Silentium
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Posts posted by Silentium
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I have found this fascinating post by Andrew Dalby on another thread which I am quoting, as I think it will be a great contribution for this thread:
There is a certain language family, almost as numerous as the Indo-European family and traceable a bit further back in time, called Afroasiatic (an older alternative name, still often used, is Hamito-Semitic).It looks as though proto-Afroasiatic was spoken, ten thousand or more likely fifteen thousand years ago, somewhere around the Horn of Africa (northeast Africa, Kenya/Somalia/Ethiopia). These languages spread gradually westwards, and, in the path of this slow movement, offshoots or subgroups of Afroasiatic can be traced: Nilotic and Omotic languages in southern Ethiopia and Sudan, Chadic languages in Chad and northern Nigeria (Hausa, a major language of Nigeria, is one of these) ... Then, still many thousands of years ago, some speakers must have moved north across what is now the Sahara, and the next traceable offshoot is the group of languages now called Berber, which, as Rameses said above, is spoken across north Africa from the western oases of Egypt all the way to Morocco and Mauritania. And, by the way, the modern Berber languages are the same in origin as the Libyan and Numidian language(s) of the Roman period.
I was researching Berber to see if there was any trace of latin loanwords that could help reconstruct the nature of the Latin spoken in North Africa, and I
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LOL interesting
How about Nebraska then? Italy appears to be mentioned next to it (do they have much gun crime there?
)I have no idea. I don't think the HDI factors in gun crime.
Just a silly and not so funny joke..
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LOL interesting
How about Nebraska then? Italy appears to be mentioned next to it (do they have much gun crime there?
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A friend asked me how to translate "Talk nerdy to me" to Latin. My first guess was Nerditas dicte mihi. But I'm wondering if dice would be a better choice. Does dice connote 'tell' more than 'talk'. Thoughts?
Yes, dice connotes "tell" more than "talk". How about the deponens "loquor, -eris"?
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Faustus, is this passage taken from Giovanni Antonazzi's "Fogli Sparsi Raccolti per il Sabato Sera"?
I have this book in Italian, Chapter 4 in the Passeggiate Romane section is called "Le Mole del Tevere" and has more or less the same information.
It was a nice piece of improvisation by Belisarius, but I didn't know that the Romans had continued to use the idea until 1870!The most famous mill in the XIX century was "la mola dei fiorentini", and although the mill is gone we still have "Via delle mole dei Fiorentini".
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Well, in any case, I think I'll wait for some more convincing evidence before believing it's Lucullus' residence.
Of course. Being no archaeologist I had to trust what Il Messaggero and Rai Tre said
.I remember a few years ago, while they were renovating the casina Valadier to turn it into a caffetteria and found ruins underground, they also said it was Lucullus' domus (now I know it was the pars servorum). I guess we will have to wait for more evidence and more excavations on the Pincio.
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Practically between Via Gabriele D'Annunzio and Piazza Napoleone.. oh, and the want to install ventilation systems for the car park right in the middle of the terrazza..lovely.
Your observation is absolutely right, if anything the domus should have been closer to the Hortii Luculliani (i.e. Villa Medici) and Lucullus' nymphaeum, which, if I'm not mistaken, was found between Via Sistina and Via Gregoriana, although I remember reading somewhere that the part near the muro torto was actually the part where the servi lived (but I have to check this and possibly post the source).
Yes, the nymphaeum was found near the Hertziana.
I thought the servants' quarters were in the area of casina Valadier, I'd look it up if I had the MEFRA near me but I don't atm.
Oh, in that case I would trust your information more than my vague recollection, I might as well have read it on La Repubblica..
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From Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.
The Domus, together with a mosaic pavement and a cryptoportico, was found during excavations for the creation of a car park on Pincio hill, in Rome. Cultural and archaeological association Italia Nostra is trying to elicit an answer from the new mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, who apparently hasn't said yet whether the project to build the parking space will be cancelled or whether it will continue in spite of the overwhelming archaeological evidence.
Silentium, do you know exactly where the excavation is taking place?
It doesn't make any sense to me that Lucullus' domus would be located near the Muro Torto. It should be much closer to Villa Medici imho.
Practically between Via Gabriele D'Annunzio and Piazza Napoleone.. oh, and the want to install ventilation systems for the car park right in the middle of the terrazza..lovely.
Your observation is absolutely right, if anything the domus should have been closer to the Hortii Luculliani (i.e. Villa Medici) and Lucullus' nymphaeum, which, if I'm not mistaken, was found between Via Sistina and Via Gregoriana, although I remember reading somewhere that the part near the muro torto was actually the part where the servi lived (but I have to check this and possibly post the source).
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From Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.
