Disputatio:Parlamentum
Does Parlamentum in Latin mean Legislature generally or does it just refer to a Parliamentary Legislature (i.e. a Parliament)? It sounds to me like there is a distinction here. Would conventus legislativus be a better translation for legislature in the general sense? I.e. do we have: " Conventus legislativus dicitur conventus sicut Parlamentum vel Senatus qui legis comminiscit, proponit, disputat, vel et creat."--Rafaelgarcia 16:47, 2 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- Parlamentum is not in Lewis and Short, nor the OLD. Certainly it comes from the extremely late Latin (so late you might want to call it Italian, potius) verb "parlare", which means simply to speak or talk, and parlamentum, therefore, is just "dicussion". I'd vote for a more Latin term along the lines of what Rafael proposed above.--Ioscius (disp) 22:17, 2 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- This is it: [1] Parlamentum est Latinum, ut Germani dicunt. --Alex1011 22:52, 2 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- Ex fonte<:br>PARLAMENTUM GERMANIAE BEROLINUM TRANSLATUM
- This is it: [1] Parlamentum est Latinum, ut Germani dicunt. --Alex1011 22:52, 2 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
Urbs Bonna, in ripa Rheni fluminis sita, quinquaginta annos sedes administratorum Germaniae fuit. Mense Iulio ineunte et Foederalis conventus legatorum et magna pars ex ministeriis publicis Berolinum demigraverunt. De hac migratione Foederalis conventus ante octo annos constituit. Post ferias aestivas delegati Berolinum convenient. Decem fere milia virorum politicorum, magistratuum, legatorum redactorumque Bonnam reliquisse aestimantur. --Alex1011 23:02, 2 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- Parlamentum has been used in Latin for at least 400 years, so it must be acceptable by now; but (as I've pointed out before), (Bradley's) Arnold for at least 150 of those years, and Ainsworth's dictionary for at least 200 of them, has been instructing English-speakers to translate parliament as Senatus. IacobusAmor 23:17, 2 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- But even in Rome the senate wasn't the only legislative body. See for example: en:Constitution of the Roman Republic. It sounds like Bradley's Arnold is giving advice on how it would be expedient for the British to write about their own government without "contamination" of modern idiom and vocabulary. For a general term to cover all kinds of assemblies conventus legislativus has the virtue of being descriptive but not coinciding with the given name of any kind of assembly.--Rafaelgarcia 23:30, 2 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, a conventus is literally a 'coming together', and (according to dictionaries) in republican & imperial Rome it designated an assembly, especially of the inhabitants of a province. (In Lucretius, it designated a union or combination of atoms.) The usage in Caesar, however, sounds more judicial than legislative: the last sentence of book 1 of the Gallic War is "ipse in citeriorem Galliam ad conventus agendos profectus est"—which the old Loeb edition renders as "he himself set off for Hither Gaul to hold the assizes," with a helpful footnote: "A province was divided into districts (conventus), and for the administration of justice the governor visited these districts (conventus agere) at least once during his year of office." ¶ Is legislativus good classical Latin? It isn't in any of my (three) English–Latin dictionaries, all of which agree that 'pertaining to law' is legitimus. ¶ For the United States, of course, we have the Congressus (-ūs, m.), half of which is itself a Senatus. Can the term congressus be applied more generally, leaving parlamentum restricted to "parliamentary" systems of government, with a prime minister elected from among parliamentarians? IacobusAmor 12:17, 3 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- Words identifies legislativus as a neolatin term; I believe it comes from the classical? word legislator meaning "a proposer of laws"; thus legislativus meaning "having to do with the proposing of laws". I don't have my real dictionary handy but Words identifies legitimus as primarily meaning "lawful, right, legitimate" as in a "lawful president", "lawful conduct", "legitimate son", so that congressus legitimus, I think, would mean "a congress according to the specifications of the law" not "a meeting for the proposing and discussing of laws". Congressus may indeed work better than conventus. I think it is worth noting that the meaning of "district" is probably highly secondary: in the Roman Republic, most assemblies of people for election pruposes met in groups, sometimes according to tribe, according to military disignations, or according to geographical areas or districts; thus the Romans were used to thinking of groups of people as "assemblies", just as today we are used to thinking of them as "groups". Perhaps we I get home today I will try to look up congressus and conventus in my better dictionaries.--Rafaelgarcia 13:27, 3 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- Based on my searching the best general term for a political meeting or assembly (legal or illegal) is a coetus and we have a completely classical adjective legifer meaning law-giving so I think that we may render Legislature in the most general sense almost unambigiously as Coetus Legifer.--Rafaelgarcia 17:03, 4 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- Words identifies legislativus as a neolatin term; I believe it comes from the classical? word legislator meaning "a proposer of laws"; thus legislativus meaning "having to do with the proposing of laws". I don't have my real dictionary handy but Words identifies legitimus as primarily meaning "lawful, right, legitimate" as in a "lawful president", "lawful conduct", "legitimate son", so that congressus legitimus, I think, would mean "a congress according to the specifications of the law" not "a meeting for the proposing and discussing of laws". Congressus may indeed work better than conventus. I think it is worth noting that the meaning of "district" is probably highly secondary: in the Roman Republic, most assemblies of people for election pruposes met in groups, sometimes according to tribe, according to military disignations, or according to geographical areas or districts; thus the Romans were used to thinking of groups of people as "assemblies", just as today we are used to thinking of them as "groups". Perhaps we I get home today I will try to look up congressus and conventus in my better dictionaries.--Rafaelgarcia 13:27, 3 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, a conventus is literally a 'coming together', and (according to dictionaries) in republican & imperial Rome it designated an assembly, especially of the inhabitants of a province. (In Lucretius, it designated a union or combination of atoms.) The usage in Caesar, however, sounds more judicial than legislative: the last sentence of book 1 of the Gallic War is "ipse in citeriorem Galliam ad conventus agendos profectus est"—which the old Loeb edition renders as "he himself set off for Hither Gaul to hold the assizes," with a helpful footnote: "A province was divided into districts (conventus), and for the administration of justice the governor visited these districts (conventus agere) at least once during his year of office." ¶ Is legislativus good classical Latin? It isn't in any of my (three) English–Latin dictionaries, all of which agree that 'pertaining to law' is legitimus. ¶ For the United States, of course, we have the Congressus (-ūs, m.), half of which is itself a Senatus. Can the term congressus be applied more generally, leaving parlamentum restricted to "parliamentary" systems of government, with a prime minister elected from among parliamentarians? IacobusAmor 12:17, 3 Iulii 2008 (UTC)
- But even in Rome the senate wasn't the only legislative body. See for example: en:Constitution of the Roman Republic. It sounds like Bradley's Arnold is giving advice on how it would be expedient for the British to write about their own government without "contamination" of modern idiom and vocabulary. For a general term to cover all kinds of assemblies conventus legislativus has the virtue of being descriptive but not coinciding with the given name of any kind of assembly.--Rafaelgarcia 23:30, 2 Iulii 2008 (UTC)