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1500 questions
10
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Is there something special about "corpus"?
Metamorphoses Book V, the story of Proserpina. At this point Ceres has just thrown some soup in an impertinent man's face and turned him into a lizard (as you do).
mirantem flentemque et tangere monstra parantemfugit anum latebramque
petit aptumque…
mike rodent
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How can I translate the names of the Proto-Indo-European gods and goddesses into Latin?
What would be the best Latin translation of the following two main Proto-Indo-European gods?
*Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr (sky father)
*Dʰéǵʰōm Méh₂tēr (earth mother)
I would like to use words directly derived from those roots (therefore not tellus for earth)…
SkyFather
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Is angulus a diminutive?
The word angulus (angle or corner) looks like a diminutive.
Was it derived from some other word or stem using the diminutive -ulus suffix, or is looking like a diminutive coincidental?
It looks like it could be related to the verb angere, but I…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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10
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4 answers
Is any word attested in both vocative and locative?
Both the vocative and the locative are pretty rare cases, and not found in all kinds of words.
Is there any word that is attested in both cases in classical Latin?
I prefer the vocative to be distinct from the nominative, if possible.
I can easily…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Did the ancient Romans write on clay tablets?
I know that the most common writing media for the Latin language were papyrus, stone, wax and wood tablets.
But, are there any clay tablets preserved to this day that are written in Latin?
All I can find in my research are tablets in cuneiform…
SOMEONE
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10
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How to translate "He who can, must"?
We are a couple in our mid seventies. We want to remain relevant. Our company tag-line is "Feeding the urban population within urban boundaries" Our way of doing this is to use the light spectrum effectively for growing food in covered environments.…
Victoria
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10
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2 answers
Why is Latin more different and hard to learn for a Romance-language speaker than the other Romance languages?
I am a native Romanian and I can master more or less only English, French and Italian - while Spanish and Bulgarian are transparent to me: but German is not - nor Latin!
It seems to me obvious that the following is true: at least for a native…
cipricus
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10
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Interpretation of circumflex in a poem from 1621
A poem from 1621 contains one ô and one â.
The ô is the interjection ô and the â is in the relative pronoun quâ.
No circumflexes are used elsewhere in the poem.
Does the circumflex (or caret or however it should be called) only emphasize that the…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Did the Romans walk their dogs?
Here is a mosaic from Pompeii showing a Roman dog in a leash:
(Image from Wikipedia.)
Other similar pictures of mosaics are easy to find online, so I am confident that dog leashes were a well known thing in Roman culture.
But I have yet to see a…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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3 answers
What would the ancient Romans have called Hercules' Club?
During the 2nd to 3rd century, Romans would wear a pendant which we call a Hercules' Club, in much the same way a modern Christian would wear a crucifix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%27_Club_(amulet) What would the Latin term for this…
Walter
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10
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Is there a suffix that means "like", or "resembling"?
What would be the appropriate suffix to add to a word to say that it resembles the noun? In English, we have the example of "Roguelike" (or Rogue-like), which is a style of video game. It's a substantive that tells you the game is like a particular…
Adam
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10
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The medieval abbreviation eccƚie
The abbreviation eccƚie is common in medieval latin texts, like this:
which is from page 78 of Placita de quo Warranto. It can also be seen in this text and this text. There is a horizontal bar through the vertical of the l indicating…
emrys57
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Doubt about third declension
I was looking at the words in the phrase, “et verbum caro factum est”, and at caro in particular. I am casually interested in Latin (and languages generally) but I do not know it very well. So obviously, I look it up in the dictionary. The table of…
Omar and Lorraine
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Use of lunate sigma in scholarly editions
Most Greek scholars are aware that sigma has a few different forms. In most current printed editions, it has a medial (σ) and final (ς) form, even though for a large part of antiquity up to the Byzantine era, it was usually written as a so-called…
brianpck
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10
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2 answers
How would one say "Pardon me," in the sense of not understanding or hearing, in Classical Latin?
Especially when speaking a second language, I am forced to frequently say something like "Pardon me?" or "What was that?" or "Excuse me?" when I fail to understand or hear what a speaker says. I'd like to know what was used in Classical Latin to…
Nathaniel is protesting
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