User talk:Alakazam138~enwiki

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Hi Alakazam. I'm sorry I immediately went to afd but I didn't know you were a newbie and I wanted to settle the dispute over translations once and for all. In any case, your translations and annotations look very good, and I thank you for contributing them, but I think that wikisource is a much better place for this kind of thing, and they do allow original translations and annotations. Samael775 16:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for helping me out. I feel that this whole thing has been a bit of a mess. I had intended you see, to place one up, see what happened then carry on with the selection. But Ok, I accept what you are saying. On the other hand then, are you saying that I can post up this stuff at WikiSource without any significant backlash? That was my original idea you see, just to fill it all in for other's benefit. I guess I have a lot of spare time. :D Alakazam138 17:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe that something like this would be allowed on wikisource. Their policy states that user generated translations are allowed, as well as annotations. However, they don't like users adding anything to the text other than annotations, and the english wikisource has a policy that says you can only post text in english, so they might have a problem with putting the latin text alongside it. However, I have seen Catullus poems on english wikisource with both latin and english text, and I think that provding latin vocabulary is a good way to give the best possible understanding of the poems, especially when it comes to words that can have more than one meaning, ambiguous indirect objects, idioms, ect. Another possibility is wikibooks, but I don't know much about their policies. I know this feels like a lot of red tape, but translations are something that there really isn't consensus about on any wiki, and I hope you will not be discouraged from contributing to wiki to the best of your ability. Samael775 17:57, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Take a look at the comment by User:Uncle G on Articles for deletion/Catullus 2. He has created a wikibooks page for annotated Catullus poems.Samael775 18:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Due to the recent suggestions of some users, I have become more involved with Wikibooks. Thanks to you for your polite suggestions, even if you did not agree with my article. Uncle G has put forward an elegant suggestion and I am only too happy to use it. Here is a sample of the sorts of things I am writing.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Poetry_of_Gaius_Valerius_Catullus/51 Thanks again for your help, and making a new user feel welcome. Alakazam138 20:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks great. Thanks for being willing to negotiate. Samael775 21:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi and thanks
Hi Alakazam,

I just wanted to thank you for your work on the Catullus translations. I've added substantially to the Wikipedia article while not changing what you had already contributed. It looks like that article is staying. I don't have an adequate understanding of Latin to follow all of what some of my sources said in the additions I made. If you have the interest, I hope you'll go over what I wrote and look into what some of my sources say and make any corrections that may be needed. Again, thanks, Welcome and you're off to a great start. Noroton 22:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks
By the way, when you create a page on wikibooks for a Catullus poem, and it has a wikipedia page, add the following to the wikipedia page: I have done this with a few pages already. Samael775 02:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well done with what you've done so far at The Poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus. You can make your annotations even better by linking to Wiktionary articles on the Latin words, creating them if they are missing, instead of creating mini-dictionary entries.  Wikibooks benefits, Wiktionary benefits, and you don't end up having to document the same word twice for two different poems.  (Wiktionary has several handy templates for Latin inflections.) Once again, note that whilst Wikipedia editors are restricted to the notable poems, Wikibooks will take, and in order to make a complete book on the subject will want, fully annotated texts for all of the poems.  (Providing detailed annotated texts whilst Wikipedia provides encyclopaedia articles is one of the ways that Wikibooks and Wikipedia work in concert.)  I encourage you, and any other editor who may be interested, to annotate as many of the poems as you can. Uncle G 13:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be annotations for particular words, by the way, or text that helps readers with tricky vocabulary. (Indeed, helping readers with the vocabulary is one of the very things that annotating the poems for study purposes involves.)  It means that you shouldn't needlessly duplicate an ordinary Wiktionary article, by listing otherwise ordinary inflections and meanings.  If the word is simply an unusual word that readers might not be familiar with, just cross-link it to Wiktionary (creating, if necessary, a stub Wiktionary article for Wiktionary editors to then get their teeth into &mdash; There are several editors that specialize in Latin.).  We really only need more in the actual annotation itself if the word is being used with a sense that is specific to the poem.  In other words:  If it's just unusual vocabulary, a bare link to a Wiktionary article, allowing the reader to look up in the dictionary any unusual vocabulary that xe isn't familiar with, will suffice.  The part of speech, meanings, inflections, and whatnot should go in Wiktionary.  More is needed only if it's Catullus himself being clever with words, or giving idiosyncratic meanings to them. Uncle G 14:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Useful?
Here's a link to an old book about translating Catullus. It's at Google Books. I have no idea how useful it may be, but for what it's worth, here's the link: Oh, forgot to sign this. Sorry. Best, Noroton 14:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

