#latin rambles

[dumbfinntales]

Aliquando mos est mihi nugas scribere apud situm "twitter" vocatur (aut X, si placeat) cum vinum biberem. In mente volvi si aliquid apud tumblr scribere deberem.

Fiat! Homines, en, aspicite vel legite! Vero Latine scribo, sed haud res utiles. Qua malum re scribo nugas? Egone sum garrulus? Nunc loquor? Insanitisne? Videtisne me loquentem? Iamiam scribo, non loquor stultissimi!

Veniam a vobis peto si offendam. Dei mihi facultatem linguam Latinam scribendi sciendique dederunt, sed id abutor. Fateor, peccavi! Vae mihi miseri!

[gravedangerahead]

Gringo is a slur discourse mood board

[buttdumplin]

I only know Mexican Spanish, so I can only speak for myself and those I grew up with but "mami" and "papi" are not the equivalent of mommy/daddy as used in sexual or intimate relations.

We use mami and papi with our kids. It's what our tíos and tías call us that affectionately. It's what the lady from the corner store calls us when she's sweet on us and can't quite remember our names. It's what our grandparents call us as they fix up a scraped knee. And they bring out papito/mamita when we're either in deep shit, or in need of comfort that can only come from someone with more knowledge, power, or experience than us. It's a diminutive term of endearment.

I'm not saying it's never used as mommy/daddy, but it's hardly ever a title. The context of it is so wildly different, because it's usually what we call someone we're responsible for.

"Mamas" tho? Mamas can fuck.

[nahimjustfuckinwithya]

good morning lgbtqdw+ community

[foreststarflaime]

I was reminded today while translating that in Latin generosa can also mean ‘nobly born’ in addition to the obvious cognate, which actually makes more sense in the context of One-Winged Angel. Sephiroth, glorious and nobly-born, son of the ‘cetra’ Jenova

[epicness1000]

I started to play Honkai: Star Rail because Boothill's character design is just so charming and it appealed to me in every way (dark clothes, cyborg, long Sephiroth-esque hair, sharp teeth). And obviously I am excited for his release, but...

I love Dr Ratio.

First off, his name literally having the word ratio is already funny to me, considering it's become a slang term. But then his whole thing of just... hitting enemies with his book? Or killing them by throwing a ruler at them? He has some oddly refined Baldi vibes.

I came for Boothill but I stayed for Dr Ratio. But I will also stay for Boothill when he's released.

[omnybus]

Surreal/dreamcore/horror artists are always putting eyes in or on random shit, sometimes mouths as well, but never noses or ears. Heck, many monsters in analog horror, creepypastas, and similar genres often have neither, aside from a pair of slit nostrils. Can't a nose or ear be as disturbing as the other parts of the face? We gaze into the darkness expecting it to gaze back or attempt to consume us, yet never consider that a predator often detects its prey first via scent or sound.

[mooseonahunt]

Please for the love of God learn the difference between Latino and Hispanic if you don’t already

[dumbfinntales]

It's funny that no matter the community there's always some kind of beef or drama. I've been studying Latin for almost 3 years now and frequent the Latin subreddit. I'm sorry you have to find out that I use Reddit like this. But seriously speaking that subreddit has been a great resource in my learning and I've learned a lot through it.

But sadly not even a small niche community like that is drama free. It's a bit of a weird place full of hobbyist and genuine Latinists and scholars. There's a lot of fighting between people who like the grammar translation method of learning Latin, and some who advocate comprehensive input. And the fights can get pretty heated, ultimately ending in snarky replies or straight up insults. People take their Latin learning very seriously. More rambling below.

I learned Latin through a combination method, I did get the Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata books, but I also studied and read up a lot about grammar. Latintutorial on Youtube was a big help! But most of my learning has been through various videos on youtube and reading a lot. That's what comprehensible input is, you just gotta interact with the language as much as possible. Grammar translation from what I get isn't exactly reading it's like solving a puzzle trying to identify each word and their form. That's how Latin has been learned and taught in the past few hundred years. No one seems to care about Latin as a language.

