Sheila is a linguist. While walking by the River Lune today, I told her about:
Vae Victoris!
Vae Captoris!
We now think that:
"Woe to the victor" = Vae victori;
"Woe to the victors" = Vae victoribus;
"Woe to the captors" = Vae captoribus;
"Vae victis" as "Woe to the vanquished"(plural) is correct.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I've wondered why the Polesotechnic League used Latin for its official language. I would have thought it simpler to use Anglic.
Sean
Sean,
Anglic would be easier than Latin. Esperanto is an excellent artificial language with phonetic spelling and simple, regular grammar.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Perhaps in the early Polesotechnic era Anglic was thought to be still too closely associated with the US and the UK (members of the Solar Commonwealth) to be tactfully used as an interstellar language.
And Esperanto has never really caught on with any significant numbers of people. Interestingly, Robert Hugh Benson has Esperanto being used to deliberately displace other tongues in LORD OF THE WORLD.
Sean
Sean,
That would be a misuse of Esperanto. The idea would be that everyone could be bilingual, able to communicate anywhere in the world, while preserving national languages.
It has not caught on with many yet but it is a living language and could be more widely adopted in future.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But the idea of a gov't pressuring or coercing people to learn one language in other to displace other languages has happened in real history.
I think an already existing "natural" language is more likely than Esperanto to become a common language on or off Earth. Such as the Anglic used in the Terran Empire.
Sean
Sean,
No coercion with Esperanto. Just (the idea is) its common availability in every school in every country. It is easy to learn, speak and spell and has an international ethos whereas English has colonial and imperialist associations. Not even English has yet become a universal common language. It will take a long time, if ever, for that to happen whereas governments and educational organizations could agree to make Esperanto available in all schools.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except nobody CARES enough about Esperanto for it to ever be likely to be so widely used. And Anglic became the "prime" human language used in the Terran Empire simply because it was so widely used. And it became so widely used due to accidental reasons.
Sean
Sean,
When enough people do care to be able to converse directly with anyone else anywhere in the world, then it will be possible to adopt something like Esperanto. Until then, accidental factors will continue to determine which languages are used.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I simply don't think anything so artificial and rootless as Esperanto will ever be widely used. English, Chinese, Spanish, even Arabic are all far more extensively spoken than Esperanto.
In David Wingrove's CHUNG KUO series the world was conquered by a China which ruthlessly imposed Chinese on all the world.
Sean
Sean,
Esperanto is rooted in several European languages and uses Roman letters.It has its own original literature of fiction and poetry. It is very expressive because speakers can create new portmanteau words from word-roots. Esperantists address each other as "Samideanoj." "Sam-" means "same. "Ide-" means "idea." "-an-" is a member of... "o" is the noun ending. "j," pronounced "y," is the plural ending. Thus, the word means "Ones having the same idea." The Bible and Shakespeare have been translated into Esperanto. Esperantists can arrange to travel abroad and stay in Esperanto-speaking guest houses. People have met and married through Esperanto. Of course, more people speak English. However, the idea is not that more people should speak Esperanto but that everyone should have access to it at school.
Word endings can be changed in new combinations. Thus, "Si respondis, "'Jes,'" means "She replied, "'Yes." "Si respondis jese," means "She replied yesly." "Si jesis" means "She yessed." Speakers can create new words just as we create new sentences without realizing that they are doing it. Poetry can be succinct and packed with meaning.
Paulo.
Esperanto is very easy to learn... if you speak an Indo-European language, and particularly the European varieties. It's only slightly easier to learn than English if your native language is, say, Japanese or Swahili.
English is a very easy language to learn to speak... badly but comprehensibly. (Japanese people struggle to be comprehensible in English mainly because the sound-systems are so different).
And fortunately, English-speakers are generally more tolerant of a degree of ambiguity than most.
Mr Stirling,
Thank you for a different perspective.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: yes, but Esperanto still "comes across" to me as a rootless, artficial affectation used by only few. I simply can't take it as seriously as I do English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, or even Latin!
Mr. Stirling, I have hear of the struggles Japanese speakers have trying to master the different sound systems used in other languages.
And Paul and I have sometimes discussed ambiguities found in the works of Poul Anderson.
Sean
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