Re: Carthage?
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, December 1, 2004, 18:42 |
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On Tuesday, November 30, 2004, at 09:26 , Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Steg Belsky wrote:
[snip]
>> I don't know how the Romans pronounced it, but it seems to have
>> originally been a cluster, something like */k>art X\adaSt/ "new city",
>> cognate to Hebrew /k>eret X\adaSa/.
>
> It doesn't matter how the Romans pronounced it, since they
> adopted the Greek adaptation.
Hardly!!
Greek: Karkhe:do:n (genitive: Karkhe:donos); Doric: Karkha:do:n
Latin: Kartha:go: (genitive: Kartha:ginis) - alternative spellings: Karta:
go:, Cartha:go:
> Fot the ancient Greeks it must have been entirely natural to render
> Phoenician
> [tX\] as their /t_h/.
Evidently it was not. They rendered it /k_h/ - I suspect as a result of
earlier assimilation, something like [tX\] --> [kX\] --> [k_h]
I said in an earlier mail that the Latin was possibly a conflation of the
Punic, Greek & confusion. I think I was doing an injustice to the Romans.
Many of their proper names came via Etruscan. I think it would be
instructive to know the Etruscan form of the name. All I have been able so
far to track down is Etruscan _Karthasie_ "Carthiginian" and the Latin is
certainly much closer to that than it is to any Greek form. I wonder where
the _g_ came from in the Latin form?
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> On Tuesday, November 30, 2004, at 10:27 , Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
[snip]
> I didn't remember it 100% accurate, it's actually:
> Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam!
Yes - that is a better position for 'esse' and of course throws the
emphasis onto _delendam_ which is exactly what Cato wanted.
Thanks for checking it out.
> Cato the Elder used it after each of his speeches right before the third
> punic war.
He certainly did - and the old man got his way in the 3rd Punic war.
[snip]
> (besides, by the way) (I mean, I am of the opinion that) (Carthage) (is to
> be destroyed)
As it was said in speeches in the Senate _censeo_ is far more likely IMO
to have had the technical meaning: "I propose (that)", "I move (that)".
Of the other words, see below:
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On Wednesday, December 1, 2004, at 12:24 , Rene Uittenbogaard wrote:
[snip]
> I always understood that "ceterum" means "furthermore" - like "et
> cetera" means "and so on".
Yep - the same word. _cetera_ is the neuter plural: et cetera "and the
other things", "and the remaining things"
_ceterum_ is the accusative neuter singular used adverbially. As Cato said
this at the end of each speech, it must relate to what had gone before.
"Besides all these other matter.....". 'Furthermore' would seem to me a
reasonable English translation.
> I like the translation "is to be destroyed". Other languages seem to
> have the same type of construct ("to be" meaning "must") - e.g.
But "to be" never means "must" in Latin.....
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On Wednesday, December 1, 2004, at 12:45 , Mark J. Reed wrote:
[snip]
> But that's not the case here. The "to be" just means "to be"; the sense
> of
> "must" comes from the adjective "delenda" which means "needing to be
> destroyed".
Absolutely!
> I believe the -enda suffix for verbs, turning
> "to X" into "needing to be Xed", was generally productive in Latin,
> but that could be Esperanto interference confusing me.
No, no - Esperanto is not to blame! It was productive at all periods of
Latin. It's a form called the gerundive.
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> On Wednesday, December 1, 2004, at 06:16 , Ph. D. wrote:
[snip]
> I believe this is what's called the "passive periphrastic."
> It's the future passive participle + a form of "esse."
It is by some - but IMNSHO this is misleading and as far as early and
Classical Latin is concerned it is downright wrong. There is no way that
"Carthago est delenda" has the same meaning as "Carthago delebitur"
(Carthage will be destroyed). Unfortunately, in late Latin the gerundive
was sometimes found with just a plain future passive meaning.
In fact a periphastic form for both the future passive and the future
active was needed for the accusative & infinitive construction. For the
active you could use _ire_ (to go) with the supine of the verb (a bit like
English "I am going to...), or the _esse_ to be with the future participle,
cf.
eam delebit = "He-will-destroy it [the city]"
eam deletum it = "He-is-going to-destroy it"
eam deleturus est = "He-is going-to-destroy it"
In indirect speech (accusative & infinitive - _se_ is the acc.
corresponding to English '(that) he'):
dixit se eam deletum ire = "He-said (that) he was-going to-destroy it"
dixit se eam deleturum esse = "He-said (that) he was going-to-destroy it"
The forms with _ire_ + supine, tho common enough in Plautus, were regarded
as somewhat colloquial and 'common' in the Classical period and the _esse_
+ future participle became the norm and has remained to the present day
the one taught in text books.
For the *passive* however, while _ire_ (used impersonally) with supine is
used, the gerundive + _esse_ is *never* used to supply the "missing"
future passive participle in the accusative & infinitive construction
until a very late period (thus providing an extra element of ambiguity!).
Instead, the usual method was to use _futurum esse_ (to-be going-to-be) or
more commonly just _fore_ (future active infinitive of "to be" - the only
verb in Latin with a simple future active infinitive) followed by _ut_
plus subjunctive, cf.
delebitur = "It-will-be-destroyed"
eam deletum itur ="One-is-go to-destroy it" *
futurum est ut deleatur = "It-is going-to-be that it-be-destroyed"
* "one is going" is a poor way of translating 'itur'. We have no exact
English equivalent. It is more like French "on va" or German "man geht".
In 'indirect speech':
sperat eam deletum iri = "He hopes (that) one-is-go to-destroy it."
sperat futurum esse ut deleatur = "He hopes (that) it-is going-to-be that
it-be-destroyed"
sperat fore ut deleatur = "He hopes (that) it-is-going-to-be that
it-be-destroyed"
All three versions would of course normally be translated as: "He hopes it
will be destroyed".
Altho the _deletum iri_ construction was the least favored in the
Classical period, it remains the one still taught in text books. The _fore
ut_ construction was in practice the most favored one.
In Classical Latin "dicit eam delendam esse" meant only "he says it must
be destroyed". It is only in late Latin that it might also ambiguously
mean just "he says it will be destroyed".
> This is used in Latin to indicate obligation or necessity (with
> an agent in the dative if needed). So:
>
> Hoc est faciendum mihi (This is to be done by me.)
> = I must do this.
Yes, but this not strictly the agent which is always expressed by _a/ab_
with the ablative case. It is an extension of the use of dative + "to be"
to denote 'have', thus.
hoc est mihi - c'est à moi - I have it/ I've got it.
hoc est mihi faciendum - I have this to-be-done = I've got to do this/ I
must do this.
Ray
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http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
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