Disputatio:Cultura
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Cultura fuit pagina mensis Maii 2009. |
Vetus disputatio ab Usor:Rolandus/Most important 1000 pages/Culture[fontem recensere]
Cultus civilis --Iustinus 07:27, 22 Martii 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, unless we are to distinguish between "culture" and "civilization" (in the discrete sense). --Iustinus 07:28, 22 Martii 2008 (UTC)
- Again, we might want to adapt to the peculiarities of Latin thinking by integrating both modern notions of Culture and of Civilisation into a single page called Cultus humanus (and point the Culture interwiki to a Redirect from Cultura). It seems to me that it is actually one of the benefits of Vicipaedia to demonstrate that words and concepts can never be translated 1:1 into other languages.--Ceylon 10:24, 20 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
- All that is required for this purpose is a short stub, which can then direct to the longer page that encompasses both "Culture and Civilization" if that is our preference. However, what Rolandus pointed out is that the bots would get confused if Cultura was only a redirect.
- I think it would be good, if we had at least a short entry, which tells that Latin has another concept and that the details are exaplained on page XY. It will be a "logical" redirect, not this "technical" #REDIRECT which might cause problems. Moreover, if we ever want a printed version of the Vicipaedia, we might want to have these logical redirects in the printed version, too. I'd also suggest to have a special template for these "logical" redirects, like we have for pages which are disambiguations. --Rolandus 12:05, 20 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
- All that is required for this purpose is a short stub, which can then direct to the longer page that encompasses both "Culture and Civilization" if that is our preference. However, what Rolandus pointed out is that the bots would get confused if Cultura was only a redirect.
- Again, we might want to adapt to the peculiarities of Latin thinking by integrating both modern notions of Culture and of Civilisation into a single page called Cultus humanus (and point the Culture interwiki to a Redirect from Cultura). It seems to me that it is actually one of the benefits of Vicipaedia to demonstrate that words and concepts can never be translated 1:1 into other languages.--Ceylon 10:24, 20 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
Comparationes, 1[fontem recensere]
Gratias, Neander. This is fun! Just checking a few points:
- Anglice: excellence of taste in the fine arts(1) and humanities(2)
- Iacobus: excellentia iudicii in artibus liberalibus et humanitatibus
- Neander: excellentia iudicii de humanitate et bellis artibus(3)
- (1) Cassell's dictionary, which has a classical bias, says to translate the fine arts as artes liberales. What's the reason bellae artes is better? (2) According to Cassell's, the basic sense of humanitas is 'human nature, human feeling'; in contrast, the English word humanities is referring there to multiple specific academic disciplines (including history & philosophy), not a collective sense of 'refinement'. (3) What's the reason for reversing the nouns?
- ad (1): If fine arts is artes liberales, what's liberal arts in Latin? Or do you think fine arts and liberal arts are the same thing? In fact, I'm not overly fond of bellae artes, but I chose it more or less on the basis of Disputatio: Bellae artes. --Neander 16:18, 2 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- For 'liberal arts', Cassell's gives artes liberales and artes ingenuae. IacobusAmor 03:11, 4 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- ad (2): My Cassell's gives, s.v. humanities, "artes liberales" and "humanitas" (sg.). Die Sache mit Geisteswissenschaften, Humanities, humaniora &c is next to a mess, because different countries tend to use different words and a bit different (though related) definitions. Personally, I like the Swedish-Latin word humaniora but I don't know how it sounds in other ears.
- ad (3) The reason was (my subjective feeling of) euphony. --Neander 16:18, 2 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- ad (1): If fine arts is artes liberales, what's liberal arts in Latin? Or do you think fine arts and liberal arts are the same thing? In fact, I'm not overly fond of bellae artes, but I chose it more or less on the basis of Disputatio: Bellae artes. --Neander 16:18, 2 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (1) Cassell's dictionary, which has a classical bias, says to translate the fine arts as artes liberales. What's the reason bellae artes is better? (2) According to Cassell's, the basic sense of humanitas is 'human nature, human feeling'; in contrast, the English word humanities is referring there to multiple specific academic disciplines (including history & philosophy), not a collective sense of 'refinement'. (3) What's the reason for reversing the nouns?
