Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Latin/Archive 1

WP:Latin
Great job on setting up this project, 95jb14. I've gone ahead and tagged about 40 articles with the project banner, mostly grammarians and such. Is there anything else specifically you'd like done? I.M.S. (talk) 02:57, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * At this moment in time there is still a lot of work that needs doing, as a member of WikiProject Lincolnshire I have based the pages on it so it's best to take a look at it, here. 95jb14 (talk) 18:46, 20 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Looks like you've done good work over there. I am also trying to start a new WikiProject, one for a band called The Kinks here. On the WikiProject side of things, I think of myself as active in the community for WP:Roots Music and WP:London, and I've been thinking of creating a WikiProject for Frederic Chopin. I suppose we're all very busy right now! I.M.S. (talk) 18:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar
If there isn't already a barnstar, this is one I just created. I'll go ahead and make a template for it. I.M.S. (talk) 03:39, 20 September 2009 (UTC)




 * Here's the template:


 * I think I'll merge the two templates together ("Template:The Latin Barnstar" --> "Template:WikiProject Latin Barnstar of Merit"), as it is, after all, a WikiProject barnstar. One of the templates might not show up for a few minutes - don't worry, I'm just working on it! I'll post back when I've finished. I.M.S. (talk) 16:14, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * O.K., move successful. The Template:The Latin Barnstar's contents have now been moved to Template:WikiProject Latin Barnstar of Merit. Also, I've edited it so that all you have to do to use this template is add the following:


 * put your message here ~ to the talk page of the user to whom you wish to award it.I.M.S. (talk) 16:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I've added it to the list of Barnstars now. 95jb14, I noticed you already have designed a couple! Did you have one in the works? I.M.S. (talk) 16:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * No,I've been a bit tied up with time recently so I've not been keeping up with it. P.S. Thanks for all the tagging of the articles. 95jb14 (talk) 17:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC).

Target
Is it more preferable for me to contribute to English articles that discuss the Latin languge or aticles that are written in Latin? --Lucius Sempronius Turpio (talk) 16:50, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Right now I've been tagging articles on the language, and I would think that ones written in Latin would be on a different wikipedia (i.e., the Latin Wikipedia) and would therefore require a different WikiProject. I'm not sure, though. 95jb14 knows the answer to all of this, however, as he set up the project. I.M.S. (talk) 18:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, and welcome to the WikiProject! I.M.S. (talk) 18:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * To be honest as long as the contribution is constructive it doesn't matter, although the Latin Wikipedia is entirely different so any contributions won't be part of the WikiProject and as far as I am aware the English Wikipedia is the only one that uses WikiProjects. Of course you can edit the Latin one as much as you want! 95jb14 (talk) 17:33, 23 September 2009 (UTC).

First Member Election 1
I don't know whether you have read the 'First Member' section but it's time for the monthly vote. If these could be in by Friday 25th please. We need three votes at least otherwise the votes are void. I hearby open the votes:

95jb14

I.M.S. (talk) 03:38, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I.M.S.

95jb14 (talk) 19:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Lucius Sempronius Turpio

