Talk:Classical Latin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Languages, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, and easy-to-use resource about languages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
language Portal
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. To participate, improve this article or visit the project page for more information.

Contents

[edit] Golden Age, Silver Age

What do "Golden Age" and "Silver Age" mean here? "Silver Age" in the article links to a page on comic books! Please check your links, people.

While the terms Golden Age and Silver Age persists (mostly in older publications and high schools), the accepted terms in the field are now Augustan and Post-Augustan. I propose that this page be reworked to reflect this fact. If there are no serious objections, I will do this after March 7, 2007. --Nefasdicere 19:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Botanical Latin

Anybody care to tackle the subject of "Botanical Latin", either here or in an article of its own? MrDarwin 15:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

We have an article about binomial nomenclature that generally discusses the "Latin names" or "scientific names" of living organisms; there isn't a great deal of info about Latin names or coinages there, and there isn't much there about grammar or syntax; however, there is some discussion of the coinage rules as they apply in English at classical compound. More recent usages of Latin generally are discussed at New Latin. Not sure what further information you seek. Smerdis of Tlön 15:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted merge request

Someone's been leaving merge links around and not arguing for the mergers. That's a bit annoying, people. UnDeadGoat 20:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old or Classical?

Poor old Terence seems to have fallen into a gap between the articles on Old Latin and Classical Latin. So which is he? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 09:46, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interword separation

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (February 2007)

Was there interword separation in this era? -- Beland 18:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

I suggest merging Golden Age of Latin literature and Silver Age of Latin literature with this article, since: 1) They are both rather short 2) They are already largely duplicated in this article anyway. RandomCritic 13:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Merged. RandomCritic 16:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename?

This article is about literature, not the language. I think it should be renamed "Classical Latin literature". "Classical Latin" should be a redirect to Latin language. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FilipeS (talk • contribs) 20:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Hold on there

Wait a minute now people. Golden Latin and Silver Latin are quite venerable. They appeared in Wheelock when I had first-year Latin (that was many years ago) and still appear. They need to be in here somewhere. They are in fact linguistic terms, referencing periods of Latin. Someone needs to dig out the origin of those terms. As to what or how many articles should appear, that is for us to work out. The Golden Age and Silver Age looks right to me. For those who are wondering about Plautus and Terence (any Latinists would not be wondering) they are early Latin. There are also early inscriptions, called archaic Latin. At the other end silver Latin goes into Late Latin and you non-Latinists ought at least to know that as it appears in all the dictionaries. There are also traces of a hypothetical called vernacular Latin, as the ordinary people did not speak classical Latin. Then later you get into mediaeval Latin and scholastic Latin. So you see, you can't just blow the subject off and still claim to be encyclopedic in this area.Dave 11:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion

Classical latin was never a spoken language. It was a literary language. I don't know where the idea came from that everybody would have talked a perfect language, as in the books. It's like saying that that every people on earth speak the language that is written in a grammar or in a book. Completely ludicrous. The every day language and "real" language was "vulgar" latin for common language. Even Virgil and Cicero spoke vulgar latin because it means "spoken language". Like American & British speak vulgar english. Just because people see "vulgar" they think it was spoken by uneducated persons. We should all know that "vulgaris, usualis, rusticus, plebeius" in latin meant "spoken by the people" whether high class people or the farmerVincentG 00:31, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

That's news to me. Where did you hear it? FilipeS 14:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Read serious books well sources and they will say the same thing.132.203.109.70 15:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Serious books such as...? FilipeS 17:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

In fact, I didn't read well, but this article says that indeed Classical Latin was a literary language and not a written one. But I will try another source.VincentG 21:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Extant Novels

The article currently lists the Satyricon as one of two extant latin novels, but I'm fairly certain that only a small part of it has survived. I think a note should be added about this. Hokiejp (talk) 18:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)