- Anglice: of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices
- Iacobus: collectivorum animorum, principiorum, finium, habituumque
- Neander: animorum, aestimationum, finium, consuetudinum communio,
- It's good to know that we can translate values as aestimationes. I didn't know what to do with shared except to make it an adjective (a participial one), but you moved it into the noun, communio. That's deft, though it no longer specifies the concept of "set."
- Anglice: the set(4) that characterizes an institution, organization or group.
- Iacobus: apparatus qui institutionem, "organizationem," catervamve designat.
- Neander: quae institutionem, "organizationem,"(5)(6) ordinis socialis formam designat.
- (4) Ainsworth's (eighteenth-century) dictionary says to translate 'set' when it means 'a complete suit of any thing' as instrumentum or apparatus. You're implying we should omit it? Likewise series, etc.? (5) If I hadn't known the English, I'd have taken the lack of a conjunction before your ordinis to imply an equivalent of English and, but the original has or. Is it therefore OK to assume that an omitted conjunction means 'or'? If so, how do we know when it means 'and' and when it means 'or'? (6) The English word group is a workhorse, which will appear unbelievably often in texts describing primate behavior—bearing a welter of senses, including 'band (of associated individuals), random set of individuals, company, assembly, gathering, crowd, party, family, village, tribe, troop, people'. Do we have an equally handy Latin word for it, one less cumbersome than ordinis socialis forma (which reads more like a definition than a synonym)? IacobusAmor 03:52, 2 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Actually, I had to leave before reaching a satisfactory solution to how to translate "institution", "organisation" &c. I'll return to these issues later. --Neander 16:39, 2 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- ad (4): One might ask how relevant the word "set" is in the present context. Does it really add something important? If it does, I'm not sure I'd vote for "apparatus" or "instrumentum" or "series". --Neander 16:18, 2 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- In the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of the word set (with examples) is longer than the definition of any other word. Set is an extremely common & useful word. It wouldn't be surprising if the authors were thinking of set theory, or Venn diagrams, or something like that, and would therefore have considered the word important. However, in general, such characterizers often seem gratuitous & unnecessary. IacobusAmor 03:11, 4 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- ad (5): Good point. Mea neglegentia.
- ad (6): In the present co(n)text, I thought that the workhorse might refer to an orderly creature. I shunned caterva that typically refers to animals or people considered barbarous. But now I see that my "ordinis socialis forma" is definitely an overkill. I changed it to grex, tentatively. Hope somebody comes by a better expression. // BTW, I must say that the English original isn't too felicitous. If, as I take it, organisation is basically the structure of an institution, the sentence is less informative than it is meant to be. I suggest we jettison the English formulation and re-form the sentence so that the whole world turns to us instead of the English page for info about culture. :–) --Neander 01:05, 3 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- They're probably distinguishing between institutions like marriages and wakes and the running of the bulls in Pamplona, and organizations like the Organization of American States, the United Nations Organization, the Boy Scouts, and the Roman Catholic Church. Here's a distinction along these lines: the Tour de France is an institution, but the Société du Tour de France (which runs the tour) is an organization. Is that clear? So both concepts are necessary. ¶ As for felicitousness: yes, and when you get farther down in the text, you'll encounter some truly boring passages. When such things are quotations, surely a translation should try to preserve their style, even if it means making bizarre prose in the target language. (Though this point seems obvious, other views exist; see below.) The best practice (not always respected by authors) is to quote only passages that say things more memorably or more succinctly or famously than one can! IacobusAmor 03:11, 4 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (4) Ainsworth's (eighteenth-century) dictionary says to translate 'set' when it means 'a complete suit of any thing' as instrumentum or apparatus. You're implying we should omit it? Likewise series, etc.? (5) If I hadn't known the English, I'd have taken the lack of a conjunction before your ordinis to imply an equivalent of English and, but the original has or. Is it therefore OK to assume that an omitted conjunction means 'or'? If so, how do we know when it means 'and' and when it means 'or'? (6) The English word group is a workhorse, which will appear unbelievably often in texts describing primate behavior—bearing a welter of senses, including 'band (of associated individuals), random set of individuals, company, assembly, gathering, crowd, party, family, village, tribe, troop, people'. Do we have an equally handy Latin word for it, one less cumbersome than ordinis socialis forma (which reads more like a definition than a synonym)? IacobusAmor 03:52, 2 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
Comparationes, 2[fontem recensere]
This is a passage from UNESCO's Declaración de México (1982), for which official translations must exist in all the UN's major languages; but since the document was issued in Mexico, I privileged the Spanish version (found at es:Cultura), and translated directly from it, trying not to think in English, just for the fun of it. Here are: the original text, in Spanish (H); what I take the Spanish to mean in English (A); my own attempt in Latin (I); and Neander's version in Latin (N). The questions are for Neander, though of course anybody can jump right in.
