LEGE MĒ
★ This page contains information about the blog.★
/// ★ FAQ, NEO-LATIN, LINKS ★ ///
- Scroll down to read the ones you are interested in -
--- FAQ ---
Salvēte!
It's been a while since I started this blog, so I've decided to update the old READ ME, with the hope that this post helps to clarify any possible questions about the Iter ad Aeaeam project.
★ WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?
This blog will include mostly Japanese content written in Latin. According to what I feel like doing, you may find here things like reviews, articles or translations into Latin. I'm also committed to translating Death Note into Latin. You can learn more about that in the Death Note page of this blog. I've also created a little YouTube Channel for when I feel like uploading something, but I don't intent to give the channel much use.
★ WHO ARE YOU?
I am no Latin teacher nor have I studied Classics or anything similar. For me the Latin language is just a hobby. This means that I, by no means, am perfect. I will make mistakes, and have many things to learn, but I will try with all my might for the content to be correct. Please don't use anything I write as studying material, but as an opportunity to enjoy Latin in a different way. Real learning should come from somewhere else, what I write is just a plus.
★ WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
Of course, the main reason is that I like doing it. The second reason however is that apparently no many people are trying to do something similar, and that's a shame.
Latin lacks many things, like speakers, an institution to control the new vocabulary entering the language or political support in many regions. But none of these is as harmful as the fact that not much modern content is being made in Latin. Roman military achievements, philosophy, politics and discussions about "the virtue" are all well and good, but making A1/A2 students read about those topics is basically killing their motivation for many of them. Of course, reading those texts is necessary and once you are a bit more confortable with the language even enjoyable, but my experience learning languages has taught me that in order to achieve language acquisition the most crucial aspect is finding appealing content. No book is more difficult than one you find boring. And if that boring book is the only thing you have, chances are that you will drop the language eventually.
★ WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
Teachers often underestimate the influence that motivation has in students. It is a known fact that the way Latin is taught nowadays in many universities is a failure, and that the percentage of people who achieve fluency that way is almost 0%. What is the problem with grammar-translation?
If you have ever learned a modern living language the answer is obvious. Language is learned through exposure to the language. There are 4 well known aspects of language learning: READING, LISTENING, SPEAKING and WRITING. Now, let's see what grammar-translation does not do:
- It does not teach you to read, because all people do is look up all the words in a dictionary, reorder them to whatever order is natural in their language and vomit a hyper-specific equivalence they have memorized between English grammar and Latin grammar. They can not read.
- It does not teach how to listen, in fact, in some cases the teacher can't even speak Latin in the first place. Latin is because of that not recognized as a real language by the teaching method.
- It does not teach how to speak, never.
- It does not teach how to write. It's obvious that if a student can't speak the language they also can't write in it, however badly.
In terms of teaching about Latin grammar-translation methods are excellent, since you become an excellent linguist of the Latin language. However, as we have seen, when it comes to teaching Latin they are an utter failure. What students need to learn a language is a lot of exposure. You don't even need all the 4 points; one can learn a language by only having exposure in one of them (you will suck in the other 3 though). That's why having appealing materials is incredibly important, it gives learners more opportunities to read in Latin for the sake of reading.
★ I DON'T LIKE THAT SOMEONE SO INEXPERIENCED IS USING LATIN. PEOPLE MAY THINK YOU KNOW MORE THAN YOU ACTUALLY DO.
I kinda understand this line of thought, but I don't agree with it. People need to discern between what are learning materials and what are not. Is it a textbook? Then it is ok to learn from it. Is it a classical text? Then it is also ok. Is it a dubious translation I found on the internet, made by someone clearly stating that it probably has mistakes in it? Then it is not ok to use it like it was a textbook, unless you can confirm that it is good enough.
HOWEVER, there is a solution to this. How about helping? If you know how it should be said in Latin, why criticize the autor instead of sharing your knowledge with them? Because nobody is going to take their knowledge to the grave. Don't worry, I won't make the same mistakes again and again without ever improving, nor will the people who read what I wrote. Moreover, it's not like my Latin is terrible, either.
★ IT HAPPENS THAT I'VE FOUND SOME REALLY BAD LATIN IN SOMETHING YOU WROTE.
★ I THINK I GET IT, BUT WHY THAT NAME THOUGH?
Circe is cool. Yes, the poster girl of my blog is Circe. If I ever write a book you bet that she is going to appear in it. As for the name, it can't be Iter ad Ithacam because I'm not trying to get back home, I'm already there.
★ HOW CAN I CALL YOU THEN?
Iter is fine, I suppose.
★ HOW OLD ARE YOU?
Nobody cares.
★ ARE YOU A BOY OR A GIRL?
Nobody cares.
★ WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
I really hope that nobody cares.
★ WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND TO LEARN LATIN?
LLPSI.
★ LLPSI?
Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, and a lot of practice. That's what I did.
★ IS THERE A SCHEDULE?
Of course not. Also, I don't write much. The only things I'll try to publish more frequently are the Death Note translations, since I want to finish it before I die.
