Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis

[kev67]

I started reading this. I am disappointed in that I thought my Latin was improving, but in two pages I noted forty-five words I did not understand. I wonder what is the best way of tackling it. I think I might get the book in English, read a chapter in English, then read the chapter in Latin.

 

[Terry S.]

I've heard that it's not easy at all to read. Certainly, there's easier stuff out there for a progressing reader.

 

[Avunculus H]

I think I might get the book in English, read a chapter in English, then read the chapter in Latin.

That sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[cinefactus]

I started reading this. I am disappointed in that I thought my Latin was improving, but in two pages I noted forty-five words I did not understand. I wonder what is the best way of tackling it. I think I might get the book in English, read a chapter in English, then read the chapter in Latin.

Once you learn the words he is using, it is not difficult. If you persist you will start ripping through it—having a copy of the English is good for when you are really struggling.

 

[Godmy]

It's good to have the book even when you are a relative beginner/novice, keep it as a motivation. I bought it very early on as well and was ready upon receiving it that I wouldn't understand anything (which was 90% correct). But it was one of those things I kept returning to and that's always a great thing to do in Latin: have some work (modern or ancient... some author or some concrete piece of work) that gives you troubles but once in a while (let's say in a span of few months) you keep returning to it and see how you do this time whether it's any better or not. And there is no bigger satisfaction than when you find one day that you achieved a relative fluency in reading the text! And HP is certainly one of those!

 

[kev67]

Having bought an English copy, I can see why I was struggling with the Latin. The vocabulary in the first two or three pages includes the Latin for cloaks, tawny owls, tabby cats, Privet Drive, cars, steering wheels, drills, moustaches, sandwich stall, doughnuts, living room and tea. At least the sentence structure is not very difficult.

 

[kev67]

I suspect Peter Needham, who translated Harry Potter into Latin, relied on terms made up by the Vatican for things that exist now, but not back in Roman times. For example,

Birotula automataria - motorbike
Machina lavatories - washing machine
Cinematographeum - cinema

 

[kizolk]

I suspect Peter Needham, who translated Harry Potter into Latin, relied on terms made up by the Vatican for things that exist now, but not back in Roman times. For example,

Birotula automataria - motorbike
Machina lavatories - washing machine
Cinematographeum - cinema

Not necessarily by the Vatican. There's a community of Latin speakers, I assume mostly active online, that regularly coins new words, and even apart from that, the process of coining new words to follow the evolution of society, never really stopped e.g. in science.

Also, I know that some people at least use birota to mean bike, maybe here's it's meant as a diminutive form.
I didn't know cinematographeum, but on that subject, a word that's popular to mean video is pellicula for instance.

 

[cinefactus]

hamaxostichus took me a while to figure out
manubrium scoparum also seemed pleonastic

 

[Terry S.]

Not necessarily by the Vatican. There's a community of Latin speakers, I assume mostly active online, that regularly coins new words, and even apart from that, the process of coining new words to follow the evolution of society, never really stopped e.g. in science.

Also, I know that some people at least use birota to mean bike, maybe here's it's meant as a diminutive form.
I didn't know cinematographeum, but on that subject, a word that's popular to mean video is pellicula for instance.

Neo-Latin Lexicon

The Morgan-Owens Neo-Latin Lexicon About the Neo-Latin Lexicon The Neo-Latin Lexicon is the home of the largest repository Neo-Latin vocabulary culled from literary sources. The Lexicon supports the work of scholars of Medieval, Renaissance, and Contemporary Latin and provides a unique tool for...

neolatinlexicon.org

 

[kev67]

Some more interesting vocabulary:

• hamaxostichus - train (how?)
• ferrivia - railway
• caupona, -ae, f. - pub
• potio, - onis, f. - draught
• famulus - barman (although dictionary says slave)

The first two might be useful for talking about work. The last three may be useful for arranging pub meetings with my lady friend. What bothers me is that she seems to understand (and reply) almost immediately without ever studying the language. She is Dutch, so good at learning languages.

