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Meaning of 'umbra'
Umbra means both (1) a literal shadow and (2) a ghost of a dead person (as well as everything in between). The OLD gives several (1-6) senses in technical detail relating strictly to (1). Moreover umbrosus is defined without explicit reference to…
Mar Johnson
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11
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When did the grammarians first recognize a question?
I previously asked about indicating a question in writing, and I got interested in how questions were recognized in the first place.
To know if a question mark would be used after a question, one should probably know whether or not such sentences…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Did the Romans have a "question mark"?
Were questions in written classical Latin ever indicated by anything other than the meanings of the words1 and the context?
That is, was there a "question mark"?
Here a "question mark" can mean some form of punctuation, but it could be any kind of…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Difference between filiī and liberī
I was reading Orberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata and I found the following sentences:
Marcus et Quīntus sunt dūo filiī. [...] In familia Rõmāna tres līberī sunt.
Now I deduce both words mean "children", but where would I use one or another?…
Pablo Ivan
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11
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When does caesura occur in a dactylic hexameter?
Wikipaedia says this:
In dactylic hexameter, a caesura occurs any time the ending of a word does not coincide with the beginning or the end of a metrical foot; in modern prosody, however, it is only called one when the ending also coincides with an…
Cerberus
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How did the Romans call their currency?
I wanted to make a kind of western-style WANTED-poster in Latin, and I got a few questions about it. My questions:
how did the romans say WANTED on a poster?
I was doubting between the words voluit (own translation) and quis (translation via…
L. Peters
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11
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What is the significance of the different declensions and conjugations?
I've been slowly trying to teach myself Latin with the help of this site.
I've gone past the parts where it talks about first, second, third etc declension nouns, and it all seems quite arbitrary as to whether a given noun will be first declension…
TheIronKnuckle
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11
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Help translating an Estee Lauder quotation to Latin
I am trying to translate one quote from Estee Lauder, that goes as following:
I have never dreamed about success. I worked for it.
Google translator returned this result:
Numquam viderat elit. Et fecerunt pro ea.
Do you consider the last…
Leo Napoleon
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11
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In search of a Latin idiom expressing suspicion, i.e., a translation of "I smell a rat" or "something smells fishy"
Is there a Latin idiom, preferably one that was in currency in the classical period, that expresses the speaker's suspicion that something pertinent is being maliciously concealed from him?
For concreteness, in English the idiom might be, "I smell a…
Calchas
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-NL- and -LL- in Classical Latin
I just stumbled upon an old meta question about the name of our chat room, and a comment gave me the impression that the classical spelling would be conloquium rather than colloquium.
(Let me ignore capitalization and comparing U and V in this…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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11
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Is there a Latin construction for "she must be" as in "I bet she is"/"She probably is"?
Say my friend is supposed to meet me, but she's late, and I think it's because she was reading, I might say, "She must have been reading."
Is there a way to express this in Latin other than something like Veri similiter legebat or Eam puto legisse?…
Joel Derfner
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11
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Prefixes in verbs that appear redundant or meaningless: do they really mean anything?
appellere
from ad- "to" + pellere "to beat, drive" (see pulse (n.1))
resolvere
"to loosen, loose, unyoke, undo; explain; relax; set free; make void, dispel,"
from re-, perhaps intensive, or "back" + solvere "loosen" (see solve)
In verbs…
user37
11
votes
2 answers
Translating Scientific Latin
For my high school English class, which is a translation "workshop," we're all expected to give class-long, individual sessions focusing around a translation we've performed from whatever language we choose to English. The piece/excerpt we choose…
Nick
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11
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What is the difference between aula and atrium?
When researching for the living room question and the question that inspired it, I came across some dictionary definitions of aula and atrium.
Aula is a Greek thing and atrium is Roman, but otherwise they seem very similar to me.
I know there are…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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11
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What is "living room" in Latin?
I would like to find a good Latin word for "living room".
I know some options, but my list might not be complete and I am not sure what is the best choice.
It may well be that different words are needed for different kinds of living rooms.
How would…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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