Well, I think this is enough for a presentation, so let's finish it here. Valēte!
--- NEO LATIN---
Because I intend to write about and translate Japanese content into Latin, there are some terms which are non existent, and some conventions we will need to follow in order to make this little project of mine clear and logical, and not just bad Latin. To be clear, every new word ever written in Latin will be OK for me, from the classical authors to Newton, Gauß and friends. I will not explain that here, go to Wikipedia if it's the first notice you have of Neo-Latin and Contemporary-Latin. I'm just going to specify how I will use Latin in regards to localizing Japanese content. Like I always say, I'm no expert, and because of that nothing I say is carved in stone. They are just my own decisions. Feel free to disagree, but please respect them. Like sense of humor, courtesy is something that if one does not have it, they should act as if the had. With that said, let's get started.
JAPANESE ROMANIZATION CONVENTIONS
Before stating anything else, we need to decide how to spell in Latin Japanese words. There are out there romanization conventions for Japanese, like Hepburn. They specify which sounds are represented by which letters of the roman alphabet, and use them consistently (which does not mean they use them correctly, but whatever).
This conventions use certain letters in ways that differ with their pronunciation in both classical and ecclesiastical latin, like the sound of the letter y (it is the consonantic -j sound in Latin, which I never use because I can't distinguish it from the -i vowel sound, and it's not the sound -y it has in Latin), the letters j, w and z, and combinations like ch, sh, kya, kyo and many others.
To make this short, I will not change the letters used to spell the words. It is not that strange of a decision, since living languages do that all the time. Foreign spellings and pronunciations that differ to the native ones are constantly used in living languages. The clearest example of this is that foreign names, like for instance Will Smith, are never written like they sound. Indeed, Will Smith in Spanish is not spelled like "Güil Esmiz". That's my reasoning. So I'm going to preserve the official spelling.
Example: Yagami (Iagami), Watari (Vatari)
DECLENSION OF PROPER NAMES
Now let's look at Japanese names. There have been over the centuries many criteria to latinize names. I will now explain more or less what they have been, and select one to use extensively for each and every Japanese name.
- The first criteria, and the most logical of them all, is the following: If a name is directly derived of a proper roman name, then the original form will be used. Example: Luke → Lūcius. Of course, this is not aplicable to Japanese.
- If the name has meaning, and a direct translation makes sense, then so be it. Example: Bauer → Agricola. I'm not a fan of this; in fact I actually dislike it, though I respect the people who choose to do it. The reason is that, in my opinion, names are a phonetic way to designate a person. The person's name is that sound, and not the translation of it's meaning. That's why, using a prior example some lines ago, Will Smith is not "Guillermo Herrero" in Spanish.
- If necessary, choose a declension and latinize the name, preferably first or second declension if possible, because of tradition. This is better than the last one, for it preserves the original sound of the name, while allowing the name to be declined. The 1st and 2nd are prefered, because many roman names had it, and so did many people during the following centuries. However all the declensions are allowed (well, maybe the 5th is too rare to consider using it). Even 4th has attested usage when latinizing names: Example: Jēsūs.
- If the name is too strange for Latin, and no declension seems to fit, then it will be treated as an indeclinable foreign noun, which is an attested solution used in classical times, or in texts full of non-roman names like the Vulgate.
So, now I will consider what possible names we'll find in Japanese. One could think there are many possibilities, but in reality there are only 6 types of proper nouns we will ever find. Japanese is known for using syllabaries and not alphabets. The only consonant sound that has it's own symbol is ん (N), so it is the only possible letter in which nouns can end that it's not a vowel. That makes things really easy. Making them indeclinable is not necessary. This convention is personal, and you may do whatever you like. I prefer not altering the names too much, but still be able to decline them in the corresponding case when needed.
- あ (A): 1st declension nouns. Obvious choice. May or may not be femenine. Example: Akiha, -ae.
- え (E): 3rd declension nouns. Some people may have used the 2nd declension, but I prefer the third, because the name in nominative remains closer to the original. The vowels E and I can interchange with each other easily in the 3rd without hurting my eyes when looking at the declined name. I'll let the -e in the nominative stay as the original. Example: Tomitake, -is.
- い (I): 3rd declension nouns. Like with the -e ending nouns, I want to preserve the original sounds, and the second declension completely and utterly massacres the -i sound of this category, and replaces it with an -o sound. Satoshus? May the gods forbid this heresy. So to the third they go. In the 3rd declension one could argue that the nominative singular is not really fixed, and I can and will choose it to remain like in the original, but adding an -s is an acceptable option for me too. Example: Satoshi,-is.
- お (O): 3rd declension nouns. Because of words ending in -o in Latin, like condītiō. Adding an -n to the stem of the word is a small price to pay for mantaining the vocative as it is. Example: Satoko,-nis.
- う (U): 4th declension nouns. Not much to explain here, nouns ending in U will be declined like exercitus, even though I'd like to remove the -s in the nominative singular. Example: Subarus,-ūs.