 

[cinefactus]

hamaxostichus - train (how?)

I believe this is a Greek concoction. The spoken Lain community tend to use tramen.

famulus - barman

caupona and potio are classical

A famulus though is a household slave. caupo might be a safer choice

 

[Pacifica]

caupona and potio are classical

A famulus though is a household slave. caupo might be a safer choice

Pincerna is tempting though not very classical (and also basically Greek).

 

[kev67]

I have reached a chapter called The Sorting Hat. The way I have been working through the book is to read a chapter through in English, then read a couple of pages a day in Latin, the finally re-read the chapter again in Latin. However, towards the end of Sorting Hat there is a couple of words of Latin anyway, 'Caput Draconis'. It is 'Caput Draconis' is the Latin version as well, only in italics.

 

[kev67]

I was reading about the big dinner they all go to when they get to Hogwarts. Potatoes were translated as tubera solani. That struck me as a long word for potatoes, but then I remembered the Romans did not know about them. Sir Francis Drake brought them back from America (at least that is what we were told at school). I think the translator was having a bit of fun with Yorkshire pudding. He translated it as placenta comitatis Eboracensis. The Roman name for York was Eboracum. I suppose comitatum is Latin word most approximating county. Placenta does not sound very nice.

 

[cinefactus]

Placenta just means cake.
There was a vogue in medicine at one time of naming things after food. This name might predate it though, lots of anatomic structures are just given a latin name for what they look like.

 

[kev67]

I am still working my way through it. It is getting easier, but I am still disappointed about the amount of vocabulary I have to look up. I read a couple of pages in Latin, then the same passages in English. One good thing is that there is quite a lot of natural sounding dialogue. I have started noting down those phrases. I wish I had started doing that at the beginning.

Obsecro mihi ignoscas
An licet mihi punctum temporis Silvium mutuari
Da veniam
Redi ad Lectum!
Haud multum afuit quin de re fuisti(?) dierem
Nunc quid agam?
Id tua refert
Hoc ommitamus
Nisi vobis molestum erit
Quid fecisitis!
Rem omittite
Nihil dicam
Quid quaeris?
Melius igitur erit so abibis
Agedum - exi!
nil opus, bene habeas, gratias tibi ago
an vultus loco cedere
rem miram!
Licet nummam tibi habere
Du alicubi incipere debebat
In discrimen venerat
Debuisti me expergiscere
Quovis tempore eos videre potes
Frigore rigeo
Re omissa, redeamus
Scio id hic alucubi adessei
Quomodo potest fieri?
Loqueris sicut Hermoine
Non iocar
Sed puto te iam intellegere quid faciat
An licet mihi te aliquid rogare?
Saeculis multis examina distant
Quamobrem studio repeto
An deliras
Sunt maximi momenti
Nescio quit mihi sit
Hoc numquam memmero
Tantum spectatum veni
Nolite de re clamare, quid est vobis?
Fateor nos pauca re rogare voluisse
Tu quoque es mente alienata
Iam serum est consilium mutare

 

[kev67]

I finished the book. Jolly good actually. I definitely think it would be a good resource for teaching children. It has apparently natural sounding dialogue. I have no idea whether Roman children really spoke like this (obviously not the magic related stuff) but it sounds plausible. I doubt many Latin texts use the second person much. I doubt many Latin texts use short phrases and interjections. It is not a bad story neither. I was about thirty when the Harry Potter books started coming out, so I never read any, but I would have enjoyed it as a child. I can understand quite complex information written in English, of course, but it is very difficult to understand who is doing what to whom, between parties A, B, C and D, in a language foreign to you, especially an inflected language like Latin.

 

[cinefactus]

Latin texts use the second person much. I doubt many Latin texts use short phrases and interjections.

Try Plautus & Terrence. You can also find lots of second person in invective, and in 'speeches' reported by historians.

 

[kev67]

Oh no, Haroldus Bloom did not like it: “Passus sum valde legendo. Scriptura horrenda fuit; liber fuit terribilis….Societas literaturaque nostra exscinduntur.”