On Tue, 2002-11-12 at 14:50, Carl Cerecke wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> >>Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
> >
> >
> > ... true :)
> >
> > Fugit inreparabile tempus
>
> Latina geekit youareicus
>
> or maybe "youarenoticus" as the case may be...
The funny thing about Latin is that that Romans did not really write it
out in full, unlike Tim and Nordkyn. Too much bother (especially when
you had to carve it out in marble) and the language had a lot of
redundancy. Take the inscription on the Pantheon, which (IIRC) is
something like
M.AGRIPPA.L.F.CONS.TERT.FECIT
(Caveat: I have never been to Rome, and my Roman Art book is not next to
me.)
This is expanded to
MARCUS AGRIPPA LUCIUS FELIUS CONSULR� TERTRIUM FECIT
(pardon my bad Latin spelling.) Translated it reads
Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, Consul for three
times, built this.
Which is "a lot of crap" because the Emperor Hadrian built the surviving
version of the Pantheon :)
While having no formal Latin training, I can often get the gist of Roman
inscriptions better than my Dad (who did Latin at school) because I know
the abbreviations and he doesn't! (Thanks Classics 207.)
--
Michael JasonSmith http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~mpj17/