- ん (N): 3rd declension nouns. Nothing to explain, obvious choice. I imagine it is clear already that I like the third declension for foreign nouns. Example: Mion,-is.
Some names used in Japan or Japanese content are not Japanese and don't follow these patterns. In that cases I will either conjugate them if possible (Example: Īris,-dis), use a preexisting latinization if it exists (Example: Qin - first chinese emperor → Singus). But I'll mostly threat them as indeclinable. All said above is applicable to last names too.
A last rule I'm going to follow is that, if the name has only one syllable, they will be used as an indeclinable noun. That's because declining it would add as many extra letters as the real name has, clearly distorting it's appearance to the point of making it unrecognizable. Example: Rin,-.
Note that in this last example, if we were to make of it a 3rd declension noun, it woud look really distorted: Rinis, Rinī, Rinem, Rine. One could argue that, because it is a female name, we could throw it into the 1st declension: Rina,-ae. But please notice that then it would be the same as the already existing name Rina, and it would again change the feel of the name, if that makes sense. Since it has only one syllable, as we can see, the probability butchering the word just by adding a single letter is very high.
JAPANESE MEDIA TERMINOLOGY
When words are used a lot, bad conventions hurt, and a lot at that. Let's put an example. It you are in the need of using one time the word "phone" in some context, saying "instrumentum telephonicum" would be all right. But if you are daily saying "phone, phone, phone" many times, calling it "telephonical instrument" each and every time is just stupid. A new word is needed. Let's write in here some neologism chosen by me (that is, with no validity at all, but acceptables like any other). I will threat this words like any living language would do:
- animātiō, -nis (f.): animation. Refered to the technical aspect of an anime (or cartoons in general). The execution of the act of making the drawings alive, aka animated.
- anime,-is (m.): anime. It derives from the word animation, but it's not animation. Neither would it be in Latin if I had the right to choose. Pellīcula is too generic, and a neologism anyway.
- novella,-ae visuālis (f.): visual novel. Even if it is a book, I won't use liber, because I value more comunicating the idea rather than being proper. Like any living language, it will be a novella.
- novella,-ae levis,- (f.): light novel. Like in the last word, I want precision.
- OST (f.): original soundtrack. I will use the English acronym like any normal person would do. Same with other acronyms.
- manga,-ae (f.): manga.
- mangaka,-ae (f.): mangaka
- -dere, -is (f. / m.?): all the -dere personality traits. You know what I'm talking about: tsundere, kuudere, yandere, dandere, etc. If you don't please ignore this. All of them go to the 3rd declension abysm to never get out of it.
- -chan, san, sama, dono, kun, etc.: all the Japanese honorifics. Unlike how professional manga and anime translators think, and in accordance to how literally everyone else thinks, honorifics are of extreme importance to Japanese content. Not only are they used to express how friendly or cordial is someone being with the other characters, but also as a personality trait (some characters may favor one honorific over another), and which one and when and to whom they use them has meaning to their characterization and even to the plot itself. Also, in fan translations they are used depending on which series it is, like a kind of feel to the series. So I will use them if I feel they are needed. The name they are attached to will still be declined though.
- katakana,-ae (m.), hiragana,-ae (m.), kana,-ae (m.): the Japanese syllabaries, katakana et hiragana, and the symbols they include, the kana.
- kanses, -um (n.): kanji, that is, the chinese logograms.
More terms may be also written in here in the future, but this are the most common ones that will appear. One has to control the latinization of words, after all. We want to speak Latin, not iapponese.
--- LINKS---
- Wikipedia in Latin (surprisingly not empty at all):
- Luke Ranieri's Website:
- Links to LATIN-ONLY free versions of ancient authors; the Ovid ones by Delphin Classics, for instance, have a latin prose version of the original verses, as well as explanations in latin about the text.
and websites to find old books:
Drive LLPSI books, Wheelock & other text books
Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum
- English - Latin (& Greek) online Dictionary:
- PHI Classical Latin Texts: (to find coincidences in texts by classical authors)
- News in Latin by the Vatican (cause why not):
- ... and by Bremen Zwei:
- Rainieri - Downling Method:
- To search for the complete declination of a Latin word:
- Gaffiot (Latin → French):
- Diccionario de neologismos (Español → Latín) :
- Latin is Simple - Another Latin Online Dictionary (very bad results sometimes):
- Neo-Latin Dictionary (could be more complete):
- More Dictionaries in both directions:
Latinium (probably the best)
- Interjections
- Insults and offensive language:
- Latin Macronizer:
- Latin Frase Book:
- Idioms:
- Some new books in Latin or Textbooks (mostly novellas, if you know what I mean):
- Duncan Ritchie's Latin Rhymes Tool.
- Latinitium, apart from trying to sell you their own studying courses and apps, provides free explanations, materials and guidance that are really useful.
- Scorpio Martianus LLPSI Youtube Playlist:
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and if you are a masochist and like free diving (metaphorically speaking), please go to the (too brutal for me, but very useful nonetheless):