Canis Latinicus: Difference between revisions

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In a show rife with magic users or scientific terminology, [[Altum Videtur|Latin is the gear of choice]]. It's exotic-sounding, it has a word for almost everything, and it's fairly well-known. With Latin by your side, you can spout off any string of awesomeness you want, and easily throw in a few less-than-Latin bits -- wantbits—want to name your New World Monkey "Callithrix [[George W. Bush|dubyabush]]?" Go for it!

But what happens when you run out of Latin? Or if your spell or radioactive element has some attribute that you don't know how to name? Well, just make up some new Latin! It's easy: take an English word -- anyword—any will do -- dropdo—drop any vowels from the end, and add ''-us'', ''-icus'', or ''-ium''. If you're naming a town, use the extension ''-opolis'' (although the extension is actually Greek, not Latin. Real Latin would have you using the extension ''-ium'' or ''-ia''). Ta-daa! Instant Latin! This use of Latin, as the trope name should indicate, is called "dog Latin." (Incidentally, the trope title is in fact real Latin...for "Latin dog." No, it doesn't make much sense, but [[Self-Demonstrating Article|that's rather the point]]. Plus, it sounds less like a porn actress than ''(Lingua) Latina Canina'', which is how "[[wikipedia:Dog latin|Dog Latin]]" would sound in ''real'' Latin.)

* Most of the spells in ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' were (loosely) based on Latin ("Expelliarmus", "Wingardium Leviosa", etc.) Most of them sounded decent, but occasionally one more obvious would enter the mix, such as "Petrificus Totalus" -- the—the Full Body Bind, or "Riddikulus", the spell to turn a Boggart into something hilarious. This becomes especially amusing in the audiobooks read by [[Stephen Fry]], who actually knows Latin. [[Genius Bonus|It's funny to hear him giving real pronunciation to fake words.]]

* The eponymous wizard in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' straight up admits he's using quasi-Latin or pseudo-Latin, in so many words, with spells like "Fuego!" for fire (when he needed [[More Dakka]] with it, we even got "Fuegoso! Pyrofuego!"), "Forzare!" for force and "Ventas servitas" for wind. They're his three favourite standby spells. The Faux-Latin words apparently are helpful foci for concentrating the energy that allows magic to happen. (Other wizards have been described as using Japanese, Sumerian, Greek, and Egyptian-based spell invocations in the books, but the exact words are not given.) In this particular case, it's important that he ''not'' use proper Latin words, because the words of a spell become inextricably bound with the use of magic in a wizard's mind -- andmind—and while he wouldn't run the risk of accidentally casting spells when simply speaking Latin<ref>which is the lingua franca of the wizarding community</ref>), Harry says that words in foreign, unfamiliar languages provide a sort of insulation from the raw power of a spell for a wizard's mind. One time in ''Fool Moon'' he cast a spell when he couldn't speak: The spell worked fine, but he was badly disoriented for some time after. Dresden's spell to light a roomful of candles was "Flickum bicus," a dog Latinization of the old "Flick a Bic" lighter jingle.

** Occult uses of [[Canis Latinicus]] include the [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]] ''Liber Paginarum Fulvarum'', which translates as "The Book of Yellow Pages".

** The Fool's Guild has ''Dico, Dico, Dico'', or "I say, I say, I say" -- a—a classic stage performer's line.

* The poem "[[wikipedia:The Motor Bus|The Motor Bus]]" by A.D. Godley declines "motor bus" in every possible way as if it actually were a Latin noun phrase. Which, technically, it ''is'', except bus is a contraction of "omnibus", which is dative plural already -- thealready—the nominative singular would be "omnis". Chalk it up to poetic license.

* Used deliberately in ''[[The Handmaid's Tale]]'', when Offred discovered a scratched phrase in Latin -- "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" -- in—in her room left by the previous Handmaid, a super big thing because women in Gilead aren't allowed to read or write. When she asks Fred what it means, he identifies it as an old Dog Latin joke -- translatedjoke—translated roughly as "[[Determinator|Don't let the bastards grind you down]]" -- and—and makes reference to a couple of other similar jokes. Of course, the meaning is far from a joke to Offred.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', the Ancient language is quasi-Latin -- forLatin—for instance, the Ancient term for "Stargates" is "Astria Porta". The in-universe explanation is that it is actually Latin's mother tongue, even though the Ancients on Earth supposedly died out by 3,000 BC -- [[Did Not Do the Research|long before Latin began to form]]. [[A Wizard Did It|Although, one learns quickly to avoid thinking too hard about anything scientific when watching these shows.]]

** Some examples include the Adeptus Astartes ([[Space Marine|Space Marines]]s), the Ecclesiarchy (priests), and Departmento Munitorum (Military command & logistics). Place names show this too, along with what seems to be a healthy dose of gallows humour among the harried explorers and colonists who found themselves stuck on the nastier ones in ancient times. Examples include the ice worlds Simia Orichalchae and Nusquam Fundumentibus (respectively, Dog Latin for "Brass Monkey" and "Arse End of Nowhere").

