31 Comments
Probably Vaticanese. :D
In all seriousness, the Vatican has added a lot of words to the Latin language over the years - words like althaea, autocinetum, saccharum. It wouldn't surprise me if these are from the Vatican as well.
Volgav vitsenanieff nivya kevach varatsach.
Latin was still in use in the Medieval times and even later, and they discovered America at the exact end of the Medieval times (1492 is a date often chosen to change from the Medieval times to the Renaissance, so I really think there were books and texts in Latin with the name "America" since the beginning, and that it's not a Vaticanese addition. Latin was both a religious language, and a science language. For instance Linné wrote about America and named some organisms "Americanus".
Duolingo Latin. Americanus, -a is a neologism for "from the Americas", like in Persea americana, the scientific name of avocado, or Necator americanus, a parasite worm discovered in Brazil.
So how to call the inhabitants of USA in Latin? Is there the same confusion as in English or is there a equivalent to Spanish "estadounidense"?
In Latin, it's called "Civitates Foederatae Americae". And the translation is exactly United State of America (USA)
149
Yes, but the questions was for the inhabitants, i.e. US citizens. (Not that I know the answer, sorry :(.)
I've the same question. Does this apply for inhabitants of the whole continent or just for people of USA?
Not always, in Latin text, it can be the continent, as in the name of the plants or animals with "America", "Americanus", or "Americana".
Yes. Technically this is a nominalized adjective - an adjective used as a noun. So americanus goes with a masculine noun and americana goes with a nominative noun. The third form, americanum, goes with a neuter noun. :)
Volgav vitsenanieff nivya kevach varatsach.
- 378
I'm curious about the capital A on "Americanus". I wasn't expecting that from the parent of French and Spanish.
- 254
Classical Latin didn't have letter case in the same way we think of it. You'd need somebody more of a specialist than I, but Latin - the language and the Roman alphabet - was originally unicameral (ie EVERYTHING WAS UPPERCASE, or possibly EVERYTHING VAS VPPERCASE ahem) - lower case letterforms and then conventions of casing arrived later and separately.
Im not sure what conventions DL is applying in short. Every sentence here is capitalised as in [English? Italian?] but this is a choice, and lots of Latin downcases the start of sentences. Anybody know better?
- 149
It certainly makes for better readability. I wouldn't much enjoy to have the course "shouting" at me all the time. ;)
In very classical Latin, all the letters were uppercases, no coma, no stop, no spaces, and all the same letters. I think the uppercases/lowercases started with the invention of the printing.
I don't think there's a rule to capitalize the nationality adjective in Latin.
https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?t=12311
- 191
Again the inversion of word order instead of SOV here would make an emphasized translation into something like "What Marcus is, is an American", giving stronger emphasis to the "est" than in standard SOV order.
Do you have to capitalize ‘americanus’ everytime, everywhere, like in English?
No. Some authors do, but I can't find a proof it's mandatory, as many Latin authors don't.
- 11
If "New York" is being translated into Latin, then obviously, Marcus and Stephanus should be translatable into English by simply using Marc and Stephan.
- 1886
The course creators made a decision to stick with the Latin nominative in the English forms rather than translating for proper names of people.
It's mentioned in course notes somewhere, and also in a few of these discussions.
English doesn't use cases for proper names, so nominative Latin forms seem like a logical choice. (There is the possessive form, which is genitive, technically, but almost no one seems to use the term "genitive" for it.)
Also, perhaps (I'm just speculating here) because proper names for people in English take on multiple forms, putting all those spellings in the database is probably a huge workload.
English-speaking parents sometimes use uncommon spellings with their children's names to make them seem more unique.
Many parents in nations where English is the primary language give their children names based on versions from other languages, as well. That's true even if they don't speak the other language.
Versions of names that are directly from or similar to French, Spanish and Celtic forms are not unusual in the United States.
Marcus could be Mark, Marc, Marco, Markus, Markos, Marquis, Marquo, Markess, Markis, etc.
I guess Stephanus could be Stephen, Stefanus, Stephanos, Stephanis, Steven, etc.
So, I think that the course creators have made a logical decision.
Except Marc already is English. As is Mark. And Marco. And Stephan and Stefan and Steven and Stephen and Steve. Names in English have a lot of variation, more than with cities or countries, and adding in all those alternatives as equally correct for every question where a name is mentioned would take a lot of time. It's easier just to stick to Marcus and Stephanus.
- 11
I'd argue about countries, take for example the many names Germany has received from all over the world and even today symbolisms of global politics can replace the usage of just "Germany" at times, if we were to stay in English. But my point was about cities and "translating into English", so point made, I concede. ;)
The English is Mark, not Marc, as in the Gospel. "Marc" is the French spelling that has been adopted in English. In English, it's Saint Mark, not Saint Marc. But the names travel a lot, and it's often difficult to know what is the real English form.
There are variations, and for the people who are found of etymology, there is the genuine form.
- 1886
The TLDR version of my comment: Names in Latin (cases) and English (unusual spellings and different sources) have many variations. Nobody has time for that stuff.
- 149
Fekundulo, this should be correct. If it wasn't accepted, please report.
