Hello all,
I’ve been working for some time on the “Story of Robinson Crusoe” book and upgrade it to a LLPSI-like edition.
So far, I have the whole macronized text and have fully done the first chapter.
I’d be interested to have your feedback. If you find errors, I think you may add notes in the document.
Chapter 2 is finished.
Chapter 3 is done.
Of course, corrections are regularly made in what has been previously done.
Is there somebody interested to give their impressions or submit corrections?
What a lot of work! Congratulations. My eye catches fig ōrātiō figurāta. Isn’t the u long?
And is p.5 quippe = nam quite right, when it’s quippe qui?
p.8 Nec multō post nautās solvunt ancorās: nautae? And what is the action here? Your gloss suggests they’re not weighing anchor but anchoring.
p.9 tegi not inf.hist. but dep. on coepit? (And you didn’t notate the very first set of hist.infs, tractare etc.)
I expect I missed a lot. I was only skimming, and I’m a bad proofreader at the best of times.
Thanks! That’s indeed quite some work. 
Fixed
I’m not very familiar yet with quippe, but the use of quī doesn’t change its meaning, but I didn’t explain quī and the usage specificities of quippe qui. That’s now fixed.
Ouch, that’s a transcription error I missed.
I guess I was tired when I wrote that. Yeah, I was tired…
That’s in the original text, but I’m not sure about what you mean exactly.
Argh, I miss room!
Yet that already helped a lot. I’m conscious I’m far from being advanced enough, so this allows me to fix the most terrible errors.
On p.9 tegi, I was suggesting that it was not inf.hist. as you label it but governed by coepit at sentence end, i.e. parallel with ventusque vehementior esse.
p.17 flere, clamare inf hist. (You don’t note these but only the following ones.)
mercātōria erat. Delete stop?
p.18 sonitum tormentōrum perīculī īnstantis jūdicem ?? Should jūdicem be indicem?
duōbus mālīs orbātam ??
p.20 mortuam esse intellēxisset ?
p.22 cōnscendere inf hist (Do they occur singly elsewhere in the text?)
I’ve now read through (not very carefully) to end of c.3, p.31. It’s getting a bit samey. How much further to go?
Indeed, it’s better like that.
Fixed.
That was in the printed text. I checked against the original Goffaux version which lacks the stop. So I deleted it.
A vicious transcription error, that I fixed.
This one is correct. It’s mālus -ī m, for mast.
I don’t know what to think about it. It’s already in the Goffaux version. I added a note about it, but I’m not totally sure it sounds correct.
That will be difficult to say until the whole text is annotated.
That’s the end of the last “finished” chapter, so you’re done for now.
As there is still new vocabulary in the next pages, notes will have to be added, and so proofreading will be necessary. But that’s not for today.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your time and effort, that really helps.
Fourth chapter is done.
Fifth chapter is done and online.
Of course, it still needs proofreading.
So far, I have around 800 new words/word usages.
Congratulations again. I’ve read through to the end of c.5, and now I shall know how to survive when I get stranded on a desert island, if there are any left. —But where is Man Friday?
p.44 flectere etc(-peragere) inf.hist.
Some of your glosses seem a bit off, e.g. p.49 praebēre (< prae, habēre) fig = ostendere, or mānsuētus -a -um = amīcus hominis (and is the a really long?), but of course it’s a tricky business.
I haven’t spotted any real howlers apart from judicem, which I noted earlier.
Aliquot ingeniō artificiāle effectae sunt ?
The original translation was very good indeed, and reads very well. (You might repeat the link to the text from your initial post?)
Thank you!
Not yet, not yet…
Done!
Hmm I have nothing much different in any of my sources. It’s a problem.
I don’t really see the problem with this one, as it’s the “tame” meaning, as with an animal. Maybe should I be more specific? Which a? I only see in mānsuētus, but it’s totally normal.
Definitely. Not much space, limited vocabulary, and many definitions to write. But show no mercy, it has to be the best possible.
That’s how I translated Artificial Intelligence. The advantage is that it has the IA initials.
Yes, although I found a few words out of place, that I noted in the end of the book for future reference.
I’ll do that in my next upload.
Thanks again!
Chapters 6, 7, 8 done.
And as always, any corrections are very welcome.
Note: I’m having a problem with the word “lāva”. It’s not classic, and I’d like to replace it with an attested classical form, “harēna ūrēns” (unless someone has a better word). The thing is that I already have somewhere “lāva candēns”, and I guess I can’t just write “harēna ūrēns candēns”, that would be weird. Is there a solution without rewriting too much the sentence?
Looks mostly fine to me, but I don’t think you should have changed so much of the text (and cui harena urens nomen is horrid; best to keep lava).
One slip: “vēnit in mentem sibi ut corpus abluat” venit present, short e.
“in majus facere = audēns facere” ?
“ingenio artificiale” -ali
The goal is to have fully useful words; I start having a problem when made-up words are used when authentic words already exist. And of course when the text doesn’t look standard. My editing strategy is to correct whenever I deem necessary, but a warning when I go too far can’t hurt.
I wish there had be a better word available. Well, after all, Wikipedia does have lava. By the way it looks like the a is short.
Fixed
Yes, this one wasn’t great. I changed it into “ēgregium facere”
Ugh… shame on me, I’ll hide my head in a hole.
Thanks again for this proofread.
A little pushback on your harena urens, which jarred badly when I came to it in your text. cui nomen already acknowledges the lava neologism. And you can’t pretend this is a classical text, with a name like Robinson Crusoeus. I think you should respect the original translation, which is a model of its kind.
