Classical Languages - Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
PfifltriggPi
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby PfifltriggPi » Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:30 am

"Scientia per omnia aspera" quoque vadit bene, puto.
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Querneus
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Querneus » Sat Mar 07, 2020 7:10 pm

Some random thing about the origin of the term "case"...

"Case" comes from Latin cāsus 'a falling', so how come that term was chosen to talk about the inflection of nouns, adjectives, participles and pronouns?

As early as Dionysius Thrax's grammar in the 2nd century BC, cases were talked about in terms of a metaphor of the equilibrium of an object.

The nominative (ὁ ὀνομαστική 'the one related to naming', from ὀνομάζω 'to name sth') was first placed at a 90-degree angle, due to being the most prominent case, as it was what came out when saying the name of an object. The metaphor was to place it in the balanced position of equilibrium, the normal way for things to rest, at 90 degrees. Then the other cases were thought of as changes to the equilibrium, so they were considered "fallings" of the resting object. That is, the "fallings" were what happened when the noun at rest was tipped over.

Because the nominative was at that angle, it was also called the "right" case (ὁ ὀρθός 'the straight/correct/right-angled one', or ἡ εὐθεῖα 'the straight line'), and it was opposed to the other cases which were called the "oblique" ones (αἱ πτώσεις πλάγιαι 'the slanting/oblique-angled fallings').

Over time, the term "falling" (πτῶσις) was also applied to the nominative case as well, so they all became "fallings". These terms were then carried over to Latin, where nōminātīvus 'the one related to naming' (from nōmināre 'to name sth') was used to calque ὀνομαστική, rēctus 'straight' to calque ὀρθός and ἡ εὐθεῖα, and cāsūs oblīquī 'slanting fallings' was used to calque πτώσεις πλάγιαι.

This then produces the familiar Indo-European terminology where the nominative is referred to as the direct case (perhaps along with the vocative), while the other cases (genitive, dative, accusative, plus the ablative or locative if they're different) are grouped together as "the oblique cases".

I don't know why the Latin phrase cāsus rēctus is usually translated as "the direct case" in English (as opposed to "the right case"), but I suspect it may be an influence of the phrase "direct object", besides, perhaps, some confusion with the actual meanings of dīrēctus. I also find it interesting that in French scholarship on Old French and Old Occitan, the direct case and oblique case of those two languages are traditionally called cas sujet 'case of the subject' and cas régime 'case of what is ruled', even though French linguistics does use the terms cas direct and cas oblique elsewhere (say, when talking about general Indo-European).
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gsbod
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby gsbod » Sat Mar 07, 2020 10:10 pm

Ser wrote:"Case" comes from Latin cāsus 'a falling', so how come that term was chosen to talk about the inflection of nouns, adjectives, participles and pronouns?


Interesting. Is this why in German, Fall also means 'case'?
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Querneus
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Querneus » Sat Mar 07, 2020 11:04 pm

gsbod wrote:Interesting. Is this why in German, Fall also means 'case'?

Yes, German uses a calque of Latin cāsus here. :)
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vonPeterhof
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby vonPeterhof » Sun Mar 08, 2020 9:13 am

Most Slavic languages also use calques of "casus". A few use "sklon", which can mean "slope" or "incline" and thus referencing the process of declination.
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Querneus
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Querneus » Wed Aug 12, 2020 7:26 pm

It amuses me that thanks to Roman plumbing we know of ancient words for:

- rain gutter(s) (colliciae)
- bathtub (solium (balneī))
- decorative water fountain (salientēs)
- drinking fountain (sīlānus, so-called due to its tap being often decorated with a head of Sīlēnus, a minor god attendant of the god Bacchus, who would spit the drinkable water from his mouth)
- faucet/tap (epitonium)
- restroom/W.C. (lātrīna)
- public restroom/W.C. (forica)
- toilet (lasanum, the fixture with a seat)
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Sep 13, 2020 12:57 am

A Greek Reader, Griechische Lesebuch in German, compiled by the Prussian scholar Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff and its partial translation by E. C. Marchant, A Greek Reader, provide some ancient Greek texts that fall outside the usual mainstream. The source of this is comes from a post in Textkit about a Greek Reader compiled by the Prussian scholar Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff. That post itself gives a general view of the suggested texts, which are given in Wilamowitz's German volumes and in Marchant's two volumes.
Prof Marchant's Greek Reader: Volume 1 and Volume 2
and
Prof. Wilamowitz's Griechishes Lesebuch Volume 1 and Volume 2.
With some diligence you can work with the German volumes, but Marchant's volumes give plenty to read. If German is already one of your languages, all the better.
If you need text rather than images for LWT or other purposes, Greek text from books like these can be extracted with a program called gImageReader. You can find a web page to learn about and download the program at github here gImageReader. Note that the program can be buggy. I have had it crash on me unexpectedly and without an error report a time or two, the interface is not very intuitive, and the output needs a bit of tidying up, but in the main it works.

So far I have read about a dozen selections from the two works, and they have been some of the most interesting Greek reading I have done so far.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

Ezra
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby Ezra » Sun Sep 13, 2020 10:01 am

I knew my German adventure is not in vain! The real goal, it seems, is Ancient Greek :D.
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David1917
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby David1917 » Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:03 pm

It looks like the TYS Old Norse got pushed back to November 2021, at least according to the Amazon pre-order. It doesn't even easily show up when searching anymore. I can't find anything on the TYS website either, though I've never found their site to be very good anyway.
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PfifltriggPi
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Re: Classical Languages - Study Group

Postby PfifltriggPi » Fri Oct 16, 2020 3:09 pm

That is most unfortunate. I agree, however that Teach Yourself's online presence seems to have only gotten worse with time. It is rather confusing and makes figuring out exactly what books they offer quite difficult.
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"Зброя - слово." - Леся Українка


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