Dog Latin

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Not to be confused with Pig Latin.

Dog Latin is a phrase or jargon that imitates Latin,[1] often by "translating" English words (or those of other languages) into Latin by conjugating or declining them as if they were Latin words. Unlike the language game Pig Latin (a form of playful spoken code), Dog Latin is usually a humorous device evoking scholarly seriousness.

Sometimes "dog Latin" can mean a poor-quality attempt at writing genuine Latin.[2]

History[]

Examples of this predate even Shakespeare, whose 1590s play, Love's Labour's Lost, includes a reference to dog Latin:

Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dungill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. Holofernes: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem.[3]

Thomas Jefferson mentioned dog Latin by name in 1815:

Fifty-two volumes in folio, of the acta sanctorum, in dog-latin, would be a formidable enterprise to the most laborious German.[4]

Examples[]

  • A once-common schoolboy doggerel which, though very poor Latin, would have done a tolerable job of reinforcing the rhythms of Latin hexameters:

Patres conscripti took a boat, and went to Philippi;
Boatum est upsettum, magno cum grandine venti.
Omnes drownderunt qui swim away non potuerunt.
Trumpeter unus erat, qui coatum scarlet habebat;
Et magnum periwig, tied about with the tail of a dead pig.[5]

Insofar as this specimen can be translated, it is as follows:

The conscript fathers [i.e. Senators] took a boat and went to Philippi.
The boat was upset by a great hailstorm of wind.
All drowned who could not swim away.
There was a trumpeter, who had a scarlet coat,
and a great periwig, tied about with the tail of a dead pig.

The meter uses Latin vowel quantities for the Latin parts, and to some extent follows English stress in the English parts.

Another variant has similar lines in a different order:

Stormum surgebat et boatum oversetebat Excipe John Periwig tied up to the tail of a dead pig.[6]

The meaning here is "The storm rose up and overturned the boat" and "Except for John Periwig", etc.

Caesar adsum jam forte
Brutus aderat
Caesar sic in omnibus
Brutus sic in at

which, when read aloud using traditional English pronunciation of Latin, sounds like the following:

Caesar 'ad [had] some jam for tea
Brutus 'ad a rat
Caesar sick in omnibus
Brutus sick in 'at [hat]

but which means in Latin

I, Caesar, am already here by chance
Brutus was present
Caesar thus in all things
Brutus thus in but

  • The following spoof of legal Latin, in the fictional case of Daniel v Dishclout (from George Alexander Stevens' "Lecture on Heads", 1765),[8] describes a kitchen:

camera necessaria pro usus cookare, cum saucepannis, stewpannis, scullero, dressero, coalholo, stovis, smoak-jacko; pro roastandum, boilandum, fryandum, et plumpudding mixandum, pro turtle soupos, calve's-head-hashibus, cum calipee et calepashibus.

In English, this is:

A necessary room for the purpose of cooking, with saucepans, stewpans, scullery, dresser, coalhole, stoves, smoke-jack; for roasting, boiling, frying, and mixing plum pudding, for turtle soups, calves'-head hashes, with calipee and calipashes.

  • The Red Green Show closes each episode with the recitation of the Possum Lodge motto, Quando omni flunkus moritati - which can be translated as "When all else fails, play dead".
  • Finnish death metal band Omnium Gatherum gets its name from 1500's era butchered Latin meaning "a hodgepodge of various things".
  • The title of death/folk metal Verbal Deception's debut album Aurum Aetus Piraticus is Dog Latin for "Golden Age of Piracy".
  • The songs of Era, a musical project by Eric Lévi, are usually in Latin-sounding gibberish.

See also[]

  • Latatian, dog Latin in the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
  • Hiberno-Latin, playful learned Latin literature by Irish monks
  • Latino sine Flexione, a constructed language based on Latin, but using only ablative as the standard form
  • Law Latin, a form of Latin used in English legal contexts, similarly to Law French
  • Lorem ipsum, nonsense filler text based on a Cicero work
  • Macaronic language, using a mixture of languages, such as Latin and English
  • Medieval Latin, including many influences from vernacular languages
  • New Latin, Latin used in the modern world
  • Pig Latin, simple verbal code language based on English

References[]

  1. ^ Dog-Latin, Bartleby.com
  2. ^ OED s.v. "dog," compounds C3a
  3. ^ The Straight D straightdope.com/columns/read/2163/whats-the-origin-of-pig-latin What's the origin of pig Latin?]
  4. ^ Letter to John Adams, 08/10/1815
    I had supposed them defunct with the society of Jesuits, of which they were: and that their works, although above ground, were, from their bulk and insignificance, as effectually entombed on their shelves, as if in the graves of their authors. Fifty-two volumes in folio, of the acta sanctorum, in dog-Latin, would be a formidable enterprise to the most laborious German.
  5. ^ Notes and Queries. October 13, 1855. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
  6. ^ Percival Leigh (1840). The comic Latin grammar. Charles Tilt. p. 152. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
  7. ^ Willans, Geoffrey; Searle, Ronald (1953). Down with Skool!. London: Max Parrish.
  8. ^ [1], retrieved November 2, 2009
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