First Member Discussion
Comment/ Oh dear - I think we all might just vote for each other! I'll have to wait a while and decide on either Lucius or 95jb14. If anyone who hasn't joined yet (and is considering), join now! It'll help break a tie. And by the way 95jb14, I really appreciate your vote for my WikiProject. I didn't know if I could get it through without at least one other person in support of it - but now I have one other person! Thanks again. - I.M.S. (talk) 19:18, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thats fine! 95jb14 (talk) 09:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I have a couple problems with this idea. First, "prima membrum" is both morphologically and lexically bad Latin: membrum is a neuter noun, so an adjective modifying it also has to be neuter: primum membrum; also, membrum really means "limb of the body", and a member of an organization is more usually called sodalis or socius, so "first member" should really be primus sodalis or primus socius. Second, since when do WikiProjects have elected "first members" who "preside over the WP and have the ultimate say in certain decisions"? Decisions at Wikipedia are made by consensus, with no one, not administrators, not Jimbo himself, having a more heavily weighted voice than anyone else. The whole concept of a "first member" seems very anti-Wikipedian to me. +Angr 19:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That is a good point and I support it. I felt that it was a good idea myself and as you can see yours is the first complaint. I think it should be fair, though, to have a vote on whether or not we should keep the office or not, do you agree? I can see we have a capable latin speaker here, sorry for the poor translation, I am still not all that fluent but I am self teaching, you'll definately be a help to the project. 95jb14 (talk) 19:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC).
 * No, I don't think we should have a vote; we should have a discussion, and with only five socii so far, even a straw poll shouldn't be necessary. For that matter, having "someone in charge" is unnecessary too: if you want something done, be bold and do it, and if anyone disagrees with you, they'll revert, and if you disagree with their revert, you discuss it together (see WP:BRD). Setting someone up as an elected absolute monarch of the WikiProject is not only anti-Wikipedian, it's organizationally unnecessary, and maintaining the monthly election creates a bunch of red tape that consumes editors' time better spent improving articles. +Angr 19:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Alright then, I feel it is now only necessary to abolish the post so, what follows is my declaration of the position ending and a written agreement to this, on User:95jb14/Resignation is my formal resignation from the office and abolishment declaration:
 * I, 95jb14, declare the post of First Member of th WikiProject Latin defunct and abolished as of Wednesday 14th of October 2009 in my power as the last First Member. This will be last act as First Member. I have now formally abolished it and resigned, 95jb14 (talk) 19:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC).
 * Consensus, and indeed WP policy, seems to stand opposed to the creation of hierarchies. I have removed the "Prima Membrvm" section from the project page and nominated the associated userboxes for deletion. The deletion discussion may be found here. Members (ab minimo usque ad maximum) are welcome to express their opinions. Camenae (talk) 15:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Obviously all members are aloud to contribute and discuss this issue, you don't understand, I created it, rather naively in hindsight, in order to allow people to ask for advice and for someone to mediate. This is completely against Wikipedia's policy so a concensus was reached on 14/10/09. As far 'the concensus' and I can't see there is any need to do anything more. If you wanted to delete what was on the page, too then fine but why? A note was already there saying it had been kept for historical purposes. 95jb14 (talk) 17:57, 30 December 2009 (UTC).

Tagging articles
Is it also necessary that we insist that only project members add tags and rate articles? I notice that this stipulation is mentioned on both this page and at the Assessment Department. I am aware of no other wikiproject that has this requirement. I also think the proposed office "Head of the Assessment Department" ought to be abandoned, even as a contingency, and removed from the project pages. Comments? That's all for tonight: it's New Year's Eve, don't you know. Camenae (talk) 03:00, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that's unnecessary. I often tag articles for WikiProjects I don't belong to, and even evaluate their quality (though not often their importance) for them too. "Head of the Assessment Department" needs to go the way of the "Prima Membrum". +Angr 14:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the Head of Assessments should go but when I started this WikiProject I was very much aware that assessing was one of the most important aspects of it, so I checked on other WPs and some stipulated that only members should tag articles, so I started this for ours too. Perhaps it's unnecessary but I felt it would be easier this way to keep track of who's assessing articles.

Popular pages
I have requested a list of popular pages for this project at. --Ysangkok (talk) 15:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * So had I, and it seems yours isn't on there. 95jb14 (talk) 20:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC).

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Latin names in English and the IPA
P Aculeius and I are debating how best to add pronunciations to the Latin praenomina. This might be a discussion to take to MOS, but I thought I'd start here. At issue are which templates to use for which pronunciations, IPA-en and IPA-la, which should come first, and which should be included at all. For example, should we always include the traditional English pronunciation of Latin? Should we always include Classicial Latin? Should we include Ecclesiastical vs Continental etc? Too much and it can be a mess, though we can always remove some or all to a footnote. From the POV of the MOS, assimilated English should come first, and anything that is not normal English should be so indicated. I wouldn't want a walled garden for Latin names, but there may be other considerations that I do not fully appreciate.

What I'm stuck on are chimeric pronunciations that aren't really either Latin or English, but somewhere in between. A relevant article is Gnaeus (praenomen)‎, where several other pronunciations might be relevant. (BTW, why do we have a separate Gnaeus article?) But this discussion would also be relevant to astronomical names, such as Io (moon) being pronounced both EYE-oh and EE-oh.