- Well, this is an interesting turn. When trying my version of the Declaración, I didn't have any official text to base my proposal on. But now I see better why Iacobus's version is such that it is. It was my objective to improve the Latin text stylistically according to what I consider optimum genus dicendi. When translating an official document esp. into minor languages, the result tends to be a stylistically inferior exercise of meticulousness that is scarcely intelligible to ordinary people. (In Finnish, such kind of Administrese is called "kapulakieli" 'stick jargon'.) The current volition, however, is that even an official translation ought to fulfill the requirements of both precision and good style. In terms of translation studies, this implies a shift of focus from literal translation to what is called dynamic translation. This means that the translation should be more meaning-driven than form-driven. In the source language, there may be syntactic constructions that belong to the syntactic mechanics of the source but not of the target language. Now, given the Spanish source, a few things become, perhaps, a bit clearer (see below). --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- It is interesting, and true, and Whorfian, that even an official text will look different in a target language depending on the source language that the translator used. Such differences have caused wars. I'm glad to see no war has broken out on this page ...
- Yes, a translator ought generally to aim for "optimum genus dicendi" -- though there are many ways of speaking well! On a wiki, if we intentionally translate in a mannered or difficult style in an attempt to suggest the style of an original, another editor will surely come along later and correct or simplify, so the effort will be lost. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:32, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Quite possibly, but some of our views of translation seem to differ. Naturally, the goal of optimum genus dicendi has a strong appeal, but different textual genres have different purposes, and maybe the degree of freedom that a translator assumes should accommodate them. A technical document (as produced by a bureaucracy, like UNESCO) embodies aims that may differ sharply from those of a novelist. Likewise poems & songtexts, and other passages invoking more than the pure conveyance of information. Offhand, I'd say that the English phrases 'I can't get any satisfaction' and 'I can't get no satisfaction' should, if possible, be rendered differently in a target language. IacobusAmor 12:50, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, if both occur in the same text. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:55, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Quite possibly, but some of our views of translation seem to differ. Naturally, the goal of optimum genus dicendi has a strong appeal, but different textual genres have different purposes, and maybe the degree of freedom that a translator assumes should accommodate them. A technical document (as produced by a bureaucracy, like UNESCO) embodies aims that may differ sharply from those of a novelist. Likewise poems & songtexts, and other passages invoking more than the pure conveyance of information. Offhand, I'd say that the English phrases 'I can't get any satisfaction' and 'I can't get no satisfaction' should, if possible, be rendered differently in a target language. IacobusAmor 12:50, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Well, this is an interesting turn. When trying my version of the Declaración, I didn't have any official text to base my proposal on. But now I see better why Iacobus's version is such that it is. It was my objective to improve the Latin text stylistically according to what I consider optimum genus dicendi. When translating an official document esp. into minor languages, the result tends to be a stylistically inferior exercise of meticulousness that is scarcely intelligible to ordinary people. (In Finnish, such kind of Administrese is called "kapulakieli" 'stick jargon'.) The current volition, however, is that even an official translation ought to fulfill the requirements of both precision and good style. In terms of translation studies, this implies a shift of focus from literal translation to what is called dynamic translation. This means that the translation should be more meaning-driven than form-driven. In the source language, there may be syntactic constructions that belong to the syntactic mechanics of the source but not of the target language. Now, given the Spanish source, a few things become, perhaps, a bit clearer (see below). --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. La cultura da al hombre la capacidad de reflexionar sobre sí mismo.
- A. Culture gives man the ability to ponder himself.
- I. Cultura hominibus facultatem cogitandi seipsum dat.
- N. Cultura homini facultatem de se ipso cogitandi(7) dat.
