modern (proper) nouns

B

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In German it's der Walmart, des Walmart(e)s, dem Walmart(e), den Walmart, oh Walmart!
and in the plural die Walmärte, der Walmärte, den Walmärten, die Walmärte, oh Walmärte! :D :D :D
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
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Preferred ways of introducing new neologisms into Latin:


So, the reason for the annoying Latinizations is not really linguistic (there I would absolutely have to agree!), but rather historically cultural. One teacher from the Vivarium Novum Academy - a kind of a neologisms expert it seems, once gave me a little lecture over the Internet on of what has been historically the preferred ways to introduce new words to Latin in the order from best to worse, if I find it, I will post it.
Please, do! :rolleyes1:
The original message board the guy wrote it on has been dead for many years, but many many years ago I revisited the post and translated it for the purposes of IRC, then I put it into a Pastebin, wisely chose the expiration to "NEVER" and bookmarked it, so I will probably just copy-paste it to save me some work:




Latin, how to make/invent new words, based on words of a teacher from the Vivarium Novum academy in Rome:



[01:42] <Godmy>
  1. If there is an existing Latin word, we should use it
  2. If there is not, we should make a new one
    1. based on the actual Latin
    2. by updating an already existing word (= you will use an ancient Latin word but with a new meaning; an example in English is "computer" which once meant a person)
  3. If that is not possible, we will turn to Greek (preferably ancient) = since that is also what would Romans do to express their new concepts
  4. Then we could search for some lexical consensus in Romance languages and deconstruct from it a Latin word
  5. And only in the case of the highest need we can allow (and I'm using his own words) for "barbarisms": to take e.g. an English word and give it a Latin ending


[01:43] <Godmy> And he also adds: This is how it has been done for 2 500 years... (apart from the part with Romance languages)



But I'm sure I must have posted this to the forum once already... but you know, who can find things like that, right? :p
 
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Pacifica

grammaticissima

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I think brand names like Wal-mart or facebook are something a bit different from common nouns of modern things like "computer" or "telephone", and direct borrowings from English (or other languages) are more justified in the case of brand names. This discussion has convinced me that at least giving them a Latin ending isn't such a bad idea, though (even though something like in facebooko still sounds funny to me, ngl, to use Isaac's favorite abbreviation).
 
 

Godmy

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I suppose in a conversation, it makes sense to use the brand as a brand, and most of us have probably done it, but sometimes a brand becomes a public tool without any real competition, it just occupies the spot in your brain as any other tool, as "shovel" or "spoon" or "keyboard". Then it makes sense to Latinize the tool (it makes sense for Latin, not for us necessarily)...
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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I'm not the one to make the new Latinizations, I'm usually the lazy one who doesn't Latinize, but when I see that there is some consensus (like on prosopobiblion), I'm not fighting it, I accept it; on the other when someone uses some indeclinable Facebook, I'm Ok with it too. But then, I haven't been as serious with Latin for the last 3 years at least, so maybe my standards have dropped... but one never knows what the future may bring :) Latin still holds an important place for me ;p
 

Quasus

Civis Illustris

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This is how it has been done for 2 500 years...
That's cheating. :) How can he be sure about the "highest needs" of people of the past? How can he tell whether homagium or marescalcus are products of the "highest need" or not?
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Yeah, I suppose you can find various [logical] errors even in these academical statements of a sort, however, I think I would agree with the underlying thought of that list/order/statement given Latin's later history as a dead/functional language and its own culture, so I'm not going to be picking holes in it, personally :)
 
B

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Latin, how to make/invent new words, based on words of a teacher from the Vivarium Novum academy in Rome:
I don't see how you can arrive at "liber facierum" or "prosopobiblion" for "facebook" by going through this process.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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I don't know if anyone advocates for liber facierum... prosopobiblion would be the turning to Greek + being there a bit creative (I suppose it's like "what would an ancient Greek do" or "what would Roman do with ancient Greek").
 
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Quasus

Civis Illustris

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I wish I could dispute that list. But in order to do so I should need to know a lot about Medieval and Renaissance Latin. No surprise, I don't. But somehow, I rather sympathize with e. g. the situation described in http://www.renaessanceforum.dk/10_2016/02_helander_neologisms.pdf To quote a couple of passages:
[in the Early modern period] Extreme purism of the doctrinal Ciceronian type was very rare and quite untypical. ... On the contrary, an eclectic attitude is dominant (emphasis mine - Q.) and words are coined when they are needed.
Actually, broadly speaking, with a view to the totality of Latin literature, all the texts that deal with all the various aspects of the nascent modern world, pragmatism is the attitude that is absolutely dominant (emphasis mine - Q.). In so many fields the primary aim of the authors was the advancement of knowledge, and the vocabulary was enriched in order to further that purpose.
My impression that when people needed Latin, they just used it and it served their needs. Nowadays, Latin is rather a subject of idle talk among philologists. Res, non verba!
 
  1. If there is an existing Latin word, we should use it
  2. If there is not, we should make a new one
    1. based on the actual Latin
    2. by updating an already existing word (= you will use an ancient Latin word but with a new meaning; an example in English is "computer" which once meant a person)
  3. If that is not possible, we will turn to Greek (preferably ancient) = since that is also what would Romans do to express their new concepts
  4. Then we could search for some lexical consensus in Romance languages and deconstruct from it a Latin word
  5. And only in the case of the highest need we can allow (and I'm using his own words) for "barbarisms": to take e.g. an English word and give it a Latin ending
This is exactly what I was looking for.
 
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meisenimverbis

Civis Illustris

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Location:
Rio de Janeiro
If you consider each consonant of the 3rd declension a separate declension... (plus the vowels of other declensions...)
:think:

-t, -d
-p, -b
-c, -g
-n
(+ 1 word in -m)
-r
-l
-i
+
-a
-o/-e
-u
-e

There you go! 11 declensions in Latin! :crazy:

[edit]

Twelve! I forgot the -s
 
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