Phrase for 'watch dog'

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi all.

I’m looking for a good phrase for ‘watch dog’
Italian has ‘cane di guardia’.
French has ‘chien de garde’.
Spanish has ‘perro guardián’
Catalan has 'gos guardià ’
Occitan has ‘canh de guarda’

Any ideas for Latin?

“Canis …”.

Thanks,

David

2

Bacci indicates that Columella has ‘vigilans canis’. Quicherat is giving ‘excubitor canis (Columella)’ and ‘defensores canes (Varro)’. I could’nt see immediately a equivalent word in Cicero or Caesar. So I think you have to do with that.

Vale,

Moerus Lovaniensis

3

Thanks for the reply.

With so many romance languages having a word “guard”, there must have been a similar latin word from which it comes from.

Any idea what this word could be?

David

4

David,

‘Guard’ was originally a Germanism that spread into French and other Romance languages (and English) in the early middle ages. It’s actually derived from the Althochdeutsch ‘warten’ which meant ‘to see’, and came to mean ‘to look after’.

5

And to complete the reply of Iulianus: From German and the Romance languages this word was also latinized in the Renaissance period. The lexique de la prose latine de la Renaissance indicates it as guardia. So I suppose also watch dog must have been constructed with the word guardia, but only in renaissance time. This is what the lexique sais. But making my masterthese as a minor correction on his dictionnary, i can tell you en primeur that the word also appeared before. You can find it already in 1256 in the Statuta et leges ciuitatis et insulae Curzulae.
For my masterthese I had to check all possible medieval dictionnaries for every word in this lexique, so i’m sure if you would check also for ‘watch dog (with guardia)’, you would find it.

6

Ave Moere,

Indeed ‘guard’ was latinized, even way before the Renaissance. It occurs in the ‘Lex Visigothorum’ as ‘wardia’, which dates from 650 a.d.

I guess what I’m trying to say, though, is that if you wanted Classical Latin translation of ‘guard dog’, no form with ‘guard’ (or ‘ward’) could be possible, as this germanism occurred far later.

7

That’s very interesting.
So if I understand correctly, it is definately not a classical word?

I think you for the info about the origins of “guardia”.

Maybe you’d be interested to know that “warten” is still in the German language and means “to maintain”. “Wartung” is “maintenance”.

I never made the link between the words before.

Thanks,

David

8

Sure.

Just do a search for “Wartung” on yahoo.

The first response is IBMs site with “Guarantee and Maintennce” in German.

David