I've seen some extreme opinions that since Latin is dead you shouldn't care about how it's pronounced or its fine details, doing that is cringe and you're a larping nerd. A couple weeks back I saw a guy insulting anyone who wanted to speak Latin "properly", saying you're a pretentious twat if you roll your R's. And today I saw people getting heated up about macrons. Macrons mark long vowels and are important especially when you start out Latin. For example: malum and malum. Do you know the difference? If so where does the long vowel go? What are the two words? Maybe the malum malum example is too stereotypical, but it makes the point. In Latin if you see two identical words the difference between them will always be the long vowel somewhere, but if you don't use macrons how'd you know?

I do agree that once you know Latin well enough macrons aren't necessary anymore. Except with new words I guess. Finnish makes long vowels easy because they're always marked by two back to back vowels. The difference between tuli (fire) and tuuli (wind). Alright that's my Latin ramble, I'm not trying to make any point. People are weird, no matter what community they're a part of. It is what it is!

[gingermintpepper]

Someday, eventually, I will get an opportunity to talk about Celtic Apollo.

I see a lot of discussions and content (light-hearted and not) talking about Greek Apollo and Roman Apollo but y'all don't understand; it wasn't just that Greek Apollo had a second Roman Apollo hidden in his pocket, it's that Greek Apollo also has a secret third Celtic Apollo hidden behind his back like a tramp stamp he got in college and refuses to acknowledge or show to anyone.

[manufacturedrainbows]

I caved and made a ref sheet bc I'm not gonna open all these files individually every time I gotta draw a page LMAO

[askblueandviolet]

Tú, alcalde. ¿Hablas español? Eso sería genial :D

"Yes, I know many languages! Mandarin, cantonese, english, brazilian, french, italian, and of course, spanish!"

MASTER POST

Asks Start 💙💜

Previous 💙💜

Next 💙💜

[daughterofthemuse]

Demigod Struggles with Latin

Greek Demigod 1: Ugh Romans

Greek Demigod 2: What have you got against the Romans?

Greek Demigods 3+: (go into "What have the Romans ever done for us?")

Greek Demigod 1: Nothing! It's just- Latin. It runs in my veins, but that just makes me trip up on more words! I can't decide between octopuses, octopodes and octopi!

[steelthroat]

I think that if Terminus and Optimus ever met, they would cause each other an aneurysm.

I want them to meet, obviously.

[nikoisme]

first year of latin and my favorite word is dormimus (meaning "we sleep"). it feels so "snork mimimimimimi". it'll be hard to top this word.

[ihavedonenothingright]

Captive Prince: Historical References and Naming Conventions

Hi all! I've had this idea in my head for a while now, and I finally had some time (and an Ancient Greek dictionary), so I figured I'd give it a shot. I've always been fascinated by Pacat's worldbuilding, particularly the naming conventions, and as a classicist myself, I wanted to dissect them. So that's what this is. My focus is mainly going to be on Akielos since I don't have as in-depth a knowledge of French, but I'll go through some Veretian names too (je n'ai pas étudié le français depuis deux années, mais Arles… je voudrais parler d'Arles…)

I'm not approaching this with any kind of formal, academic structure, so if something wonky gets through, please let me know! And lastly, I have no idea how many of these are intentional on Pacat's part. This analysis is less about authorial intent and more about how the associations inherent in these names can lend to our interpretation of the work. I'll also be doing this analysis over a few different posts since there is a lot I want to cover. For post #1:

Country Names

This post will solely feature Vere and Akielos since that's already a lot, but I will tackle Patras et. al. later on. There's some very interesting stuff there that I would be remiss not to look at. Of our subjects for today, Vere is the simpler, and the one I am absolutely certain Pacat intended, so I'll start with it.

