I am deeply distressed to learn that Pliny, or Caius Plinius Secundus,
author of Naturalis Historia, is guilty of >faulty Latin. I shall write to
his friend Catullus and mentor Seneca directly, though the post will be
slow due to >the enormous traffic through Verona and parts of the Appian
Way.
Your letter might get lost.
Appian way went South to Apulia, NOT to Verona, for which one would need to
take Aemilia and Salaria.
RT
I blame my own teachers as well, had we studied Didymus instead of
Catullus I might have spotted it. Sic crustulum fortunae disintegrat.
Here is the text of my letter to Seneca.
An nescis quantilla sapientia mundus regatur.
dt
"Mathias Rösel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Sorry, this has become
so off-topic, yet I cannot resist.
For me, nullum (in this case nulla) has more the sense of nothing or
none,
Nothing in Latin is NIHIL. Nullus (-a, -um) is an adjective, compound of
ne + ullus and usually followed by a related noun, which means: not one,
noone. That is why...
nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.
.is rather faulty Latin. "Nullum" should be followed by a noun.
Suggestion: Nihil, quod movit, non ornavit (better avoid discussions
about sense here).
OK, I'm no Latin scholar but isn't nulla in some senses used for no, as
in nullatenus, in no wise?
Yes. nulla- in nullatenus is ablative case (pronounce nullâtenus), you
have to complement "parte"
"no" in this sense seems more like sine than nullum.
No. "Sine" means "without".
As in Sine sole sileo
Which translates as Without Sun I Am Silent, no?
But how about sine qua non, without which, nothing?
Yes, how about that? Res sine qua non datur, a thing without which
another thing isn't given (the necessary minimum)--that should make it
clear. So much about that.
It seems to me that, vis a vis Latin, the translation is often going to
be approximate rather than literal.
That applies to any translation *sighs*. Italian has it, that traduttore
e traditore, translators are traitors.
But perhaps the sense of the thread is
Nullum est iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius
- Nothing is said that hasn't been said before.
You might want to look up "nullus", once again. Suggestion: Nihil
dicitur, quod non dictum est prius. (I don't agree to that opinion,
though, but that's yet another topic).
--
Mathias
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