- (7) Cassell's first shows that cogitare can take the accusative, and then allows that it can take the ablative. Is there any idiomatic difference? Is there a reason you prefer the ablative (with de)? IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- L&S give "cogito:"to pursue something in the mind (cf. agito, II.), i. e. To consider thoroughly, to ponder, to weigh, reflect upon, think (class. in prose and poetry); constr. absol., with aliquid, de aliquo, or de aliquā re, sic, ita, or a rel. -clause--Rafaelgarcia 20:40, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, reflexionar sobre sí mismo / reflect upon h*self is precisely what I was out for, when using de. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Well, but if L&S are right, the sense of "upon" is already there in the verb cogitare, if we want it to be, so this appears to be a distinction without a difference. IacobusAmor 13:36, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, reflexionar sobre sí mismo / reflect upon h*self is precisely what I was out for, when using de. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- L&S give "cogito:"to pursue something in the mind (cf. agito, II.), i. e. To consider thoroughly, to ponder, to weigh, reflect upon, think (class. in prose and poetry); constr. absol., with aliquid, de aliquo, or de aliquā re, sic, ita, or a rel. -clause--Rafaelgarcia 20:40, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (7) Cassell's first shows that cogitare can take the accusative, and then allows that it can take the ablative. Is there any idiomatic difference? Is there a reason you prefer the ablative (with de)? IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. Es ella la que hace de nosotros seres(8) específicamente humanos,
- A. It's she that makes our beings specifically human,
- I. Cultura est quae nostras essentias diserte reddit humanas,
- N. Cultura est qua vere reddimur humani,
- (8) This appears to be the infinitive ser 'to be', treated as a noun and pluralized. As such, it may stand out as an unordinary locution (it's not in my Spanish–English dictionary), so I supposed some trace of it should survive in the Latin, and the philosophical medievalism (?) essentia seemed appropriate. Did you eliminate it because it isn't classical? or for some other reason? IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Is the English translation of hace de nosotros seres específicamente humanos really correct? I'm not good at Spanish, but I'd say in English: It is she that makes us specifically human beings. In any case, seres humanos is human beings, for which Latin lacks a literally translatable expression ("entes humani" would perhaps be a meticulous medievalism with a scholastic hue in it, but stylistically not too felicitous). In natural Latin, human beings is simply homines. Given this understanding of mine, I considered essentia to partake in a mistranslation. Correct me, if I'm wrong. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Your argument seems right to me! ¶ Apparently, a more accurate gloss of hace de nosotros would be 'makes of us'. The French version of this passage is "C'est elle qui fait de nous des êtres spécifiquement humains." ¶ Merriam-Webster's etymologists mark essentia L (for 'Latin'), not LL (for 'Late Latin') or NL (for 'New Latin), and the OED's etymologists agree; so, if nonclassical, it may still go fairly far back into or beyond the Renaissance. IacobusAmor 12:50, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Is the English translation of hace de nosotros seres específicamente humanos really correct? I'm not good at Spanish, but I'd say in English: It is she that makes us specifically human beings. In any case, seres humanos is human beings, for which Latin lacks a literally translatable expression ("entes humani" would perhaps be a meticulous medievalism with a scholastic hue in it, but stylistically not too felicitous). In natural Latin, human beings is simply homines. Given this understanding of mine, I considered essentia to partake in a mistranslation. Correct me, if I'm wrong. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (8) This appears to be the infinitive ser 'to be', treated as a noun and pluralized. As such, it may stand out as an unordinary locution (it's not in my Spanish–English dictionary), so I supposed some trace of it should survive in the Latin, and the philosophical medievalism (?) essentia seemed appropriate. Did you eliminate it because it isn't classical? or for some other reason? IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. racionales, críticos y éticamente comprometidos.
- A. rational, critical/tasteful, and ethically engaged/involved.
- I. ratione praeditas, elegantes, et ethicae gnaras.
