Re: Have Yourself a Merry Saturnalia....

> > if it were latin then I think the translation would be Habeamus
> > hilarem christmas which literally translates to You may have a merry
> > christmas
>
> No it doesn't. The literal translation would be:
> May _WE_ have a merry christmas
>
> Actually -- Perseus doesn't even have anything on 'saturnalia' either...
I'll ask around at my institution and mail the list as soon as I've come up
with something...

Inquiries at the institution together with a brief look in 'Oxford Latin
Dictionary' yielded that the cry 'Io Saturnalia' (Hooray, It's Saturnalia!!)
occurs in Petronius' 'Satyricon', and in a poem by Martialis. Further more
someone (quite possibly Caesar) mentions 'secunda Saturnalia' -- fortunate
Saturnalia; which together with knowledge of the latin tendency to speak in
superlatives would yield 'Secundissima Saturnalia!'

// Mikael Johansson