A message I think is for you
Hi Alakazam,

You recently posted this message on my talk page, but I don't think Folantin is likely to have seen it there, so I reposted it with an explanation on his talk page. Here's his statement and the statement you posted beneath it:


 * My pleasure. I only have limited access to academic libraries too at the moment but I do have Quinn, who can be used to reference many things in the article. Quinn briefly mentions the poem as being inspired by a couple of Hellenistic epigrams by Meleager of Gadara (not one of Wikipedia's fuller articles that, by the way). I suspect Anyte might be relevant too. The trouble is, unless you have a reliable source saying so, this constitutes original research. There is a poem by George Gascoigne ("Of all the birds that I do know/Philip the Sparrow hath no peer") which is almost certainly influenced by Catullus 2 but I can't find a critic saying so. You might find a translation by a notable English poet though. I think Richard Lovelace translated quite a few poems by Catullus. Cheers. --Folantin 14:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I use Daniel Garrison and some online sites for my references. If you'd like to type up the Quinn's viewpoint then, that will lead to some neutrality and potential discussions about scholarly debates. if you are interested in working on the WikiBooks project of Catullus, then let me know and we could sort soemthing out - perhaps a division of the work load and some standard templates. Let me know what you think. Email me if you like? Alakazam138 14:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I just added to the Poetry of Catullus page a lengthy description of the manuscript history, which will be of limited interest but I hope not too dry for readers with an intense interest in Catullus. I think that's a good spot for it. You might find any of Harrison's articles (the one footnoted there and the other two at the Catullus 2 article) useful and maybe something to cite in your translations. In particular, there's a Latin statement from one of the major manuscripts in which a scribe writes, very colorfully, that the manuscript is really a mess, don't blame him and hopefully something better will turn up. Harrison translates it, and I'm probably going to include it in the manuscript history section of the Catullus poetry article, but you might want to take a hand at translating it and also use it in the Wikibooks site. I'll cut and paste a copy here later. Noroton 20:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Catullus 2
Hi. Noroton just relayed your message to me. I don't want to tread on your toes if you are using Garrison or get into the area of scholarly disputes, because I'm not really qualified to go there. I only used Quinn for two references: one for the use of hendecasyllabic verse (which is uncontroversial); the other for the influence of the poem on later literature. I'm not sure I have the time to embark on the Catullus project wholeheartedly at the moment, but if I did I suppose I'd concentrate on the sections about Catullus's influence on later poetry. Cheers. --Folantin 20:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

A scribe's lament
Here it is, from the "G" manuscript, with Harrison's translation:


 * Tu lector quicumque ad cuius manus hic libellus obvenerit Scriptori da veniam si tibi cor[r]uptus videtur. Quoniam a corruptissimo exemplari transcripsit. Non enim quodpiam aliud extabat, unde posset libelli huius habere copiam exemplandi. Et ut ex ipso salebroso aliquid tamen sugge[re]ret decrevit pocius tamen cor[r]uptum habere quam omnino carere. Sperans adhuc ab aliquo alio fortuito emergente hunc posse cor[r]igere. Valebis si ei imprecatus non fueris.

His translation:
 * 'You, reader, whoever you are to whose hands this book may find its way, grant pardon to the scribe if you think it corrupt. For he transcribed it from an exemplar which was itself very corrupt. Indeed, there was nothing else available, from which he could have the opportunity of copying this book; and in order to assemble something from this rough and ready source, he decided that it was better to have it in a corrupt state than not to have it at all, while hoping still to be able to correct it from another copy which might happen to emerge. Fare you well, if you do not curse him'.

Now is that interesting or what? Noroton 20:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

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