Category Archives: Language

Grammar, linguistics, etymology, &c.

A Rare Specimen of Vandalic

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Eric

From Antholo­gia Latina 285: From what I’ve read, this is not Gothic (goticum is just a gen­eral term), but the lan­guage of the Van­dals, who are por­trayed as enjoy­ing eat­ing and drink­ing (matzia ia drin­can) at a con­vivium, but not … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Posted in Culture, Language, Literature | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Michael Choniates as a scholar and poet

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Dennis

I’ve argued before that Michael Cho­ni­ates (arch­bishop of Athens at the time of the 4th Cru­sade) was a true scholar, and I’d like to point out some­thing I’ve just spot­ted in his famous poem lament­ing the state of the city … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Dubiouser and dubiouser (+ a new comic)

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Dennis

In the news: The Boston Marathon gives a pro­fes­sor a chance to repeat an oft-repeated absur­dity: “As my old Latin pro­fes­sor used to say, ‘If it weren’t for Marathon, it’s highly likely we’d all be speak­ing Farsi,“‘ said Matthew Gon­za­les, … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Farewell, K.J. Dover

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Dennis

I’ve read on rogue­clas­si­cism of the death of Ken­neth Dover, and thought it might be worth shar­ing what may be the first assess­ment of his work as a Hel­lenist in print. When Ken­neth Dover was just 19 (in 1939) Oxford pub­lished … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Posted in Language, Reviews, Scholarship | 4 Comments

New Product: Nestor’s Cup coffee mug

Posted on March 6, 2010 by Dennis

Get your drink on from a cup that’s guar­an­teed to please: Nestor’s Drinking-Cup! Our lat­est offer­ing is based on the 8th cen­tury BCE cup that you can read more about at Wikipedia. I remem­ber work­ing out the inscrip­tion as an … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Digital Find of the Day: Housman’s Opuscula

Posted on March 6, 2010 by Dennis

This one is a real treat, but very odd: a work on Google Books listed as Opus­cula by A.E. Hous­man. The truth is that no such work was pub­lished, and what we have is a poorly scanned PDF of a … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Posted in Language, Reviews, Scholarship | Tagged | 2 Comments

Latin teachers: Declension order?

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Dennis

I’m always inter­ested to hear from my col­leagues, and I have a ques­tion for you (though I con­fess I already have an answer of my own). Have you any thoughts on the order of the declen­sions? Oerberg’s Lin­gua Latina presents … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Posted in Language, Pedagogy | 3 Comments

An unnecessary emendation? (Aeneid I. 343)

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Dennis

One of the prin­ci­ples that drove Housman’s approach to tex­tual crit­i­cism was encap­su­lated in a quo­ta­tion he had picked up from Moritz Haupt: “The prime req­ui­site of a good emen­da­tion,” said he, “is that it should start from the thought; … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Posted in Language, Literature, Scholarship | 1 Comment

Latin Poetry Podcast: hexameter lists

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Dennis

If you haven’t lis­tened yet, you’ll want to check out pro­fes­sor Francese’s lat­est Latin Poetry Pod­cast on var­i­ous lists in Latin hexa­m­e­ters, which includes the fol­low­ing by Ennius (which it would be good for stu­dents to mem­o­rize): Iuno Vesta Min­erva … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Laryngeal get ya every time!

Posted on November 22, 2009 by Dennis

This, from Wolf­gang David Cir­ilo de Melo’s review of Michiel Arnoud Cor de Vaan’s Ety­mo­log­i­cal Dic­tio­nary of Latin and the Other Italic Lan­guages, is the best and most insight­ful com­ment I’ve read in the BMCR in quite some time: Pater … Con­tinue read­ing →

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