BTW, if we want a separate IPA key for Latin as we do for English, which IMO would be a good idea, I'd be happy to set one up; it could distinguish various approaches to Latin pronunciation as well. But it should probably be decided here rather than me just making s.t. up. kwami (talk) 22:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that what was very simple a few days ago is becoming increasingly complicated, although I can see no good reason for this. Around 3-4 months ago I revised the article praenomen from top to bottom, establishing four main sections, on Latin praenomina, women's praenomina, Oscan and Umbrian praenomina, and Etruscan praenomina.  For each of the roughly three dozen Latin praenomina, I created separate articles (in few cases revising existing articles), each with about 3-4 paragraphs of information and links (or places to add links in the future) to related names.  I don't think it's necessary to explain why their existence is justified, given that there's far too much information to lump them all into one gigantic article.


 * For about a third of these names I added simple pronunciation guides, using IPA symbols per the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Since I hadn't previously used this method of indicating pronunciation, I expected there might be some mistakes.  But so far the only "errors" that have been pointed out to me have reflected nothing more than differences of opinion as to what sounds should be included in these pronunciations, and until this week the pronunciations had been stable since the articles were written.


 * My intention was to provide clear guidance to English-speaking readers for pronouncing these names. Many of the names did not require any explanation because they're already familiar; for instance, "Quintus," "Titus," or "Agrippa."  But less familiar names might have been mispronounced, and in some instances there were two or even three pronunciations that could be considered acceptable.  An example is "Decimus," which is familiar with a "soft c" but which the present school of thinking as to the pronunciation of Classical Latin says should be pronounced with a "hard c."  Here my goal was to indicate that both pronunciations were acceptable, without overtly stating that one was preferable to the other, although I did place the more familiar pronunciation first.


 * It was not my intention to list separate "English" and "Latin" pronunciations, nor to distinguish between "Classical" and "Ecclesiastical" Latin, or any other variations that might be encountered from time to time. The names are Latin names, but many of them are familiar to English speakers, all of them can be pronounced using sounds that occur in English, and the IPA for English template to which I linked them provided examples of these sounds in English words so that readers would be able to identify the sounds used in the pronunciations.


 * Over the last week, Kwamikagami has revised all of the pronunciations provided to reflect his understanding of how the names should be pronounced using IPA symbols. I have attempted to defer to his experience with the use of the IPA, even though I do not quite understand why symbols for syllabification and/or emphasis should have been removed, nor whether it was necessary to replace the distinct /ʌ/ in the masculine terminal suffix with the indistinct /ə/; this seems to me to reflect personal preference.  But I chose to defer to his judgment in this.


 * But I strongly disagree with several other decisions which he has imposed on these articles, even though it was clear that these decisions would be controversial. The pronunciations were not intended to be and should not be presented as specifically "English" pronunciations, by which I mean alternatives to "Latin" pronunciations.  The names are Latin names, not English names, and while occasional variations have occurred as the result of the way Latin was taught in English schools up until the 19th Century, such variations should not be automatically preferred to all other pronunciations merely because they could in some cases be described (perhaps a bit misleadingly) as "English".


 * To take a specific example, the praenomen "Gaius" is almost universally pronounced /ˈɡaɪ.əs/ (I would write it as /ˈɡaɪ.ʌs/, but as explained above I chose to defer in that case). That is thought to be how the name was pronounced in Classical Latin, although the older three-syllable alternative /ˈɡɑː.iː.əs/ is suggested by many sources.  English-speaking Latin students and modern historians have said /ˈɡaɪ.əs/ for over a hundred years.  But Kwamikagami insists on presenting /ˈɡeɪ.əs/ as the first (and therefore preferred) pronunciation, because it is "English", and is found in Merriam-Webster.  Never mind that the pronunciation is not historically accurate, nor that it's more than a century out of date even in English.


 * In my opinion, the use of IPA-en is appropriate for three reasons; first, the articles are written in English for English-speaking readers. All of the sounds required to say these names are common sounds in English.  Second, in order to understand which sound is meant, the readers need to see English words containing those sounds as examples, which wouldn't be the case in IPA-la.  Thirdly, there are no examples of pronunciation under IPA-la in Wikipedia, although if there were, they would either duplicate sounds in English, or would be unhelpful to English-speaking readers unless they used English words containing these sounds as examples.


