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- "Volumina non loquuntur."
31 Comments
From what I could gather, a liber was a general term for anything that was written on paper, I'm not entirely sure they actually had books though it's not impossible; instead, what they called volumen was a scroll.
Books only became popular in late classical period under the name Codex. They were most popular among early Christians because they allowed collection of multiple different texts (i.e. the Gospels and Apostolic Letters) in one convenient package. Christians used the Greek words biblia (=books) for their codices, from where we have the name the Bible.
Of course it wasn't only Christians who used them, Iulius Caesar was supposedly one of the early adopters of bound codex format. But most Romans in the classical period still used papyrus scrolls (volumen) or waxed wooden tablets.
Liber can mean pretty much anything, including a chapter of a story or a collection of scrolls
Yes--as to liber = "book" (even before the modern book with hard covers had been invented), Catullus refers to his volume of poetry as a libellus: that's liber + the diminutive suffix, so, "a little book." (And since it was small books, or pamphlets, which were used to slander political rivals, that's the source of "libel" in English.)
And to talk about a book, like our modern books in Latin, with no ambiguity?
Codex is the unambiguous word for "modern style" book (as opposed to scrolls), but today it is rather only used for ancient and medieval, handwritten books.
For modern, printed book I would personally use liber, because this is the word that modern Romance languages carried, like French livre, or Spanish libro.
Thank you!
But "liber" also means a "book" in the concept way, for instance "liber of something", like "Book of the dead", or "Book of the Bibles", doesn't it? Like when we use "books" in an online store, to buy a book on any form, downloading it, or getting the paper kind.
So, it starts to be a little confusing.
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You know... a Latin screen reader, or audio books in Latin would be cool! Unfortunately, you and I are probably the only ones who would subscribe to that channel!
- 16
Hello. There are some audio books in Latin: https://librivox.org/search?primary_key=39&search_category=language&search_page=1&search_form=get_results
What does it mean, that it ends in -tur? Not sure how the conjugation works here, thanks for any help!
There are passive endings for verbs. In some of the tenses, including the present, we replace the active endings (-ō, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt) with these passive ones: -r, -ris, -tur, -mur, -minī, -ntur.
So: an active verb like amāmus (we love) has its passive counterpart: amāmur , we are loved.
There are also verbs called "deponent" verbs, which use the passive endings but have active meanings: loquor "I talk," loqueris "you talk," loquitur "he/she/it talks," loquimur "we talk," loquiminī "you all talk," and loquuntur "they talk."
People might be familiar with the expression, "That's a non sequitur," meaning, "That's an illogical argument." We have a Latin verb form here: nōn sequitur , "It does not follow [logically]." (the verb sequor, sequī, secūtus sum , to follow, being one of these deponent verbs that have passive-looking forms but active meanings)
- 1302
I thought Volumina was a female name. It is in the Carry on films. So I put Volumina doesn't speak!
This got me thinking about something else entirely. Would "Volumina non recitantur" be a natural way to say "The scrolls are not read aloud" in Latin? Or maybe "Volumina non recitanda est".
- 16
The answer to your question is yes. The second sentence should be "Volumina non recitanda sunt", and it has a different meaning: "The scrolls must not be read aloud".