- N. ratione praediti(9a) arbitrio instructi(9b) morumque bonitate ornati.(9c)
- (9a, 9b) I think it would help readers to put commas here. (c) Does morum bonitate ornati really mean 'ethically engaged'? IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Given the source text, my translation is, of course, unduly rhetorical. Anybody feeling the need to de-rhetoricise the sentence is free to do the job. /// Re commas: in the en-wiki, there are user boxes detesting commas before "and", so there seem to be two "commatological" schools. In my native languages (Finnish and Swedish), using a comma before "and" would be a grave "comma error". I can't help surmising that your functional explanation ("helping readers") to putting the comma before "and" is an attempt to give a functional justification to what is just a convention. I'm so keen on this because I don't feel the comma to be that helpful. :-) /// I'm not quite sure that I understand what éticamente comprometidos or ethically engaged really means. To me, it is "Diplomatese", using fancy words and high-flown phrases that is monk Latin to the auctores themselves. (Apologies, if I'm being unfair!) In our Ethica page, ethics is defined as pars philosophiae quae studiat principia boni. Though the Latin could be better, the definition is good enough: "part of philosophy", and it's the question of principles; i.e., etics isn't normative but rather descriptive. I decided on morum bonitas, because I understood that the pronouncement involves a normative obligation. On my reading, ethicae gnaras would refer to people who possess knowledge of ethical principles (because they've studied philosophy); the momentum of engagement seems to be lacking. But I admit my position is debatable. /// Anyways, my translation doesn't respect the source (because it is better ... :–) ) --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Indeed, it has a rhythm of its own; unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one's point of view), it's not that of the original. ¶ Your comments on the comma refer to point (9b), but how about (9a)? Surely a comma belongs there! ¶ Punctuation before and has long been debated, but I favor the comma because it probably forces the eye's saccades to grasp the syntax more readily, and it allows less ambiguity. A battle-cry of the comma-preferring camp is the ambiguity inherent in a (presumably apocryphal) book-dedication: "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God." ¶ Re: "éticamente comprometidos or ethically engaged": the French is éthiquement engagés. It must make sense to somebody! IacobusAmor 12:50, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Given the source text, my translation is, of course, unduly rhetorical. Anybody feeling the need to de-rhetoricise the sentence is free to do the job. /// Re commas: in the en-wiki, there are user boxes detesting commas before "and", so there seem to be two "commatological" schools. In my native languages (Finnish and Swedish), using a comma before "and" would be a grave "comma error". I can't help surmising that your functional explanation ("helping readers") to putting the comma before "and" is an attempt to give a functional justification to what is just a convention. I'm so keen on this because I don't feel the comma to be that helpful. :-) /// I'm not quite sure that I understand what éticamente comprometidos or ethically engaged really means. To me, it is "Diplomatese", using fancy words and high-flown phrases that is monk Latin to the auctores themselves. (Apologies, if I'm being unfair!) In our Ethica page, ethics is defined as pars philosophiae quae studiat principia boni. Though the Latin could be better, the definition is good enough: "part of philosophy", and it's the question of principles; i.e., etics isn't normative but rather descriptive. I decided on morum bonitas, because I understood that the pronouncement involves a normative obligation. On my reading, ethicae gnaras would refer to people who possess knowledge of ethical principles (because they've studied philosophy); the momentum of engagement seems to be lacking. But I admit my position is debatable. /// Anyways, my translation doesn't respect the source (because it is better ... :–) ) --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (9a, 9b) I think it would help readers to put commas here. (c) Does morum bonitate ornati really mean 'ethically engaged'? IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. A través de ella discernimos los valores y efectuamos opciones.
- A. Through her, we discern values, and we make choices.
- I. Per(10) eam, virtutes discernimus, delectusque efficimus.
- N. Cultura(11) fit ut rerum virtutes discernamus delectusque habeamus.
