Post by Amanda WielandPost by Johannes PatruusPost by xaveriusQuomodo nomina e lingua latina in sermonem anglicam vertuntur? estne in
interete situs, qui conversorum indicem nominum habet?
grates vobis habeo.
xaverius.
Some here: http://freereg.rootsweb.com/howto/latinnames.htm
Patruus
It's nice to have a Latin equivalent for a name but it's not absolutely
necessary. In the classical times, it was more common to simply transfer
a name and call it good. (e.g. David would simply stay David but it
would not be declined and it would be sounded out by the native
phonology. DAH'wid - cf. Japanese "Maaku" for "Mark")
I don't think this is really true. It's my impression that foreign names
were in fact as least partially assimilated to Latin, at least as far as
being given case endings. Biblical Hebrew names were in fact an exception
to this, but only partially. I seem the recall an ablative "Davide" from
an otherwise indeclinable "David". And although the names (e.g.) "Iacob"
and "Ioseph" are indeclinable when applied to the Patriarchs, the names
applied to ordinary Jews were latinized as "Iacobus" and "Iosephus".
Also, one couldn't in general "simply transfer" a name from another
language into Latin, as is done with the English names in the Latin version
of the Sherlock Holmes story mentioned in another thread, because essentially
the only language using the Latin alphabet was in fact Latin. So what was
typically done was simply to write what the Latin speaker heard in his own
alphabet, with modifications to make it fit to the normal Latin phonological
and grammatical patterns.
"David" couldn't simply stay "David", because it was never "David" to start
with, but a name written in Hebrew/Aramaic letters pronounced (probably)
something like [dawi:dh]. This was interpreted by the Greek translators
into a form spelled (commonly, among other variations) as "Daueid", which
by normal Latin practice was translitterated as "Dauid" ("David").
- Will