 * However, it is not desirable to indicate that one pronunciation is "English" and the other "Latin", or one "English" and the other "Continental," or one "Classical" and the other "Ecclesiastical." Not only would that be unnecessarily confusing (readers can always find detailed articles about how to pronounce Latin in various methods elsewhere), but it would also imply a series of false impressions.  In the tiny number of cases where there actually is a pronunciation that could be called distinctly English, that isn't the preferred pronunciation even amongst English speakers, and hasn't been for a very long time.  In most instances, the pronunciation should be the same whether one is speaking English or Latin, and even when there are multiple pronunciations these date back to the Classical period.


 * For several days I have been trying to reach some agreement with Kwamikagami over these issues, but every time I felt that things had been satisfactorily resolved, a new series of edits changing the pronunciations and/or the way they're presented has been implemented. I'm really beginning to regret having tried to include them in the first place, for all the trouble they've become.  I'd like to ask him to stop changing the pronunciations in these articles en masse, at least until these issues have been resolved.  P Aculeius (talk) 04:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm rather disappointed you would choose to start misrepresenting what's going on here. This should be decided on its merits. E.g., asking me to stop changing these articles en masse, which implies that I am changing them en masse.


 * You say "But so far the only "errors" that have been pointed out to me have reflected nothing more than differences of opinion". This is not true. You included Latin pronunciations such as, which are not possible in English, as if they were English. That is not acceptable. If they were stable for months, that's only because no-one was paying attention. Also, if they are to be English pronunciations linked to the IPA for English key, they should agree with the IPA for English key. That is not a matter of opinion for these articles, but of simple consistency. If you wish to change the conventions of the key, such as not using reduced vowels (which are necessary because vowel reduction is phonemic in English), you should take that up at the key itself. It's a separate issue from what to do with Latin.


 * You are evidently attempting to create names which are not English, but both Latin and English. But they aren't Latin. Latin has no (or ) sound, for example. That is only found in English, or in the Latin pronunciation of English speakers who maintain an English phonology. It does make a difference whether one is speaking in Latin or English: if you are attempting to speak in accurate Classical Latin, where for example you'd get a  in Gnaeus, so that it wouldn't matter what your native language is, then IMO you should also use Latin vowels and pronounce it . I don't get why we'd have Latin consonants which an English speaker cannot pronounce along with English vowels that a Latin speaker would find odd or mispronounced.


 * The page the IPA-la template links to does seem inadequate, I agree. That's why I suggested we fix it. The solution is not to misuse the English template for non-English pronunciations.


 * One problem I have with these is knowing which convention to follow. Suppose you go on to other things, and I wish to expand our coverage of the pronunciation of Latin names. How would I know how to transcribe new names in a way consistent with the ones you've done? The ideal, IMO, would be to have an agreed set of principles so that someone else could do what you've done without being in conflict with it, and without being in conflict with how we transcribe English on WP. That's why I think we need a broader discussion. kwami (talk) 05:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know the whole background here, but I do think we should include both English and Latin pronunciations for Latin names that have clearly established English pronunciations, like "Plautus", "Cicero", and "Julius Caesar". For other cases, like "Gnaeus", it might be sufficient to include the Latin pronunciation; but if there's an anglicized pronunciation listed in dictionaries, there's no reason not to include it. But no matter what, both pronunciations should be clearly labeled with "Latin pronunciation:" and "English pronunciation:", and both should follow the transcription conventions of the language in question (e.g. no in unstressed syllables in English, and no  or  in Latin at all). +Angr 08:39, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * For me the question is how to handle multiple pronunciations, all following English phonology, but from most English to most Latin, without actually being Latin. Aculeius often wants to leave out the fully assimilated pron. as obsolete, but I think they should generally be retained. But how do we cover /ai.ou/ vs /i:.ou/ or /gei.@s/ vs /gai.@s/? If a word is not common in English, should the fully English pron. not be included, but only the half-English half-Latin pron? etc. But we don't want to bog down things w lots of transcriptions either. I don't know how to decide on s.t. like this w/o getting into conflict w s.o. who has a different judgement, unless we decide on some guidelines. kwami (talk) 10:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * When ten or fifteen entries in a row are changed at one time, then another three or four, then several more after we've gone rounds and rounds trying to resolve the issues, that is en masse. I can't check my watchlist without finding a list of pronunciations changed by Kwamikigami.  Well, I can now, because they've all been changed.  For now.