- (10) This per is 'through, by means of', regarding "the means or instrument by which anything is done" (Cassell's). (11) You've reinserted the noun in place of the pronoun, thereby changing the syntactical rhythm. IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (10) I admit that per eam is grammatically possible. Notice, though, that the constructions a través de and through her are due to the fact that the languages in question lack case declination. Stylistically, I find ablativus instrumenti superior to "per eam". The question is whether typologically different languages must imitate even syntactic mechanics of source languages just because they happen to be in a hegemonic position. /// (11) Yes, but the dosage of information is clearer, methinks. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- The pattern with per, especially (as here) with pronouns, is of course familiar from texts of Christian worship, most famously perhaps the mass, wherein it appears several times in a sense resembling the one in UNESCO's document, as, for example, Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Per quem haec omnia, Domine, semper bona creas, sanctificas, vivificas, benedicis, et praestas nobis. Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso. . . . ¶ Re: "Yes, but the dosage of information is clearer, methinks." Possibly; but a text is a text, and the insertion of explanatory material in it may not always be wanted. This issue probably has a long trail in translation studies! IacobusAmor 12:50, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (10) I admit that per eam is grammatically possible. Notice, though, that the constructions a través de and through her are due to the fact that the languages in question lack case declination. Stylistically, I find ablativus instrumenti superior to "per eam". The question is whether typologically different languages must imitate even syntactic mechanics of source languages just because they happen to be in a hegemonic position. /// (11) Yes, but the dosage of information is clearer, methinks. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (10) This per is 'through, by means of', regarding "the means or instrument by which anything is done" (Cassell's). (11) You've reinserted the noun in place of the pronoun, thereby changing the syntactical rhythm. IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. A través de ella el hombre(12) se expresa,
- A. Through her, man/mankind expresses himself,
- I. Per eam, homo se exprimit,
- N. Cultura est cuius opibus homines quid cogitent vel velint exprimunt,(13)
- (12) Singular in the original; hence my use of homo, which you've pluralized (homines), and the singular-plural difference between our versions naturally persists to the end of the entire quotation. (13) Here you've added things that aren't in the original! IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (12) Mankind is homines (see Cassell's) /// (13) "Se exprimere" isn't good Latin (see Krebs, Antibarbarus der lateinischen Sprache, s.v. exprimere). As you were keen on the norm of classical Latin in this article, I chose to follow this tack: exprimere contracts only a Sachobjekt. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, I checked Cassell's before posting the original text, and it allowed homo to mean '"man, as opp, to beasts and gods"; as indeed modern biology does, echoed by Vicipaedia in Homo sapiens. Since the Spanish, English, and French (C'est par elle que l'homme s'exprime) couch their ideas here in the third person singular, I thought I'd keep this construction so as to maintain its distinction with the first person plural: the original versions exhibit a contrast between the singularity of el hombre, and l'homme and man on the one hand, and the plurality of 'we' on the other. This is by way of explaining the thought-processes that informed the original attempt, not to defend the result: I can accept that in your experience, homines reads better. ¶ As for se expresa = 'expresses himself': it may not be good Spanish & French & English either! But there it is. IacobusAmor 12:50, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (12) Mankind is homines (see Cassell's) /// (13) "Se exprimere" isn't good Latin (see Krebs, Antibarbarus der lateinischen Sprache, s.v. exprimere). As you were keen on the norm of classical Latin in this article, I chose to follow this tack: exprimere contracts only a Sachobjekt. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (12) Singular in the original; hence my use of homo, which you've pluralized (homines), and the singular-plural difference between our versions naturally persists to the end of the entire quotation. (13) Here you've added things that aren't in the original! IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. toma conciencia de sí mismo,
- A. becomes aware of himself,
- I. sibi(14) conscius fit,
- N. sui conscii fiunt,
- (14) I used the dative because the examples in Cassell's seem to: si alicuius iniuriae sibi conscius fuisset (Cicero), mens sibi conscia recti (Vergil), etsi mihi sum conscius (Cicero); but perhaps these have a slightly different sense, and it's the genitive of inuriae in the first example that's most pertinent? IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. se reconoce como un proyecto(15) inacabado,
- A. recognizes himself as an uncompleted project,
- I. se propositum imperfectum noscitat,
- N. se imperfectos confitentur,
- (15) The word that stands out here, almost in flashing neon lights, is proyecto 'project', for which I tried propositum. When texts go out of their way to reach for baubles, translations should perhaps do something similar, preserving the style. IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Well, proyecto and project are fancy words, dear to "New Public Management" enthusiasts. I'm not sure whether propositum is as readily intelligible, given the lack of NPM literature in Latin. (The NPM issue is a highly political one. Perhaps it's understandable to those people only who are in the midst of European university reforms.) Personally, I don't feel I'm a "project", nor do I think my "culture" is a project. I'm sorry to be a piscis qui adverso flumine natat (sed soli vivi ita faciunt). --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- The official French version is: "se reconnaît comme un projet inachevé." Some people must be happy with the idea that we're projects! If it's any consolation, the official English translation is "recognizes his incompleteness," which perfectly matches Neander's syntax (except for the singular–plural issue), and confitentur does look better than noscitat. IacobusAmor 12:50, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Well, proyecto and project are fancy words, dear to "New Public Management" enthusiasts. I'm not sure whether propositum is as readily intelligible, given the lack of NPM literature in Latin. (The NPM issue is a highly political one. Perhaps it's understandable to those people only who are in the midst of European university reforms.) Personally, I don't feel I'm a "project", nor do I think my "culture" is a project. I'm sorry to be a piscis qui adverso flumine natat (sed soli vivi ita faciunt). --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (15) The word that stands out here, almost in flashing neon lights, is proyecto 'project', for which I tried propositum. When texts go out of their way to reach for baubles, translations should perhaps do something similar, preserving the style. IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. pone en cuestión sus propias realizaciones,
- A. questions/doubts his own achievements,
- I. suas confectiones proprias dubitat,
- N. quidquid impetraverint(16) in dubium vocant,
- (16) This is ingenious! It changes the syntax a little. IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Thanx. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (16) This is ingenious! It changes the syntax a little. IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- H. busca incansablemente nuevas significaciones,
- A. searches tirelessly for new meanings,
- I. novas significationes adsidue quaerit,
- N. novas significationes adsidue quaerunt
- H. y crea obras que lo(17) trascienden.
