Experimenting with a Neo-Latin Coinage for Halloween

[Gregorius]

I was playing around with etymology and morphology again, and I thought this might interest some of you, if only for fun. How does one say "Halloween" in Latin? The name that the Latin Wikipedia uses, Pervigilium Omnium Sanctōrum, is historically correct, but it just seems like too much of a mouthful to me and makes the holiday sound much more Christian than it actually is in modern times. Furthermore, All Saints' Eve is the Christian version of the Celtic festival Samhain, the more ancient origin of the modern holiday to which it is more similar in spirit.

So I looked up how Samhain would have been pronounced in Old Irish (closer to Roman times) and transcribed it approximately into Latin as Samfinia (the word contains a nasalized /v/, which I suppose the Romans would have approximated with an /mf/ sequence). Ergo, I coined the word Nova Samfinia to refer more concisely and faithfully to Halloween in Latin.

When I shared these language games with a Latin professor, he came up with a few alternatives of his own: Inferiae Nocturnālēs or Nox Saccharōrum Crystallīnōrum, the latter of which I think highlights the candy/trick-or-treating aspect of it, if I'm interpreting saccharus crystallīnus correctly. On analogy with the contraction of "All Hallows' Evening," he even suggested contracting Beatae Nocturnālēs Inferiae into Beatae Nocturnferiae.

What do you think? Do you ever have fun with supposedly dead languages like this? If so, you're welcome to share them, especially if they involve rendering distinctly modern culture and/or technology into Latin!

[Timothée]

Playing and having fun with dead languages is highly commendable especially in the learning process. I like, for instance, to listen to the weekly news bulletin Nuntii Latini, which is of the highest quality.

In this case I for one find fēstum omnium sanctōrum perfectly adept and see no reason to tinker with it. As the Americans have thoroughly carnivalised the feast, I suppose one could coin carnisprīuium autumnāle or hiemāle "autumn/winter carnival". But as the old designation Hallowe'en is still used in English, so peruigilium or fēstum omnium sanctōrum will do perfectly (for me at least).

[anphph]

I don't really enjoy the part of raining on anyone's parade, but I am rather suspicious of your attempts. Of course on a first level, as Timothée said, playing with the languages is healthy and conductive to the learning process. On another level, however, we are faced with questions of another rank: why do we use Latin? Is it to adapt everything from our daily life to Latin and make it say everything we say in other languages? Or is it to become a chain in the tradition, and thereby become acquainted with the ways of expression that have been in use for centuries? I stand firmly on the second step. Writing Latin is good, but essentially as a way of using not only the same Grammar as the Ancients, Medievals, Humanists etc, but rather the same language on a broader sense.

There will be elements in our modern usage that, no use complaining, they wouldn't able to understand and for those we have to coin new expression — that's our way of forging the chain ahead. But in most other cases, such as this one, where we already have the Pervigilium/Festum omnium sanctorum — which at any event translates literally the "All Hallow's Eve" (and if you wanted a "short version", why not just shorten it to 'Pervigilium'? — it seems like a willing and conscious attempt to shun a pre-existing ring in the chain and forge a new one. I don't think that break is a good ideological practice, and would be highly detrimental on a larger scale and on the long term.

I am well aware that the joke's on me, that I am overthinking it, that this is just for good fun. Still.

[calvinist]

I think coining new terms is great, because some conversational use is helpful in learning the language. I try to speak Latin as much as I can at home and my 2 year old son uses some Latin words already like aquam (he always uses the accusative), vacuum est (when his cup is empty), salve, and he understands much more like noli tangere, veni huc, mane cum matre, ubi mater?, mater venit, mater abest, adiuva sororem, noli sororem pulsare, esto bonus, tempus est dormire/ad dormiendum (which usually makes him cry), repone ludibria... omnia ludibria, and some more; but in order to be able to do such a thing terms must be coined for modern things such as computatrum, autocinetum, laophorium, etc.

For Halloween, I agree that a short expression is much more usable and would suggest a simple transliteration like Halovēnum/Hallovīnum/Halovīnum. This is what almost every other language does and so it would make sense to do that in Latin: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Halloween#Translations

[thesaurus]

For Halloween, I agree that a short expression is much more usable and would suggest a simple transliteration like Halovēnum/Hallovīnum/Halovīnum. This is what almost every other language does and so it would make sense to do that in Latin: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Halloween#Translations

I was going to suggest this. Most languages aren't afraid to pick up the occasional foreign word, especially if it is something totally foreign, and I don't think Latin should be either. As Latin enthusiasts, I think we're always looking for the "purist" way to state everything, but if we're attempting to be modern and colloquial in our usage, there's a place for neologisms and imports.

[Victor]

Most languages aren't afraid to pick up the occasional foreign word, especially if it is something totally foreign, and I don't think Latin should be either. As Latin enthusiasts, I think we're always looking for the "purist" way to state everything, but if we're attempting to be modern and colloquial in our usage, there's a place for neologisms and imports.

The only snag with your otherwise plausible approach is that the other languages you refer to (presumably living ones) can achieve consensus fairly quickly on the acceptability of neologisms; once a sizeable number of speakers start using a new word, the word has gained currency. When things have reached this stage, you're still perfectly at liberty to resist using the word yourself, but you can't deny that it has attained currency. In the case of Latin, however, no matter how many of its small number of enthusiastic speakers today start using certain coinages, they cannot, without the sanction of a body of native speakers, claim currency in the same sense for those words. The currency will always be counterfeit.

You say "we're always looking for the purist way to state everything". I think what is actually the case is that most of us are always looking for a way of saying things that fits with what we know of how Latin was actually used by native speakers. It's not so much purism as realism.

[calvinist]

Most languages aren't afraid to pick up the occasional foreign word, especially if it is something totally foreign, and I don't think Latin should be either. As Latin enthusiasts, I think we're always looking for the "purist" way to state everything, but if we're attempting to be modern and colloquial in our usage, there's a place for neologisms and imports.

The only snag with your otherwise plausible approach is that the other languages you refer to (presumably living ones) can achieve consensus fairly quickly on the acceptability of neologisms; once a sizeable number of speakers start using a new word, the word has gained currency. When things have reached this stage, you're still perfectly at liberty to resist using the word yourself, but you can't deny that it has attained currency. In the case of Latin, however, no matter how many of its small number of enthusiastic speakers today start using certain coinages, they cannot, without the sanction of a body of native speakers, claim currency in the same sense for those words. The currency will always be counterfeit.

You say "we're always looking for the purist way to state everything". I think what is actually the case is that most of us are always looking for a way of saying things that fits with what we know of how Latin was actually used by native speakers. It's not so much purism as realism.

It's not so smooth even with living languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_ ... an_English In addition to regional differences there are differences among subcultures within any society. During my 5 years in the Marine Corps I heard many words and phrases I had never heard before (or never heard used that way) by other native English speakers. With spoken Latin there are bound to be different terms for modern things, I don't think that's really a big deal.

[Victor]

With spoken Latin there are bound to be different terms for modern things, I don't think that's really a big deal.

Imperfect consensus among today's users of Latin on the acceptability of neo-Latin coinages was not the focus of my argument; its focus was the fundamental distinction in status between coinages made in a language that has native speakers and coinages made in a language that no longer has any. Coinages made in the second kind of language will never be able to claim legitimacy in the way that coinages in the first kind of language can.