 * One more time, in current usage there is no difference between "English" and "Latin" pronunciations for these names. For over a hundred years the "Classical" method of pronouncing Latin has been taught almost exclusively, except in the very limited context of ecclesiastical usage.  To the extent that there is an established alternative pronunciation, it may reasonably be included; but unless it is extremely familiar to English speakers, it should not be placed in front of other pronunciations, and they should not be labeled "English" because that implies to the user that those pronunciations should be preferred when speaking English, which is not the case.  Pronunciations should not be added to names that do not require them.  P Aculeius (talk) 14:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * In current usage, there is most certainly a difference between English and Latin pronunciations for at least some names, including the ones I listed above (Plautus, Cicero, Julius Caesar). No English speaker, even in the 21st century, would ever call these men, , and . The English pronunciations even today are , , and , and they should be labeled "English" because that's exactly what they are. Sometimes, the English name is even spelled differently from the Latin name (Virgil, Ovid, Mark Antony). In the case of less familiar praenomina, it may be less obvious, but some of them (e.g. Lucius) still have English pronunciations that are by no means obsolete and certainly are to be preferred (when speaking English) to their Classical Latin pronunciations. +Angr 14:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think I misstated my position. I agree that very few English speakers would say   or, although I would not agree as to ; in fact that's the only pronunciation I've heard, although I'll accept your word for it that  is also used by English speakers.  Where there is a familiar pronunciation that is obviously more recognizable than the "Classical" Latin pronunciation, then I agree that it should be listed first.  That applies to Lucius and Decimus, but I should note that I've been following that convention since I wrote these articles.


 * Most praenomina, however, are not common or even particularly familiar to English speakers. Many of those that are, such as Agrippa, Marcus, Quintus, Septimus, and Sextus, are pronounced approximately the same in English and Latin; and most modern Latin and History students are taught to pronounce the rest according to the "Classical" method.  The pronunciations, , , , and  are not widespread or familiar in English, and should not appear in front of the "Classical" pronunciations presently taught to English speaking students.


 * While these were current in English over a hundred years ago, they aren't now, and haven't been for a long time. Labeling them as "English" pronunciations would suggest that readers should use those in preference to the current pronunciations when speaking English.  I want to make clear that I don't object to including Anglicized versions of names or their pronunciations where appropriate.  I'm just saying that those shouldn't automatically be preferred or labeled in such a way that they seem to be preferred.  Current usage ought to be the primary consideration.  P Aculeius (talk) 23:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * is familiar enough to beat out in MW. But both are English pronunciations, though in the case of Gnaeus, the only pron. I've found is, not . None of the pronunciations you just gave are Latin; they're Latin as pronounced in English, which isn't the same thing.  is Latin,  and  are both English. The difference is in the method of assigning English pronunciations to Latin. I'm not saying that the most assimilated should be presented as preferred, though I think it might be informative to address why they differ. This might be done through the IPA-la template: we might want English as well as Latin IPA in the key, with parameters to distinguish which is which. That is, we could have say 4 columns, Classical Latin, Church Latin, your English pronunciation of Latin, and the literary English pronunciation of Latin, so that the reader can see at a glance how they interrelate. Then it wouldn't really matter which order we place them in, because that would no longer be essential context. We could have the main pron. we'd find in a bio dict. in the header, and perhaps variants in a footnote. kwami (talk) 01:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Latin assistance at RefDesk?
Can someone versed in basic Latin (and possibly classical Greek) take a look at Reference desk/Humanities and advise?

Its a fairly basic question of translation, but I'm not a classical linguist.

Thanks!