- A. and creates works that transcend him.
- I. et opera quae eum exsuperant facit.
- N. opera exigunt quibus modum sibi impositum exsuperent.(18)
- (17) The pronoun lo first threw me, but it presumably means 'him', as that's the closest singular masculine noun available (other than the word for 'project'); my ear keeps hearing 'himself', but the reflexivity isn't in the original, is it? (18) The length of your version suggests that you've changed the idea by adding tidbits that aren't in the original. As a rule, Latin versions of English sentences are shorter, Latin being more compact. IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- The english term "transend him" makes me wonder, how does one "transcend a person"? It sounds to me that here literally "lo"="him" in this context refers "mankind"/"the human condition"; perhaps Neander is just trying to be concrete specifying one aspect of the human condition that is overcome "the manner imposed upon him"; however an equally important aspect implied is that his "achievements transcend his individual life".--Rafaelgarcia 21:05, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Though the English version given above was mine, it agrees here with an online version that the UN itself seems to have provided, so the UN must have wanted this lo to mean 'him' in English. IacobusAmor 13:36, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, and modus is even more than manner, because it involves the human measure. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- As I said in the beginning, this was an interesting turn. Everybody is free to interfere. I have my positions, but I'm not speaking ex cathedra. --Neander 04:18, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- A helpful discussion. Note my distinction (which not everybody may accept): translations of quoted material should match the letter & spirit of the original as closely as possible; but the body of the text of an article is & should be freer: most of the text of Cultura, having started out as a translation of en:Culture, deserves no such special respect. IacobusAmor 13:14, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, a helpful discussion, indeed! And interesting. In principle, I agree with your distinction. Translation of bureaucratic material should be as close as possible. What may be debatable is the degree of freedom issue. As I said somewhere above, closeness to the source should not enjoin a typologically different language to using weirdish constructions just for the sake of respecting the source language's syntactic mechanism. (Note that this is a statement of principle that doesn't necessarily refer to any specific case in the present discussion.) But culture as a "project"!? I'm happy that I needn't be an obedient bureaucrat! --Neander 15:26, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- A helpful discussion. Note my distinction (which not everybody may accept): translations of quoted material should match the letter & spirit of the original as closely as possible; but the body of the text of an article is & should be freer: most of the text of Cultura, having started out as a translation of en:Culture, deserves no such special respect. IacobusAmor 13:14, 7 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- The english term "transend him" makes me wonder, how does one "transcend a person"? It sounds to me that here literally "lo"="him" in this context refers "mankind"/"the human condition"; perhaps Neander is just trying to be concrete specifying one aspect of the human condition that is overcome "the manner imposed upon him"; however an equally important aspect implied is that his "achievements transcend his individual life".--Rafaelgarcia 21:05, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
- (17) The pronoun lo first threw me, but it presumably means 'him', as that's the closest singular masculine noun available (other than the word for 'project'); my ear keeps hearing 'himself', but the reflexivity isn't in the original, is it? (18) The length of your version suggests that you've changed the idea by adding tidbits that aren't in the original. As a rule, Latin versions of English sentences are shorter, Latin being more compact. IacobusAmor 18:06, 6 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)
Unnecessary (?) links in bibliography[fontem recensere]
In the M-Z section, to try the effect, wherever there was more than one link to the same author all in a row, I took out all links but the first. I think this would be our usual rule: does it work OK here? If not, please revert me.