I’m glad you take the point about vēnit. The translator knew his grammar, and the present is stylistically superior.
Onward!
Of course. The main idea on my side is that we can’t accept anything just because it isn’t classical. Some truly horrible things may appear depending on the time and who wrote the text, and it wouldn’t be great to explain dubious things, it would be better to fix them. I take this as a way of teaching good practices and good vocabulary. For example, what would be the point in learning vocabulary that is used in only one text? Of course, our situation isn’t as bad, but I voluntarily exaggerated to make things clear. As long as these texts don’t have historical value, some editing may be done depending on the work’s own merits only.
My vision about what New/Contemporary Latin should be is that it should be identical to Classical Latin, with specific neologisms or extended meanings, and so avoid if possible low latinity’s barbarisms. Commonly available dictionaries only contain Classical Latin, and point out bad uses that can be encountered in sources. Older dictionaries also contain New Latin words, but that’s not the case anymore. I try to concile both worlds.
I don’t really like touching things either, but I don’t exclude the fact that it may contain occasional imperfections. By the way, Barnett didn’t translate this from scratch, but rewrote partly Goffaux’s work. Although I can’t event pretend mastering the language (and I’m very far from that), my goal is to do better, as he did. The only relevant point is about the specific choices I made, which may be unfortunate, and that’s also why I need help, I don’t want do worsen things.
For example, I changed “arbusta” into “arbuscula” for “shrub” or “indūsium” (woman’s shirt) to “subūcula” (man’s shirt). That would complicate things a lot if I had to explain first the meaning in the text, and then said “wait, the normal meaning is xxx”; people would only memorize “arbusta” = “shrub” and “indūsium” = “shirt for anybody”. Also, I tweaked “-siliit” into “-siluit”: “-siliit” is referred as an anecdotical variant of “siluit”, but seems like the norm in New Latin for some reason. Again, I don’t feel like it’s a good idea to have this in extensive reading just after FR, as it would make it appear standard while it’s not. I also upgraded the spelling: the original text had horrors like “coelum”, I just couldn’t let that in. Our knowledge of Latin improved since that time, and so I believe we should take advantage of this to provide better quality content even if it means occasional changes in the texts aimed at learners.
The original text didn’t have any macrons, so a mistake can be made here and there, especially when present and past are frequently intertwined. I totally agree with you, it’s just that I didn’t pay attention enough.
Anyway, I’m not totally dogmatic and I may change my mind depending on what’s exposed to me.
I’m really happy you make these feedbacks and do my best to take them in account.
I can only say your vision is not mine, and I’m not much in sympathy with your kind of antiquarianism. But I appreciate your pedagogical endeavor.
I can totally understand.
I hope we can at least have some common ground on the fact that it may be relevant to replace some words if they are used with a meaning totally absent from any dictionary (Classical or New Latin). My vision is that pedagogy should prime over total faithfulness (for faithfulness, the originals are available online). As I stated, I’m not dogmatic and may change my mind if I made poor choices, what I already did with Lava, and very few were changed overall.
Well, anyway, I’m done with chapters 9, 10, 11. And here with the link
Fine, let’s not argue about it. I’ve now been through chapters 9-11, without spotting anything much in need of correction, in fact really nothing except invēnit on p.88. Well done! I learnt quite a lot I didn’t know. Nice to see “cui lava nōmen” fixing your lava problem.
p.81 Doesn’t make much sense to gloss nihilōminus with tamen when the text is Nihilōminus tamen
p.83 sōlānōrum tūbera effodienda, eādemque in cellā condenda erant. Or is eadem nominative, meaning the tubera? (Idiomatic use)
p.84 pers‐|pexit bad line break
levāmentum -ī n = quod levem facit: Or leve?
p.85 Your note suggests pertaesum is impersonal, but isn’t it personal here, for pertaesum eum?
āre-fierī = āridum facere Bad gloss
p.87 prīstinam Is the first i really long?
p.88 invēnit. No, surely present
perspicere nequeō = frūstrā perspicere cōnor, nōn perspicerem etsī cōnārer. Why all this?, isn’t nequīre = nōn posse enough?
c.11. manēre: eum manet = eī tantum dandum est. Why this?
p.98 animum not animam?
Haha ok.
I’m glad it already proves useful, even to a magister.
Yup, this looks stupid, but I lack better words, and technically it’s not wrong, I mean, this is some kind of emphatic pleonasm. I believe I’ve already seen such a gloss in FR (not that it’s necessarily a good idea anyway). If you have better, I’ll take it.
Oooh, very good point, and I see you’re totally right as the original Goffaux version has “solanorum tubera effodienda, eademque in cellâ condenda erant”
Fixed
It’s levem as the meaning is “which makes (a thing) light”. It’s the same pattern as many glosses.
I don’t think so. The trick is that it’s some kind of semi-deponent, therefore, as an impersonal, it should be neutral in the past. It’s a little like “mihi suāsum est”, but with dative while pertaedēre is used with the accusative.
Fixed
pristinus is an example of ambiguous form, and I did find both prīstinus and pristinus. I chose prīstinus because it’s the form used in the etymological dictionary and is related to prīmus.
Well done for pointing this one.
I’m trying here to explain the slight difference with (nōn) posse. I guess I failed.
I mean “it’s reserved to him”, so I thought it could clear up things.
It really is written “animum”, both in the Barnett and in all the Goffaux versions. Although animum isn’t plain wrong, animam seems slightly more appropriate. The original German version has “Sele”, soul. If it really sounds out of place, I may change it.