The Domus, together with a mosaic pavement and a cryptoportico, was found during excavations for the creation of a car park on Pincio hill, in Rome. Cultural and archaeological association Italia Nostra is trying to elicit an answer from the new mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, who apparently hasn't said yet whether the project to build the parking space will be cancelled or whether it will continue in spite of the overwhelming archaeological evidence.
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In this drunken atmosphere to remember the inevitability of death was both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment. One man drank cheerfully from a silver cup skillfully decorated with gesticulating skeletons. These macabre images added flavor to the wine..... All this, doubtless, led to deep thoughts without, however, causing any loss of appetite.
Interesting!A sort of memento mori.
It adds to his greatness that he needs such a reminiscence, lest he should think himself divine.
Salve
As morbid as this all is, it still delights.
True, although this acknowledgement of men's mortal nature seems to have a different connotation in pagan Rome, it seems to be an incentive to living life to the fullest and at the same time in the best/healthiest way possible (both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment, as Ugo Enrico Paoli poits out in the excerpt posted by Faustus), while the Christian timor mortis seems to be connected with the fear of sin, of not repenting and consequently of punishment in hell. Tertullian's passage made me think of this, sorry for the digression.
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In this drunken atmosphere to remember the inevitability of death was both a warning and an invitation to enjoyment. One man drank cheerfully from a silver cup skillfully decorated with gesticulating skeletons. These macabre images added flavor to the wine. At Trimalchio's dinner, after the gustatio, a little silver skeleton, articulated so that it could bow and dance while the host expounded his philosophy, was displayed. The mosaic floor of one Roman dining room was decorated with a huge skull with hollow eyes; another showed a skeleton twisting on the hook-like flames of a pyre, 'Know yourself' is written underneath. All this, doubtless, led to deep thoughts without, however, causing any loss of appetite.
Here's an example from Campania, probably Pompeii or Herculaneum. I found it in the Museo Natzionalle.
Interesting!A sort of memento mori.
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The most popular version in Italy appears to be Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum. Go figure.
I thought it was its universal meaning, at least for catholics. I've been told all my life that INRI means that: "Jesus of Nazaret, King of Jews"
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CIAO ITALIAAAA!!!!!
Italy is usually a lucky team that owes much of its victories to their "not very fair" play plus good luck. It seems the mafia procedures are written in the genes of italians.
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The US fails to a degree in the Empire stakes on account of having few foreign possessions, continental US
obviously being regarded as home ground - yet the American plains/midwest are colonial acquisitions in exactly the
same sense as much of Africa was to the British and French. So in that sense, we already have an 'Empire' of 200
years standing (I am not 'US bashing' here, BTW - simply using available data to counter some of these ideas).
This is more or less what Ferguson says in his book "Colossus", which deals principally with the US.
Lastly (phew, I hear some say!) One cannot in all seriousness regard the EU as an empire, and if it seems like aFranco - German exercise in assuming some kind of imperial power, then it is the fault of timid British governments
that it has not become a Franco - Anglo - German force up until now. This idea also excludes the influence of other
powerful nations such as Italy and Spain. The EU is there for all member countries to participate as their governments see fit.
Precisely.
By calling it a Franco-German conspiracy you are underestimating (greatly) the other European countries (and their nationalism) and misrepresenting the decision making process within the EU institutions. These countries have had such a prominent place because they have a large population and political influence. I'm sure you know well the political weight of France can't be compared to that of Slovenia.
However, if the UK had got more involved in the Messina Conference and the Treaty of Rome at the right time, maybe she could have shaped the EU from within and
have the same resonance France and Germany have today, although at that time you were more concerned with the Commonwealth and the Empire, on which the sun had already set from a long time. Now I honestly don't think you can complain if the EU is more France and Germany oriented. On the other hand I don't think it would be wise for either Ireland or the UK to quit the EU, for you will find yourself crushed between the US, an incrisingly more powerful and strong EU and the emerging economic powers (China, India,etc.), which any long sighted politician would consider as a suicide.
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Espa
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The most popular version in Italy appears to be Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum. Go figure.
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Hmm..the latin for symbol is imago..even index in some cases, and in ecclesiastic latin it would be symbolum, from greek.
Insigna could mean sign, mark, distinctive sign, military ornament, ornament in general, "insigna in ornatu" when referring to the ornamental objects inside a house, but I think I have never encountered insigna with the meaning of "symbol" in what I have read in classical latin so far.
..but apparently the Oxford English Dictionary cleared up a few things for me
the word "Insignia" as symbol, emblem is first recorded in 1648 in the English language.As far as ethymology is concerned, we go to the original meaning of the word in latin:
L. insignia, pl. of insigne -
Sorry, I didn't notice this thread before.
This sounds like: "Reason Illuminates the signs of nature" but that "insignia" could have different meanings, it really depends on the context, same for ratio.
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Please do, Silentium...as my knowledge of German is non-existent, I'd love to read what Kloss' says.