I am puzzling over whether we really want the place of publication linked in a bibliography. In a long bibliography like this, the question comes home to you. There are many links to Novum Eboracum etc. Are they useful? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 07:58, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- I think you did the right thing. I also agree with your second question. --Neander 10:44, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- I have now done the same with A-L. But I haven't touched the places of publication yet: let's see what Iacobus thinks. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:32, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- That's fine with me: no placename links in bibliographies & references. (I didn't see any in a couple of articles in en: that I checked.) But better to wait for fuller discussion and posting of a specific rule in the article on the style of Vicipaedia's formatting (which I never seem able to find when I want to). IacobusAmor 13:36, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- Incidentally, we have already talked about establishing bibliographical citation standards. Maybe now's the time to do it. Although the citation style you use is not the one I've been most familiar with, it's a good choice and I will happily go along with it if instructions are set out plainly ... assuming others don't object! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:44, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- The formula I grew up with (in the humanities) was:
- Author. Title. Place, year.
- (This pattern is for a book; formulas for articles in journals were & are more complicated.) Quite a few contributers, especially from Europe (I suspect), still use this pattern or something like it (sometimes giving the publisher but not the place). A couple of decades ago, I went gone over to a formula that seems to have originated in the social sciences and is, in my experience, becoming common in the humanities (in other words, it's well on its way to becoming universal, at least in academia):
- Author. Year. Title. Place: publisher.
- With this formula, multiple works by the same author necessarily appear in chronological order. This is a huge advantage: (1) alphabetical order is effectively random, but chronological order gives added value by putting works in an order that shows the evolution of an author's thought; and (2) it eases in-text citations, in the form "(Author Year)", or, with a specific page, "(Author Year:Page)", streamlining the apparatus by eliminating the clutter of footnotes that do nothing but give references, sometimes repeated to absurd lengths. ¶ Note that I've suggested using links for the years in bibliographies—not that links are necessary there, but that the color they introduce helps the eye, especially in long bibliographies. IacobusAmor 14:03, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, it's good to begin with author and date: so I like the proposed:
- Author. Year. Title. Place: publisher.
- I'd be glad if you could set out in the same way what the arrangement and punctuation should be, on this system, for articles in journals and in books.
- I see what you mean about colour, but I'm not sure if that's a good enough reason to link all the dates! On en:wiki there is an attempt to reduce date-linking, and I wonder if we, too, overdo it sometimes. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 22:25, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, it's good to begin with author and date: so I like the proposed:
- The formula I grew up with (in the humanities) was:
- Incidentally, we have already talked about establishing bibliographical citation standards. Maybe now's the time to do it. Although the citation style you use is not the one I've been most familiar with, it's a good choice and I will happily go along with it if instructions are set out plainly ... assuming others don't object! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:44, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- That's fine with me: no placename links in bibliographies & references. (I didn't see any in a couple of articles in en: that I checked.) But better to wait for fuller discussion and posting of a specific rule in the article on the style of Vicipaedia's formatting (which I never seem able to find when I want to). IacobusAmor 13:36, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- I have now done the same with A-L. But I haven't touched the places of publication yet: let's see what Iacobus thinks. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:32, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
Linguistic reconstruction > proto-culture[fontem recensere]
Calvert Watkins is a scholar I admire, but I don't think his "American Heritage Dictionary" appendix deserves highlighting in the text as if it were a major work on this subject; it's more a handy digest, isn't it? To mention in the text I would have chosen Georges Dumézil Emile Benveniste for "society", Watkins's dragon book for poetics (I see it is in the bibliography), Marija Gimbutas, and then (already present) Mallory and Renfrew. But perhaps I'm out of date? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:32, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)
- Quite right; Watkins is there because it was the only such summary of PIE culture at hand when I drafted the text; I expected more adequate treatments, probably book-length, to appear, so by all means add them in. I have the dragon book, but it's a little tangential here, not a complete study of PIE culture in the manner I have in mind—the manner that's admirably done in the Proto-Polynesian book, which uses the reconstructed vocabulary to examine all (well, most) major aspects of culture & society. IacobusAmor 13:36, 26 Maii 2009 (UTC)