FT2 (Talk 18:08, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Monk's Walk School
Can someone please have a look at Monk's Walk School? Its motto is translated as "Excellence for all", but it's very loose, and my Latin is too rusty to decipher it properly. Vel Optima Cuique Praebere - "the very best and to proffer to whom"?? Wereon (talk) 16:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Or to offer the best to everyone". What that "or" is doing there, I have no idea. It must be a quote from something. +Angr 16:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Wereon (talk) 01:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Translation help
The Salvia divinorum article states that the name "literally translates to "diviners' sage" or "seers' sage"", though I haven't found any Latin sources to support that. It seems like a colloquial translation and not a literal one. One of the western discoverers of the plant, Albert Hoffman (he of LSD fame, though not of Latin fame) said that: "It was determined at the Botanical Department at Harvard that it was a new species of Salvia and it got the name Salvia divinorum. It is a wrong name, bad Latin; it should be actually Salvia divinatorum. They do not know very good Latin, these botanists. I was not very happy with the name because Salvia divinorum means 'Salvia of the ghosts', whereas Salvia divinatorum, the correct name, means 'Salvia of the priests', But it is now in the botanical literature under the name Salvia divinorum." What does divinorum 'literally' mean? Thanks, First Light (talk) 05:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Afd for floruit
The Latin word Floruit has been nominated for Articles for Deletion, here. Anyone with an opinion ought to weigh in.--Cúchullain t/ c 18:00, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Latin articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
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 * I have suggested the following and added it to the talk page mentioned above for this project. I tried to add important contributors to Latin litterature, important texts, more familiar Latin phrases or Latin phrases more important to history.  For those suggestions that I made below, I also gave an assessment on the importance and quality scale for WP Latin.  A number of them I gave low importance, but suggested inclusion because of the familiarity.  Others may wish to add or remove from the suggestions I posted on the talk page; feel free to do so as these are only subjective suggestions.  They are listed below for convenience.  I added Henry De Bracton because of his influence on Common Law.  I added Corpus Juris Civilis because of its influence on Civil Law. Gx872op (talk) 16:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Please Consider Adding:


 * Latin conjugation
 * Latin declension
 * Golden line
 * Commentarii de Bello Gallico
 * Metamorphoses
 * Catiline Orations
 * City of God (book)
 * Vulgate
 * Philippicae
 * Tacitus
 * Seneca the Younger
 * Corpus Juris Civilis
 * Cicero
 * Ovid
 * Ab Urbe Condita (book)
 * Henry de Bracton
 * Carpe diem
 * alea iacta est
 * et cetera
 * cogito ergo sum
 * pater familias
 * veni, vidi, vici
 * Et tu, Brute?

Consider Deleting:
 * Alcuin
 * De jure
 * Mens rea
 * Tibullus
 * Ennius
 * Alter ego
 * Pro bono
 * Sui generis
 * De facto
 * Habeas corpus
 * Semper fidelis

Latin Translation Question
While working on Non Incautus Futuri, which is taken from the Lee family crest (of which Robert E. Lee comes from), I noticed that the crest says "Ne incautus futuri" and translates to "Not heedless of the future", but on several pages we have "Non incautus futuri" translating into "Not unmindful of the future". So I have to ask, which is the correct translation and spelling? Thanks... Neutralhomer •  Talk  • 02:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say the two translations are much of a muchness, but as to whether it's "non" or "ne", it depends where the quote is from (which I don't know). Outside of any context, it would have to be "non", but if it's part of a larger sentence, "ne" could be right. —Angr (talk) 10:27, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It isn't really a quote, this was just placed on the family crest. So, if it is "Ne incautus futuri", what is the correct translation?  Cause it would seem that with "incautus futuri" in both, it wouldn't be much different....but then again, I don't know that much about Latin. :) -  Neutralhomer  •  Talk  • 19:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I know it's the motto on the family crest, but it could still be a quote from somewhere. For example, an ancestor of mine had "Ne cede malis sed contra" on his family crest, which is from the Aeneid (the full line is "Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito" (Do not yield to the wicked but go more bravely against them). "Ne incautus futuri" isn't really translatable, because "ne" requires a verb of some sort, and "incautus futuri" is just an adjective and a noun. That's what makes me think it's excerpted from a larger sentence that does have a verb in it. —Angr (talk) 21:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a problem, as there are several articles, including Washington & Lee University, that have "Non incautus futuri" translating into "Not unmindful of the future", including the Non Incautus Futuri page itself. After some searching on Google, I found this, a WordPress account from W&L.  It says "Non incautus futuri" was taken from Horace's Satires.  I am going to try and dig through them and see what the actual quote was.  Stand by. -  Neutralhomer  •  Talk  • 22:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That was easy. Full quote: "ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima: sed tamen amoto quaeramus seria ludo: ille gravem duro terram qui vertit aratro, perfidus hic caupo, miles nautaeque, per omne audaces mare qui currunt, hac mente laborem sese ferre, senes ut in otia tuta recedant, aiunt, cum sibi sint congesta cibaria: sicut parvola—nam exemplo est—magni formica laboris ore trahit quodcumque potest atque addit acervo quem struit, haud ignara ac non incauta futuri."  Taken from here at line 35. -  Neutralhomer  •  Talk  • 22:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I just found it too, at Perseus. So the original quote was in the feminine (incaut a rather than incaut us ) anyway! But now I really can't explain why non was changed to ne on the family crest. Maybe make a note at Non incautus futuri saying that some crests have ne rather than non. But don't worry about the translation; it's the same whichever word is used. —Angr (talk) 22:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Excellent, thanks! :) I will make that note and move it to the correct page per MOS.  Thanks for your help. :) -  Neutralhomer  •  Talk  • 22:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I assume the ne insinuates something jussive as in the variant ne plus ultra. Wareh (talk) 04:05, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers
Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as citation, cite journal, cite web...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place id (or worse http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use 0123.4567, likewise for id and http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 &rarr; 0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):



Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:01, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Translation question
Is there a reliable source I could use to translate a Latin quote from a source? It's in Hanged, drawn and quartered, and concerns the execution of a would-be assassin, in rather gruesome detail. The quote is "Rex eum, quasi regiae majestatis (occisorem), membratim laniatum equis apud Coventre, exemplum terribile et spectaculum comentabile praebere (iussit) omnibus audentibus talia machinari. Primo enim distractus, postea decollatus et corpus in tres partes divisum est." Parrot of Doom 21:59, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, you will find the passage translated in this book, p. 139. Wareh (talk) 23:31, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for this, I have now added part of the quote to the article. Parrot of Doom 19:38, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I was going to translate it for you right here, but after I figured out what it said, I decided against it.JoshE3 (talk) 00:05, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Temple of Jupiter
Catiline Orations refers to the Temple of Jupiter and I thought to change the link to the specific temple. At first I thought it might be the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus since the article mentions that it was on the Capitoline, but I saw there that the second TIOM was burned on 69 BC and the third was not built until 75 AD, so it must be one of the Temples of Jupiter Stator -- pity they weren't in the disambiguation page Temple of Jupiter. It looks like the right one is the Temple of Jupiter Stator (8th century BC): at least that article claims to be the one. But according to that article it lasted from the 8th century until 64 AD, while the Temple of Jupiter Stator (2nd century BC) was built in 146 BC. If these are right, it means that there were two temples of Jupiter Stator within just a few miles (from the Capitoline near the Circus to the Forum)... is that right?

So lacking confidence in my decision I haven't changed the article. If anyone has better knowledge or sourcing, let me know!

CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:04, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You might also want to post to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome on cultural topics that aren't specifically about the Latin language. I was researching Jupiter Stator a few months ago, got stuck on the precise question that you bring up here about the temple, and abandoned the topic. In case you'd find anything useful, I've posted my draft to a user page (User:Cynwolfe/Jupiter Stator notes), with some links at the bottom to things I haven't incorporated yet. I don't foresee pursuing this anytime soon, so feel free to extract info. There are two temples. My impression was that the templum of Romulus was a typical Augustan myth, one of Augustus's deliberately archaizing efforts to legitimate his, ahem, innovations. The gap of time between Romulus and the actual founding of the temple was explained by saying Romulus didn't actually build a temple, but plotted the templum, the sacred space. It seems unlikely that an 8th century temple building survived; it most likely would've been made of wood. Marcus Atilius Regulus (consul 294 BC) seems to have been the actual founder of this Temple of Jupiter Stator, in the Third Samnite War. The Circus Flaminius was the location of the one built around 146. See Richardson's New Topographical Dictionary here, if the link works for you. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:50, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I posted here because there was a WikiProject Latin banner on the Talk page for that article (and no other banners).
 * My feeling was that the 8th century 'temple' was more of a sacred space and less of a temple in the modern sense. I could believe that at one point it had been a wooden temple, though.
 * I'll look into your notes, thanks.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:21, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Latina WikiMedia page
I just translated the Board elections 2009 on Wikimedia. Io! Laudamus Latinam linguam! :D Hurray for Latin!!! JoshE3 (talk) 22:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Question about the word "HAVE" in Latin
Hi, I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this, but I'm hoping you guys will know a lot about Latin and Ancient Rome. So anyway, I took this photo of a mosaic "Welcome mat" (for lack of a better word) outside a house (large villa) in Pompeii, back in 2009, when I was there. I want to know what exactly it means; now I know that the word "AVE" means Hail or Welcome, but what does it mean with a H in from of it? Is this just a spelling variation of AVE? Or something else? I've tried putting the word "HAVE" into online translators, but they just come up blank and I also couldn't find any reference to the word anywhere else (probably because Google thinks I'm just searching for the English word have).

