Mancus should at least be considered.
I correct what I said about being like Englishmen trying to speak like Shakespeare or Milton: I should have said we would be like Germans trying to speak like those revered classical English writers. That is a better analogy.
Not really, because English is a modern language, by which I mean a living, natively spoken language and, as such, still evolving in an organic sort of way; while Latin is an ancient one, by which I mean a language that has had no native speakers for centuries. Latin's natural evolution has progressed so far that it's no longer Latin but Italian, French, etc. If you speak what we still call Latin, you necessarily speak an ancient language.
...and a modern one.
It was used for oral and written communication well into modern times. Latin is ancient, medieval, and modern.
Accepted that it is (school-) learned and not familially passed on.
Invalidi would be an even more general word perhaps.
Thanks so much!
So to get a clearer picture on the term 'monstrum';
How do you all feel about that word in relation to the discussion above then?
In german texts I've found several people mentioning that 'monstrum' might have been a way (amongst others of course since it seems that 'crippled', 'blind' and 'deformed' was each used seperately for each case) to talk about people f.ex. who were born with deformations...
So to get a clearer picture on the term 'monstrum';
How do you all feel about that word in relation to the discussion above then?
In german texts I've found several people mentioning that 'monstrum' might have been a way (amongst others of course since it seems that 'crippled', 'blind' and 'deformed' was each used seperately for each case) to talk about people f.ex. who were born with deformations...
My feeling is that monstrum would not normally be used of disabled people unless it was some very striking, unusual, even bizarre disability, and furthermore one that is congenital (e.g. a baby being born with two heads or six arms or something); it comes from the word "to show" and means an omen, i.e. some supernatural sign by which the gods show their approval or displeasure. It wouldn't be used of someone who was simply blind or deaf or missing an arm or whatnot.
that makes sense, thanks!