Vere

Disclaimer: I am in love with this choice. The word itself is actually a Classical Latin adverb derived from the adjective "vērus," meaning "true," and in Latin it's spelled "vērē" (though you will not see those macrons in extant texts, those are a modern pronunciation and differentiation aid). Vērē can be translated a handful of ways; often it's used for emphasis, and in that case it's usually translated as "indeed," but "truly," "rightly," "exactly," and "truthfully" all work in different contexts. Extrapolate vērus and its derivatives for around a thousand years and you get the Old French word "verai" (ouah c'est vrai !) which means, well, "true."

It's also close in spelling and pronunciation to the modern French "verre," which means "glass," which isn't entirely relevant, but is cool. It makes me think of shiny, fragile displays of opulence like the Galerie des Glaces in Versailles. 

The first reason I really like this name is that it calls back to Artes, the Roman-inspired kingdom that we're told once encompassed all of Vere and Akielos, while still fitting current Veretian (aka half-old-half-modern French) grammar and pronunciation. The second is, naturally, that it fits so well into the series' themes of truth, deception, and verisimilitude. The second we're introduced to Vere, and by extension Laurent, there's a subtle hint there that both he and his country are, at their core, more real, genuine, and truthful than Damen and Akielos. We're already building towards Damen's Kings Rising line, "I have never known a truer man." Even if you don't recognize the Latin, your brain will make the connection between Vere and verisimilitude later. It's perfect, 10/10 Pacat, could not have done it better.

And just for fun: a Latin example!

Commentarii de Bello Civili, 2:27. Latin and English available here. 

Hi, sive vere quam habuerant opinionem ad eum perferunt, sive etiam auribus Vari serviunt…

Loeb Translation: "Whether they convey to him the opinion that they really held, or whether they only flatter his ears…" (165)

Slightly more literal translation (by me): "Whether these ones truly convey to him the opinion as they held it, or rather are subservient to Varius' ears…"

Akielos

The name "Akielos" is a lot more… nebulous. I don't know if there is a Greek print of Captive Prince, but my guess is it would be spelled Άκιελος (modern Greek speakers please weigh in, I'm only a year or so into Ancient Greek so I haven't really touched accent marks). That doesn't map neatly to any modern or ancient greek word—at least that I know of. What is does remind me of is Ἀχιλῆος (Achileos) from Ἀχιλλεύς (Achilleus), aka, Achilles. They're so close that I actually realized lately I had unconsciously been pronouncing Akielos as "Akileos" for a while; and in fact, this makes the Veretian spelling "Achelos" make a bit more sense. English and French both use a hard "ch" to represent χ in Greek words; so I imagine, in universe, that the word might actually be spelled Άχιελος. It wouldn't even surprise me if this was the way Pacat originally wanted to spell it, but had to change it for ease of comprehension.

I did have some other interpretations of the name, but I think this is the strongest. Because in addition to the obvious association, the name Ἀχιλλεύς is thought to be derived from the words ἄχος, "distress/grief" and λαός, "people," making it either "the grief" or "grief of/to the people" depending on who you ask (you rely on cases for that sort of distinction in Greek and they're not exactly present here. iykyk).

I really like the idea of Akielos being associated with grief; we're first introduced to it as a country in mourning, and then later on, as the cause of grief in Delfeur. And then you have the association with Achilles, himself a prolific brother killer, who Pacat references later in 'The Fall of Inachtos,' our in-universe Iliad. Insane levels of grief on grief on grief. Plus, because it looks closer to the genitive form, I automatically associate it with the opening line of the Iliad:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος

menin aeide thea Peleiadeo Achileos

Sing, goddess, the anger of Achilles, Peleus' son

So we can throw a little rage into the equation. As a treat. 

Also important to note that the -os there is a masculine ending. It doesn't have the most bearing, but it does mean that if we want to be strictly accurate to Ancient (and modern!) Greek grammar, I have to throw a quick article in front of it, making our final "how do the Akielons spell Akielos?" answer: ὁ Άχιελος ("ho Achielos"). The ὁ here is equivalent to le in French, with the major distinction being that in French, you don't typically need an article in front of a proper noun, whereas you do in Greek.

That's it for today's analysis! See you guys next time around for Patras, Artes, and (maybe) Arles, Ios, and Delfeur/Delpha.

Part 2 >>