You can find the article in English on the Anthropological linguistics review. As you pointed out earlier those involved in sociolinguistics will probably tend to give a different definition of language and dialect from that of an historical linguist, and that is the case with Kloss.
However, are we sure language can really be separated from its political and social context? Isn’t language a social construct?
Take French, for example. Without the Franks coming to power at a certain point in history I don’t think it would have been the same language we know today.
Also, how can one ignore the part played by religion in the distinction of Serbian and Croatian, for example? A purely linguistic definition of language that does not take these variables into account cannot work, in my opinion. About the commonplace according to which languages have a literature and dialects don't, Occitan has a quite prestigious literature but in today’s France it is nothing more than a dialect, in terms of status.
What Kloss says is essentially that Abstand languages or “languages by distance” are those varieties considered as separate languages because of their distance from all other languages (like Basque, for example), while Ausbau Languages (languages by extention, or construction) are associated with geographical dialect continua and therefore depend on cultural factors for their status. This means Ausbau languages are potentially temporary entities. Some languages are languages by both criteria, like English for example.
This means intelligibility can hardly work as a distinctive criterion between Ausbau languages, as Northern Neil mentioned earlier. The Italian-Spanish example comes to mind.
The same would be true for a Spanish and an Italian speaker, if neither speaker were educated in foreign Romance languages; there are various differences which would keep a speaker of one from fully understanding a speaker of the other. That's not to say that there wouldn't be a little bit of intelligibility; let's face it, Europeans and Latin Americans are educated in at least one other foreign language anymore, as long as they are not of the poorest social class.Spanish is not necessarily less intelligible to an Italian speaker from central Italy than Sicilian or Lombard, so I don’t think it is a matter of intelligibility here. Czech, Slovak and Polish are together the West Slavic dialect continuum; there is mutual intelligibility and a Polish could easily hold a conversation with a Slovak, but each has a different standardised norm and different cultural parameters.
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How very sad
things will be very difficult from now on..I am also sorry for Austria and Swissyland. Austria's official anthem for the games should have been Anton Aus Tirol to be honest. Ich bin so sch
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As far as proto-romance is concerned, I think it is clear that we are not talking about a perfectly homogeneous linguistic system, Hall never claimed that and saying otherwise would mean to misquote him.
I would not dismiss Proto-Romance tout-court without having illustrated it, nor make it sound like the ravings of an individual linguist. Moreover, the evidence of what he and many other romance linguists say (Hall is certainly not the only one who worked on Proto-Romance, there is plenty of evidence from many other studies) is so overwhelming that I think it is really difficult to disprove it, unless one has a better hypothesis to explain the systematic similarities in the evolutional patterns of the romance languages. Hall is very moderate in what he says, he takes into account different isoglosses, substratum, dialectal/geographical peculiarities etc., as Pulgram pointed out:
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Salve, Amici
Gratiam habeo for your last posts, Doctum; they have been quite informative and clarifying.
Asclepiades, what do you mean exactly with Doctum? Doctum as in "doctum doces"?
Anyway, it would be interesting to discuss Proto-Romance and the Romance languages in a separate thread, I don't want to go off-topic here.
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Haha, nice =). You're right about the 2002 mondiale, If you REALLY want to annoy an Italian all you have to say is "arbitro Moreno" XD.
Or you could refer to the 2004 Euro - "Due due Nordic victory" :-) [sweden and Denmark did what had to be done to qualify in the last game, at the expense of the italians]
Naah, in that case Italy really deserved to be kicked out, as the Augusta said =)
However, it's not quite as bad as the bitterness of the 2002 Mondiale and South Korea! I will never, ever, forgive them, or that damned referee!Oh I remember that. We were driving around Lazio with a poster of the Korean squad on our rear window.
It was magnificent.
You were a very, very, very, very brave man, Mal. Still, I bet you had a fast car
Hahaha
I think so too.
North Africa and Latin
in Historia in Universum
Posted
Yes, I was wondering if there were other factors in play, such as arabic being a language of "culture" itself (which could explain why Berber has so many latin loanwords and Arabic doesn't) and the fact that the romanisation of Africa had not started as early as that of Iberia and had not been as capillar as the one in the latter.
I have looked at the article and the bibliography at the bottom of the page but the postulation of a "North African Romance" seems merely speculative, considering that it is based on the corpus of latin loanwords in Berber, and that generally these loanwords seem to be characterised by a certain "archaism". Even if the phonetics of some of these loanwords may suggest that their origin was proto-romance or late-latin, that does not prove the existence of an african romance language and there is no overwhelming toponymic/onomastic evidence either. If latin continued to be spoken as late as the VI century in the region then it is likely that this latin had already evolved into proto-romance or "late latin", but that does not prove these borrowings came from an african romance language (Just one? Why not many?), let alone that it was spoken until the XVII century. The author of the article claims that this late african latin was different from that of the rest of the "Rom