More Isidore

I am not going to do a literal translation but the next 'chapter' states that

"Nature has enriched Spain as a reward with lots of things that grow. Rich fruit trees, full of vigor, happy harvests, innumerable olive trees, great show of life. You have flowering fields, leafy mountains, shores full of fishes. You have been placed on the most blessed region on earth. You do not burn with the flame of the summer heat, nor do you decline with strong blasts of ice, but you are encircled with a sky of moderate airs, western breezes will nourish the happy ones. The fields are so fertile, the land full of precious metals and beauty of living things and good pastures. Nor are the rivers to be neglected, which render famous the bright fame of the handsome flocks."

In short, Spain is the land of milk and honey according to Isidore. I don't know if the trouble is the Latin Library copy of the latin. More likely it is Isidore's latin. I have no footnotes so I am not sure how to take some of the parts that don't make sense which is why I am winging it.

History of the Kingdom of the Goths, Vandals and Suevi

      Isidore of Seville, bishop and saint, wrote a book called Etymologiae in which he tried to sum up all the 'knowledge' of the time, quoting extensively from many Roman authors. He also wrote a history of the Germanic tribes that conquered his part of Europe, Spain (whatever size or shape Spain was at the time). The Visigothic kingdom of Alaric (who conquered Rome in 410 a.d.) was still going strong although it was converting to Catholicism from Arianism. It had also been defeated by Clovis and had its capital looted of its Roman treasures.  Isidore does not seem to be a popular writer. His history has only been translated into English in the mid 1960's and googling some of the latin terms he used yielded nothing. Although he wrote a book called Etymologiae, his latin was not the best and is challenging to decipher but I feel like giving it a shot.

      Since I used up a bit of space taking about Isidore, I will do only the first chapter of the Prologue today. Isidore loved Spain since he starts off with this little bit:

 Of all the lands, which are from the west all the way to India, you are the most beautiful. O  holy, and always happy mother of the best of peoples, Hispania. I swear (though the form jure doesn't support a first person singular interpretation) you are the queen of all provinces, from which not even light of the setting sun or the rising sun can alter. You are the glory and the jewel of the earth, the brighter part of earth: in which many of the people of the Goths rejoice and what's more flourish for the most part  in glorious abundance.

Since Canada was not a country yet, I won't pause now to point out his error.

Beatles Song in Latin

I think the fun for some people is guessing the song so I am going to post the title of this particular song in English in the column at right.
It was time to do an update but I really have not been reading much of anything. I have been trying to get a job but fluent Latin Medievalists are not in demand in today's job market. Can't understand why not.
Here is the song:

diem ex die, solus super colle vir subridens stulte manet immotus,
sed nemo vult eum noscere.
vident quod modo stultus
et numquam respondet.
sed stultus super colle videt solem deorsum iens
et occuli in capute videt orbem vertentem.
bene in iterne, caput in nube, vir mille vocum loquitur a magna voce.
sed nemo umquam audit eum aut strepitum eum videtur fieri
et numquam notet ut videtur.

sed stultus super colle videt solem deorsum iens

et occuli in capute videt orbem vertentem.

et nemo eum amet ut videtur.

vident quod eum vult facere.

et numquam monstrat affectus.

sed stultus super colle videt solem deorsum iens

et occuli in capute videt orbem vertentem.

It should not be very difficult if you know your Beatles' songs.

The 'N' Word

     I just heard that Mississippi has finally filed the paperwork to properly ratify the 13th Amendment which abolishes slavery. They ratified the amendment in 1995 but failed to file the proper paperwork making slavery no longer legal. In honour of that, I decided to write a blog entry I had been thinking about for a while.
      As a Latinist, there is no mystery to me where the 'n' word comes from: it comes from the Latin word 'niger' an adjective meaning 'black' but this word has become so powerful that, like the name of Voldemort or cancer, it cannot be spoken aloud. It is curious to me how it came to be used for African slaves when the world was becoming increasingly less fluent in Latin and it must be certain that the men engaged in slavery did not have a university education steeped in the Classics.

      However this is the adjective fully declined:

   singular       masculine           feminine      neuter
                     
  nominative    niger                   nigra           nigrum
  genitive         nigri                    nigrae         nigri
  dative            nigro                   nigrae         nigro
  objective       nigrum                nigram        nigrum
  ablative         nigro                   nigra           nigro

       Although this is an adjective, one did not have to attach a word meaning 'man' because Latin adjectives can stand alone and, because they decline, you can infer what the noun they are modifying is from the context. It is called a 'substantive'. What is fascinating to me is that only the masculine form was adopted, although clearly someone was using a Latin word, and female slaves were called using a feminized masculine word and it seems the nominative forms were preserved as well as the ablative/dative forms. Why not the objective form since it would be the object of the verb? And the masculine, genitive singular is the same form as the masculine nominative plural but it was never used for multiple slaves. Why was that never used? The answer must be that it was not Latin but rather Spanish that was applied to these poor souls.
       A quick glance at the Wikipedia article on Colonial slavery in America reveals that, indeed, the early slavers were Spanish. The article reveals the astonishing fact that only 5% of the slaves taken from Africa were taken to America. The majority went to Spanish colonies in Brazil and the Caribbean, where the mortality was so high, they needed constant replenishing of numbers. The first African slaves were brought to America as early as 1619 to Virginia by the Dutch, who had taken them from a captured Spanish ship. The Spanish had the slaves baptized before being shipped to make the enslavement 'legal' which seems rather odd since one of the good things about the Catholic Church is that it frowned upon slavery and Spain was very Catholic nation. Remember the Spanish Inquisition.
       At least these early slaves were treated as indentured servants in Virginia and were freed after a stated period of time. It appears the difficulty of finding labor to work the fields and plantations made this evil an attractive proposal and it was revisited later.
       One has to wonder why the English adopted the Spanish word rather than use the English words 'black man' but English does not decline and does not commonly substantiate adjectives. If you call someone a 'man' then you have to recognize that what you are doing is wrong by every code of ethics that you profess to believe in. So, you have to dehumanize them and call them something else.
       All this made me wonder where the word 'black' came from since it is clearly not related to the Latin word and the modern German word is 'schwartz'. The French word for black is 'noir' and is supposed to be related to Latin, having lost the 'g' by the 11th century. The Old English word for 'black'  is 'blæc' but I have no etymology for it but all this is an aside and does not solve the conundrum.
       In conclusion, it is always worth taking a look in the dictionary. The Oxford Concise states the nominative form came from the French, which is odd because they dropped the 'g' so long ago, but makes sense because the displaced Acadians in Louisiana were very enthusiastic slave owners. And the  ablative form came from the Spanish. There you have it: that is why there are two forms for the word.