** Not all of the examples go down quite so easy, though -- takethough—take the Administratum, Exterminatus, the Senatorum Imperialis. Then there are the various, holy orders: Ordo Mechanicus, Hereticus, and Xenos (dealing with [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|machines, heretics, and aliens]], respectively). Double-dipped with the Ordo Malleus, a reference to the ''[[Malleus Maleficarum]]'' (the Hammer of the Witches; the book used to ''prove'' that witches existed and how to deal with them), and calling yourselves the ''Order of the Witches'' doesn't really give the right impression. Thus, the Order of the Hammer ''of the Witches''...

** ''Requiem in Rome'' puts a small [[Retcon]] on the former -- informer—in the Roman Empire, the Lancea Sanctum were ''Lancea et Sanctum'', but time and non-Latin-speaking vampires eventually warped the words. [[Did Not Do the Research|Except "Lancea et Sanctum" is even stranger]], as the they're supposed to be the the order of Longinus' ''sacred spear'' -- that—that is, his ''lancea sancta''. ''Lancea et Sanctum'' literally means "the lance/spear and the holy thing".

* The unofficial "motto" of arcane casters on the Khyber server in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons Online]]'' is "''Vene Vidi Igni''" -- which—which they translate as "I came, I saw, I set it on fire."

* ''[[Lost Souls MUD]]'' has lots of this flying around, especially in the names of the mage guilds -- Ordoguilds—Ordo Ignis Aeternis, Ordo Zephyrius Mutatoris, and the like.

** Subverted in 2003's "Whizzard of Ow" in which the actual binomial names were used: ''Canis Latrans'' for the Coyote (Noisy dog -- ironicdog—ironic when you realize Wile E. almost never speaks), ''Geococcyx Californianus'' for the Road-runner (Californian Cuckoo that runs on land).

* The VST synthesizer [http://www.soniccharge.com/synplant Synplant] is supposed to represent an "organic" mode of creating sounds -- hencesounds—hence, randomly-generated patches are created with a randomly-generated name made out of random Latin words, to sound like plants. The one on the website is "Quorum Inedicabilis", both of which are real words, but have little to do with the sound of a synthesizer.

** Musician Sting has an Amazonian tree frog named after him--Dendropsophushim—Dendropsophus stingi.

* Elements get "ium." A number of naturally-occuring elements, plus all of the transuranic elements--elementselements—elements with atomic numbers higher than uranium's 92, which are mostly synthesized in laboratories--fitlaboratories—fit this: einsteinium, californium, berkelium... the list goes on. Most famously, two different groups of scientists synthesized elements 93 and 94 independently, and both independently came up with the names "neptunium" and "plutonium" (to follow element 92, uranium, as Pluto was the ninth planet at the time).

** The same goes for "automobile"--the—the name ought to have been either "ipsomobile", or "autokineton". In Modern Greek, it is indeed a αυτοκίνητο.

** The last one is technically correct,<ref>Except for the dropped copula, but that's acceptable in Vulgar Latin</ref>, but "penis" is a surprisingly non-obscene word in Latin, not to mention that it can mean a lot of ''other'' things as well, so the phrase falls somewhat short of its intended meaning. For it to be true to its intent it should be "verpa canina", which indeed means "dog's dick".

* Japanese artist Yuki Kajiura uses faux Latin (amongst other languages) in many of her songs, filtered through her Japanese accent and the general rule of making it sound lyrically appropriate above all else, to the point that a fan nickname has been made for it--theit—the "Kajiuran" language. It's complete gibberish and not an actual [[Con Lang]] per se, but sounds cool and gives her songs a distinct sound.

* In the history of the Modern Greek language, there was a period called Katharevousa, which sought to purify the language of non-Greek influences and to adequately hellenize foreign place names. However, this was done in a rather haphazard manner, sometimes in ignorance of the actual Greek names that places already had. One of simplest ways to adapt place names was to calque Latin script spellings to Greek letters (actual letter pronunciation differences be damned), and add the feminine suffix -η (-i), or to change a feminine-looking -a to -η. Barcelona, Spain was rehellenized as Βαρκελώνη (Varkeloni), in ignorance that the classical language already had a name for this -- Βαρκινώνthis—Βαρκινών (Barkinōn). It could get rather silly with place names of much more recent origin; Boston became Βοστώνη (Vostoni), Frankfurt became Φραγκφούρτη (Fragkfourti), etc. Katharevousa Greek ceased being an official language anywhere by 1982, and now the more usual practice is to adapt foreign names phonetically in pronunciation and spelling, such as Tόκυο for Tokyo. Meanwhile, many naturally-evolved Greek words for (now-)foreign place names are kept, such as Ἀγκυρα (Agkyra) for Ankara, Turkey, which was Ankūra in classical times.