Anyway, I was just reading the article on Ave and thought that my photo of the Pompeii mosaic might be a good picture for the article (and perhaps for the Pompeii article to), but since the spelling is different I wasn't sure how to proceed. So can anyone tell me if this means what I think it means and whether it's right for those articles? Thanks. --Hibernian (talk) 01:40, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's very likely to be a variant spelling of Ave. H was silent in Vulgar Latin, so semiliterate people weren't always sure where to spell it and where not to. —Angr (talk) 13:28, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks a lot, question answered. --Hibernian (talk) 17:11, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorting Latin names
Does anybody know how to sort Latin names? I don't know if a name is patronymic or has a "regular" surname, given pattern. I'm trying to clear out Category:Biography articles without listas parameter and I don't know how to do the Latin ones. Bgwhite (talk) 23:43, 14 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The surname-equivalent is the gentilicium, and reference works that systematically sort Roman names use it. However, several Romans are primarily known in English under a different name (e.g. several emperors, or Cicero). (You can get a sense of the tension between systematicity and conventional English usage from this review, which opines that in the Oxford Classical Dictionary "It is very advantageous that the proper names are now listed by nomen in the OCD, e.g., Cicero is found s.v. Tullius (cross-references are inserted)."
 * Hmmm, I'm not sure I'm being very helpful yet. The bottom line is that for "listas" purposes you generally want the nomen unless the article is clearly titled as Augustus, Cicero, Tacitus, etc. The nomen is pretty easy to identify in multiple-name titles like Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (consul 158 BC) because the first word is a praenomen, followed by the nomen. If the article name doesn't start with a praenomen (one of the ones in the list of Praenomen accompanied by an abbreviation), some caution is in order. Wareh (talk) 00:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Nearly at 600 articles
Hi everyone, I haven't been on to check at this regularly for sometime, but I'm pleased to see that since January 2010, the number of tagged pages has almost increased threefold. Well done everyone! It really shows what Wikipedian collaboration can do and I can see just how many people have been helping each other out. 95jb14 Talk, Founder of WikiProject Latin. 21:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

De radicibus tertii declinationis
In Greek and Latin the majority of 3rd declension nouns have a beautiful behaviour that the nominative case does not have a stock ending (e.g. "-is" in the exceptions) that is simply replaced with the suffix of the required case, but the root changes too. Unfortunately, when it has to be briefly touched upon for non-Latin/Greek speakers, such as the case of many etymologies in biology, it is a bit of pickle. Is there a special term to describe this behaviour? What is the best article to link too? (Latin declension does not cover it, while Greek goes through all the combinations) Example: in the article Pseudomonas it must be explained to biologists why are members of the genus "Pseudomonas" referred to as pseudomonads (rephrases welcome!). (On a completely separate note, I'd like to mention the article Toyota prius where there is a section dedicated to the plural...) --Squidonius (talk) 08:08, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The fourth paragraph of third declension addresses this. What you're really noticing is not that "the root changes too," but that if a stem ends in a consonant and the ending begins with a consonant, internal sandhi governs what happens at the collision of consonants. The nominative singular seems anomalous in part because most of the other endings begin with vowels. The phonotactics of a language dictate that something has to take place to take the place of an impermissible consonant cluster (compare phonological history of English consonant clusters). In other cases, it's not a case of consonant+consonant. For example, consider the 3rd decl. Greek nom. sg. thauma, gen. sg. thaumatos. The nominative singular would be *thaumat (stem thaumat- plus zero ending of neuter nom. sg.), but in Greek phonotactics words simply don't end in t; a final t is dropped. (I'm not a linguist, so I've probably said something sloppily here.) Wareh (talk) 17:23, 30 July 2011 (UTC)