Anyone want to show off their leet latin skillz?

[highlyeccentric]

agenttrojie is faced with 19th century scientific texts, and consequently, 19th century dodgy scientific Latin. She's had a poke at her sentence, and I've had a poke at it armed with my dictionary, and we need help from someone who actually understands Latin:

It's a description of a species of mollusc. It reads:

'Testâ oblongâ, planisculâ, tenuisculâ, posticè angulatâ, margine postico dorsali declivi, superficie sulcis obtusis, remotis, longitudinalibus ornatâ'

which I surmise means something along the lines of 'Oblong shell, something about flat, SOMETHING, angular posterior, dorsoposterior margin SOMETHING' and then I get lost.

Here's what I could figure, in addition to Trojie's working-out:

* I can't get more than "flat" for planiscule - closest my dictionary has to offer is planus, adj., flat.

* Likewise "teniscula" beyond me, although I think it might be some kind of horrible abuse of 'tener' (tender, delicate, young, weak, effeminate or erotic), or possibly "tenius" (thin, fine, small shallow) ED: WAIT. Trojie said 'tenuiscula'. Sorry Mr 19th century for insulting your Latin.

* "Declivi" seems to be either "sloping" (adj "declivis") or "turned aside" (some form of the verb "declino"?), it would help if I could decline adjectives, but then I don't think this bloke could either, he seems to be adding "cule" to the ends of things at random.

* "Superficie" = ablative singular of "superficies", the most pertinent translation of which is "surface". I'm not entirely sure what the ablative does, but it's the right ending for singular feminine fifth declension nouns.
* "sulcis" appears to be the plural ablative of "sullcus" (furrow, trench, track). Two ablatives make an ablative absolute, yes? I have no idea what the possible implications of this are for the meaning of the sentence, though.
* Obtusis. I've never been taught adjectives, so I leave that up to someone else. There is, however "obtusus", which seems to mean "blunt". Or is it some form of the verb "obtundo", of which "obtusus" is also the past participle?

*"remotis", predictably, has something to do with "far" or "remote"

*Longditudinabulius is not going to be classical latin
* "Ornata" - furnished? dressed?

Comments

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Reading what you've got there, I suspect the bit about 'margine postico dorsali declivi' might have something to do with the concave dorsoposterior margin most of these things have, maybe. Or maybe it's more describing it in terms of the fact that it's extended into a rostrum ... however since the illustration is also typically 19th century and thus an extremely lacking-in-detail line drawing, and I have no shell material to work from, working back from the illustration to the description isn't likely to be too helpful. Argh.

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

19th century Latin?

*shiver*

If I can get to my dictionary I'll try to help, but as an ancient-Latin person, no guarantee that will do anything at all.

Also, ablative does all kinds of glorious stuff, alas. (Agent/tool use, for instance, and a bunch of stuff that usually requires a little connector word [de, etc], but in 19th century Latin, who the heck knows?)

Planiscule and Teniscula both immediately made me think the -cula (or just -ula, here?) indicated their status as diminutives. Liber = book, libellus = little book. ... Wikipedia knows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive#Latin) better than I, here.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

... OH WAIT. If I look properly at what Trojie sent me, it's tenuiscula. So, fine, thin, small or shallow. With a possibly diminutive ending on it. Awesome.

Any help your dictionary can provide is much appreciated!

[simon-stylites.livejournal.com]

These are all ablatives (of description, surely). It's something "with an oblong shell, etc., etc." So, "with obtuse/blunt/dull and set back ridges/ruts/furrows on its surface, decorated along its its length".

If I knew a thing about molluscs I could tidy that up more.

[simon-stylites.livejournal.com]

And yes, a sloping edge on its dorsal posterior. Or something like that, whatever version of that makes sense in mollusc-world.

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Sloping dorsoposterior margin makes sense in mollusc-world :)

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

The very first word is 'Cras.' which is the abbreviation for 'Crassatellidae' - the family of bivalves it belongs to. So I'd assume that all of the following words are sort of add-ons to the fact that it's a crassatellid. Sorry, I should have included that.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're AWESOME. Thank you!

[almostinstinct.livejournal.com]

DISCLAIMER: I KNOW SPANISH AND OLD IRISH. I AM NOT A LINGUIST I JUST PLAY ONE IN MY LECTURES.

'Testâ oblongâ, planisculâ, tenuisculâ, posticè angulatâ, margine postico dorsali declivi, superficie sulcis obtusis, remotis, longitudinalibus ornatâ'

Oblong [testa], flat, young?, angular [postice] (rear? end?), sloping dorsal edges [postico], longitudinal superficial/shallow/surface furrows remote (ie, surface furrows that are far apart?) and/or ornamental?

And that's all she's got.

[almostinstinct.livejournal.com]

So, uh, cleaned up: If testa means mollusc, you have:

"An oblong, flat, young mollusc with an angular end and sloping dorsal edges and longitudinal surface furrows, that are spaced out, and possibly ornamental."

???

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

Wait, doesn't testa mean head? So maybe they're saying it has an oblong head?

Do molluscs have heads?

[almostinstinct.livejournal.com]

No idea! I'm just winging it, here. I don't actually know any Latin. :p

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

In palaeontology 'test' means 'shell', which I'd always vaguely assumed came from the Latin ... so I was reading 'testa' to mean 'shell'... no idea if that's right or anything - I don't know any Latin either! No-one told me there'd be a linguistic component to my study!

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I think I looked it up and confirmed that it was shell...

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Score.

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Most molluscs have heads, except bivalves, and this is describing a bivalve. So either Sowerby's Latin was way worse than he thought or testa has at least one other meaning ...

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Seems like a good guess to me. The commas are totally useless, am I right?

[almostinstinct.livejournal.com]

The commas are indeed useless. I suppose in the Latin it's grammatically correct. Like Hablo contigo mañana - I will speak with you tomorrow - is literally Speakingme withtheyours tomorrow, etc. Um. That made no sense! ;p

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Well, 19th century folk put commas EVERYWHERE if not restrained. So it's not surprising. And that sentence makes PEREFECT sense.

[almostinstinct.livejournal.com]

Wait, you aren't actually using my translation, are you? Because I am NOTORIOUS for getting EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what I'm meant to get. I mean, double-check that shit!

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Your translation agrees loosely with mine and with Trojie's and with Simon's. Ergo, we have a general idea about this poor mollusc now.

[almostinstinct.livejournal.com]

I suddenly imagined a poor little mollusc on the operating table, bright lights and etc., and a bunch of shady-looking philologists poking at it with sharp things.

Time for food, I think.