Disputatio:Familia Cim

message: Aren't there good Latin attestations for certain Chinese dynasties, leading figures (political, military, philosophical, poetical), and such? Where do we find them? To the extent that they don't exist, will someone with special knowledge of East Asian phonetics make suggestions? IacobusAmor 00:14, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Attestatio?

message: For an adjective derived from the the noun spelled Qing in English, I've used Tsingiana, but that could be way off the mark. What to do? IacobusAmor 00:14, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the rules on :Vicipaedia:De nominibus propriis, we should use the ISO (=Pinyin) translitteration, which is Qing (or, with optional diacritics, Qīng). I also wonder whether gens (or stirps) might be worth considering as alternatives for translating 'dynasty'. Move to Gens Qing or just Qing?--Ceylon 14:27, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :I took domus from Cassell's, which, on translating English dynasty, specifically says: "use phrase with domus (e.g. domus Flavia)." Note that Flavia is an adjective. Is Qing also an adjective? IacobusAmor 15:24, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)

text: As far as I know, there is no real distinction between adjectives, nouns, verbs etc. in Chinese (清 qīng actually means bright, by the way). But in this case, I would keep the translitterated proper name as it is - Chinese words don't really lend themselves to Latin declension or adjective suffixes. I have changed my mind about domus - nothing wrong with it.--Ceylon 18:12, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :Re: "Chinese words don't really lend themselves to Latin declension or adjective suffixes."—Well, but neither does the English word rock, but custom has given it the adjectival form rockicus, -a, -um (vide Musica rockica and  http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=4652). Likewise Darwin, for which we have Darwinianus, -a, -um (vide Piscis Darwinianus). So on the basis of those attested patterns, there's no reason  that Qing can't give us the adjectives Qingicus and Qingianus. Then there's the question of how Latinists should pronounce Q: the usual way (but then why isn't it Quing?), or the Pinyin way (in which Q isn't [k]). Generally, isn't additional phonetic ambiguity & confusion undesirable? IacobusAmor 21:34, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ::Sorry to intrude again but Qingianus, Quingicus etc, although they may follow a pattern (albeit a very frail one), are yet again violating our rules on fictio and having no original research. Domus is declinable, Qing is ISO Pinyin, so I don't see why Domus Qing should be problematic. Harrissimo 22:14, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC).
replies: text: :::Even if Qing were an indeclinable noun, adjectives regularly formed from it needn't be, the adjectival suffixes are attested all over the place, and we have ample attestation of the method of making Latin adjectives out of proper nouns. The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature specifies the following process (I'm summarizing from William T. Stearn, Botanical Latin, 3rd ed. [1983], p. 295): if the name ends in a consonant, make an adjective by adding -ianus, -iana, -ianum; if it ends in a vowel, add -nus, -na, -num. Stearns's examples (generalized to the masculine gender): Robert → robertianus, Gesner → gesnerianus; Hayata → hayatanus. (Stearns adds various curious corollaries, including that the Irish patronymic O may be omitted: Obrien → brienianus.) With regard to the present discussion, this process, attested in probably at least hundreds of thousands of Latin scientific terms, would from the noun Qing give us the lemma Domus Qingiana. So (1) Qing is attested, (2) the suffix -(i)anus is attested, and (3) the process of attaching -(i)anus to any proper noun (e.g., Qing) is attested. IacobusAmor 00:28, 17 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)

text: Evidently this is a conundrum without any single 'right' solution. Latin has always incorporated foreign words by treating them like Latin roots, and coinages adding -ensis or -ianus to last names have always been allowed. But there seems to be a fine line somewhere, which e.g. determines that last names are now usually not declined (even though the alternative Einsteinius, -ii etc. has been common usage until the 19th century). I guess this has something to do with an (unexpressed) change in feeling about authenticity (the same that makes people say Beijing instead of Peking, or include lower case in square brackets in quotes when the original had upper case). In the case of Chinese monosyllables my taste - and mere taste it is - would be that we have crossed that line and we should treat them as indeclinable (much as the Vulgate does with Hebrew words).

text: As for Pinyin, this is the conventional translitteration of Chinese on Vicipaedia. We would have to revoke it (and I think there is a case to be made for not adhering to ISO translitterations also in other languages) if we don't like it anymore. With qing there is no ambiguity though, because Latin contains no words where a q is not followed by a u - so it is clear it has to be pronounced /ts/ as in Pinyin (or, if in Arabic words, as a guttural /k/).

text: Finally, I have to confess that I strongly dislike musica rockica. I do not think that the album title in the article you quoted can be regarded as a valid 'attestation'. Isn't Rockicus really a prime example of dog Latin?--Ceylon 22:25, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :PS. I just read the Disputatio:Musica rockica where Mr Morgan had some very wise words to say on this subject and actually recommended moving the article to Musica Rock - which, although there seems to have been consensus on this, has never actually been carried out.--Ceylon 22:32, 16 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ::That has now happened. I am moving this page, too, to match the two others we now have on Chinese dynasties. I hope no one minds. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:00, 18 Iulii 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Tsingiana?

message: http://books.google.com/books?id=x8YWAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Confucius+sinarum&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nA7hUNvhDcLI0QG40oGgCQ&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rajmaan (disputatio) 04:05, 31 Decembris 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, inserted at Societas Iesu. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:29, 31 Decembris 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historia Tartaro-Sinica nova  By Franciscus de Rougemont (S.J)