I would appreciate your opinion and/or help with the following translation of a text displayed on map I-24, in: Georg Braun & Frans Hogenberg (ed.): Civitates Orbis Terrarum. Cologne, 1572. (I would love to link the respective source but this would be against forum rules. You can probably google it.)
Original in Latin:
Hamburga, Florentissimum inferioris Saxoni:æ emporium,
Anglorum frequẽtatione hoc tẽ:pore celeberrimum Ao Dñi: M.D.LXXII.
In this notation a tilde above a letter indicates
a) abbreviation, or
b) nasalization, as in today’s International Phonetic Alphabet.
Latin in transliteration:
Hamburga, Florentissimum inferioris Saxoniae emporium,
Anglorum frequentatione hoc tempore celeberrimum Anno Domini 1572
English:
Hamburg, the most flourishing market at the lower of Saxony,
best known at this time as a much frequented joint in the year of the Lord 1572
German:
Hamburg, der blühendste Markt im niederen Sachsen,
am bekanntesten als ein in dieser Zeit häufig besuchter Ort im Jahre des Herrn 1572
Thanks for your time, I look forward to improve the translation!
I wonder why the colons are there :O. They seem unnecessary when there’s already a tilde denoting an abbreviation and a stricken n/m — but why the : : :
Sorry, I forgot to explain that. The first two colons are used instead of a hyphen at the end of the line. The original is actually formatted like this:
Hamburga, Florentissimum inferioris Saxoni:
æ emporium, Anglorum frequẽtatione hoc tẽ:
pore celeberrimum Ao Dñi: M.D.LXXII.
Now I don’t know why that last colon after “Ao Dñi”. Nor why the abbreviation of “Anno” isn’t marked as “Ão” or “Aõ”. From “Dñi” I would conclude, that the tilde was placed after the elision, but apparently
The tilde was also used occasionally to make other abbreviations, such as > over the letter ‹q› (“q̃”) to signify the word > que > (“that”)> .
(So says Wikipedia, s.v. tilde; underline added by me for emphasis.)
It’s not Ao but A° which is already a clear abbreviation so the tilde isn’t necessary. Those aren’t :'s but ⸗'s for hyphens, but that IS a colon after “Dñi”, i.e, “Dñi:”—not a hyphen.
Non Ao sed A° quo est clarrissima abbreviatio, tunc non requiritur titulus. Non : sed ⸗ pro interductu, separatim post “Dñi” ubi est colon verum (: seu punctum duplex) non interductus.
Florentissimum… A/the most flourishing/prosperous market-town/centre of trade of lower Saxony, very famous/popular at this time as a travel destination of the English (or of the Angles [in Germany]!): in the year 1572.
And yet you have frequẽtatione and tẽpore, so your conclusion doesn’t stand, even by this line alone. Habes autem haec per titulos praecedentes,—id est, non stat conclusio per hunc indicem verum.
You don’t learn a single rule; you read Capelli and Lindsay to study the practices, or just the MSS themselves. The look of the abbreviation often determines the practice, I would say, to minimize misreadings.
Solam regulam non habes sed opera Capelli et Lindsay auctorum ut fontes, vel manuscripta in ipsis quae perlegas ad exercitationes discendas. Facies abbreviationis ad morem scribendi saepè pertingit, dicam, ut vocabulum clarissimè legatur.
Adriano Capelli, Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane (A. Capelli, Elements of Abbreviation in Medieval Latin); W. M. Lindsay, Notae latinae.
