I have a question about a passage in a Latin-Greek edition of the Janua Linguarum by Comenius. (See this thread if you’d like it in proofreading-in-progress transcribed form. Many thanks to bedwere for his ongoing proofreading of the Greek.)
In the original Latin:
918. Cum quo necessitudo (familiaritas) tibi est, erga illum apertus sis sine fraude (techna) doloque (fallacia). Amicum enim fautoremque fraudare et fallere, quae gloria?
An English translation of the Latin:
918. Towards whom you are familiar with, be open, without fraud or guile. For what glory is there in beguiling (deceiving, betraying, dealing fraudulently with) a friend?
κατασοφιστέω seems not to be a real verb. We found two possiblities: either κατασοφιστεύειν or κατασοφίζεσθαι. The LSJ entry for κατασοφιστεύω says merely “=κατασοφίζομαι”. Is there really no difference between these, or should one be used over the other in this context? Thanks.
I’m not really sure what your question is. Are you asking whether κατασοφιστέω is in fact attested in the extant literature, or whether there is any difference in meaning between κατασοφιστεύω and κατασοφίζομαι? An answer to the first question is, I’m sure, obtainable; a categorical answer to the second is probably not.
From LSJ it appears that the only attested occurrence of κατασοφιστεύω is in the Suda, an 10th century Byzantine dictionary/encyclopedia, which was compiled on the basis of a large number of ancient works, not all of which have survived.
According to LSJ, the Suda entry for κατασοφιστεύω is limited to noting that it’s a synonym for κατασοφίζομαι, without sourcing it in a specific ancient author. In other words, it’s possible that κατασοφιστεύω was used in a classical Greek text, but Suda doesn’t tell us where it came from, and it apparently doesn’t occur in any surviving classical Greek text. So it would probably be preferable to use κατασοφίζεσθαι, which has some genuine ancient attestations (including the Septuagint and Lucian), and apparently isn’t different in meaning.
I checked the revised LSJ supplement just to make sure there was nothing new on these verbs.
I have the impression that for (not only) ancient Greeks it was a national sport to invent words. If your public can understand a new word, and it doesn’t violate any grammatical rule, you should go for it. The more the better!
