Loan proverbs

[Charles Doyle]

The problem is not the discovery of phrases or even sentences in Latin and other languages, but the determination of whether they can properly be called PROVERBIAL in English-speaking contexts.

A proverb would be used, orally (let's say), in a definable "folk group" the members of which would understand the saying as traditional and might on occasion themselves say it--not as a quotation, though, or a learned allusion (such expressions would be called aphorisms or sententiae). It's hard to be very precise here. A group of scholars could certainly constitute a folk group; still, not every Latin sentence they might utter would be proverbial.

I'd say "Carpe diem" is a good candidate--especially since the movie _Dead Poets Society_ taught the saying to a wider public.

(Then we have that bothersome and ill-defined category "catch phrase"!)

--Charlie
____________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 16:25:41 -0500
>From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
>Subject: Re: Loan proverbs
>
>        Wikipedia has a page,
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Latin_phrases, that is devoted to
>Latin phrases.  Not all of these are proverbs, but it does include
>"Carpe diem," "Et tu, Brute?" and the like, which would seem to be what
>you are looking for.  A longer list is at
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases.  I don't know if
>they have anything like this for other languages; there is nothing at
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_phrases, for example.
>
>
>John Baker
>
>
>-----Original Message-----

>Subject: Loan proverbs
>
>Our recent ruminations about "Inter faeces et urinam nascimur" got me thinking about the (not-very-large?) category that I'll call LOAN PROVERBS--proverbs uttered in a foreign language within English discourse--as distinct from "calqued" proverbs or proverbs that simply have analogs in other tongues or pseudo-foreign constructions like "Nil illigitimi carborundum." And "true" proverbs--propositions consisting of entire sentences--not just phrases or idioms.
>
>Last night on TV Dr. House said "Veni, vidi, vici." Then there are "C'est la vie" and "Che sara sara." "Cogito ergo sum"?
>
>What others?
>
>--Charlie

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