I’m currently working through Lingua Latina Pars II, and yesterday I was telling a friend of mine how amazing it is to be forced to think in Latin for the hour or so per day I spend reading the book. My friend was intrigued by the Ørberg method, as he is a student of both Sanskrit and Classical Tibetan. He told me an interesting story about a Tibetan professor of his who attributed much of his own success in the language to the habitual use of a Tibetan-Tibetan dictionary. The dictionary essentially functions the same way as Ørberg’s glosses: each word is defined by a simple phrase or, for more difficult words, by a group of more familiar synonyms.
I think that a Latin-Latin dictionary would be an incredibly powerful resource, especially if used in conjunction with the Lingua Latina books. I did a few Google and Amazon searches, but I wasn’t able to discover if such a resource exists. Has anyone here ever seen or used something like a Latin-Latin dictionary?
I definitely saw a couple Latin-Latin dictionaries (and a bunch of other cool ones) yesterday while poking around in a theological library. I’ll report back later when I’ve written down their info. No telling if Google will have them though.
On that note, it’s interesting that a lot of foreign language dictionaries before the 20th century tended to have just Latin translations. Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Celtic, etc. to Latin. I imagine these have all fallen completely out of use even if they are among the best available in their specific language. What was once done to make something universally readable has now rendered it unintelligible to most. Personally, I look forward to using an Ancient Greek-Latin dictionary to keep up with both of my studies.
So besides Wagner’s Lexicon Latinum, my library has Forcellini’s Lexicon Totius Latinitatis and the published volumes of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Considering that these latter are multiple large volumes and don’t seem to be on Google books, you’d best stick with Wagner for your immediate lexical needs.
The Lexicon Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis by Charles Ducagne is available online and in Latin (along with some French), but it only covers medieval Latin.
i finally found and bought a (massive) copy of stephanus’ thesaurus linguae latinae recently: here are some pics if anyone else likes these kinds of books (remove spaces from the links, textkit is still blocking links to my site):
hi, wagner isn’t monolingual. it gives french resemblances of latin words, rather than defining latin words in latin (i have had long discussions with classics bookstore owners here about why i think this is necessary: in reading an article on one word you are really learning multiple words by seeing how they go together; bilingual classics dictionaries just show you that X modern word or phrase resembles more or less Y ancient word).
wagner also gives latin synonyms, but just lists them, which isn’t v useful because it doesn’t explain the different significations of these. far better i think to read books specifically dedicated to latin synonyms or greek synonyms, which take a couple of synonyms at a time and separate out their differences (either differences of meaning or the different contexts in which they are used): if you search archive dot org or google for latin synonyms or greek synonyms you will find some.
hi, i bought the dict at a rare book store on the left bank in paris, took a while to track it down, v $$.
just to add to what i was saying above, latin comp books also sometimes explain the nuances of synonyms, e.g. if you check out william smith’s principia series, vol iv on latin prose comp (it’s online), he explains basic differences in synonyms throughout the exercises.
A link, please ? I checked Google and Google Books, the SULAIR site has some problem finding its own listed pages, and I couldn’t find it anywhere else.
Does anyone know of any online version of Stephanus’ Thesaurus Linguae Latinae? From what I’ve seen it should be the best Laitn-Latin dictionary in existence, but doesn’t seem to be anywhere outside of a few, rare libraries.
in fact stephanus produced 3 editions of his thesaurus linguae latinae, but not all are latin-latin: of these, the best edition (which is fully latin-latin) is his 3rd edition, 1543.
the only full edition of his thesaurus linguae latinae online i have found is his 1st edition, 1531 (1st link of gonzalo above) which is not monolingual; it defines lots of words in french.
the 2nd half only of his second edition (1536) is also online (2nd link of gonzalo above). unfortunately i haven’t found the 1st half of this online anywhere.
if anyone wants to read a short history of latin-latin dictionaries up to and including that of stephanus, see greswell’s book online here, in particular pages 194-211:
greswell states (pg 201) that in his opinion the best edition overall of the latin-latin dict is the london edition of the 1700s, which includes corrections, expansions etc. to the 1543 edition of stephanus (see pg 201 of the book linked above).
Thank you ! Alas, the scanner often held the book’s center too lightly, the folding obscures some text, but it’s still a great resource. Many thanks for the link.
I’m doing some reconnaissance at my local library for Stephanus (they have it). Would a photographed edition (high quality) be of any interest to anyone, because I have no place to store it online? Would I be able to Lulu one?
Sidenote: I haven’t decided to do it yet… Just checking out the books.
