How well do these tools cope with either Liturgical Latin or Late Latin? According to Christine Mohmann, Liturgical Latin has a specialised vocabulary, developed 400 years after Julius Ceasar, who was himself at the end of the Classical period and happier speaking Greek! Late Latin explodes the myth that Latin is an unchanging language, it evolved just as English does. Cicero would have shuddered at the barbarous neologisms in our medieval texts.

Also sprach Wikipedia:

On the other hand, Lewis and Short remains a standard reference work for medievalists, renaissance specialists, and early modernists, as the dictionary covers Late and Medieval Latin, if somewhat inconsistently.

Great! Thank you very much.

And thanks again. :)

I still don’t understand that dot…

I still don’t understand that dot…

Because one cannot delete one's posts on the forum, but can edit them, people "delete" posts by editing them to include only a single period.

I do not fault 'literal' translations of prose texts because metre is not a congenital, inherent, factor in their objective nature. With poetry, though, that is another matter. I have little regard for those who give us their 'literal' translations of poetry that are not verse and cannot be sung. If one has not translated poetry into poetry, one has not translated the soul of the poem, has savaged its literary form. If it is a metrical hymn, it begs, implores, to be a metrical translation done as artfully and with all the poetic beauty of which the English language is capable. (A 'translator' who can't do this should have the intellectual and artistic honesty not to bother.) I would never use the Parish Book of Chant (though it is, otherwise, a truly commendable resource) for the very reason that its translations cannot be (and likely were not wished to be) sung. There is a hidden message within the mind set that says 'if you want to sing it you may only do so in the original Latin. You may not sing it in English'. A pox on this entire line of thought. A pox, also, on the insufferably sophomoric arrogance which loves to impress all within ear-shot with a non-existent Latin proficiency by chirping (or shrieking) that this or that is not exactly, precisely, what the Latin says. I think that we all know that, thank you. Poetry into poetry is the only 'literal' translation.

As for the exception taken to 'lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb', it should be obvious that the meaning here is that God the Son, who was from everlasting, shrinks not even from entering this world through the lovingly created womb of a lowly human creature. Certainly it is accurate to note that, far from abhorring, God was pleased in such mean estate to come among us. We have the same usage in the Ordinariate version of Te Deum. Things like this present (manufactured) problems only for those who are looking (scraping the barrel, actually!) for something with which to find fault (or for to show off a paltry scholarship).

The venerable John Mason Neale is not alone in having given us some of the finest translations of historic hymnody, eastern and western, for which we could ask. True, they are not what some would call 'literal', but the soul of the original is 'translated' with unmatched beauty. Neale, of course, is not alone: even Blessed John Henry Newman left us a large number of such translations. There are many others, whose work, if denigrated for not being, in a very narrow and artificial sense, 'literal', would leave us paupers lacking a goodly portion of our exquisite English hymnody.

If poetry is not translated into poetry, the 'translation' is not literal in the fullest sense of the matter. There is more, far more, to poetry than mere words!

The post above had some technical problems.
I meant to say, if my computer will do it,
Google Translate.

Many thanks for that, Jon -
Perhaps I over reacted. It was kind of you to take issue.
There is certainly nothing trashy about anyone on this forum.
I'll get rid of that hasty and ill-considered word.

Deary me: it’s still not easy. Two of the three ‘Adeste fideles’ verses we sing here are apparently additions by Abbé Étienne Jean François Borderies.

En grege relicto humiles ad cunas,
vocati pastores adproperant,
et nos ovanti gradu festinemus.

Æterni Parentis splendorem æternum,
velatum sub carne videbimus,
Deum infantem pannis involutum.

I can find a literal translation of the second by an Erik Routley, but for the other one I have my doubts:

Forsaking the sheepfold, to his lowly cradle, obedient and swiftly run the shepherd throng, with exultation let our footsteps follow.
/
See how the shepherds, summoned to His cradle,
Leaving their flocks, draw nigh to gaze;
We too will thither bend our joyful footsteps;

We shall see the Eternal Splendour of the Eternal Father veiled in flesh. God as a child wrapped in Swaddling-clothes.

Thanks: hmm. The “humble crib” again … is humilis not plural then? I thought it was, so it had to mean that the shepherds were what was lowly.

Try finding a copy of "A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin" by John Collins. It might be available as an pdf download these days.

Wow!...

Um, not wishing to be overly 'literal', but just where did the street language 'Wow!' come from?
We all know that Biblical people couldn't possibly have talked like that!?
Why, what would Cranmer say!

Um, not wishing to be overly 'literal', but just where did the street language 'Wow!' come from?

Not sure what your definition of "street language" is, but outside of questions and sarcasm that's approximately the meaning of "en." L&S says, "In presenting in a lively (or indignant) manner something important or unexpected."

We all know that Biblical people couldn't possibly have talked like that!?

Biblical people clearly did talk like that (flirted with girls, joked with their friends, etc.), although since the hymn is not biblical it's a bit of moot issue.

Why, what would Cranmer say!

Aaaah, get me out of these flames! Wow, that's hot! Aaaah!

There was quite a cottage industry of Latin hymn translation in the 1920s.

I've written some articles on the subject. In one I find fault with my hero, GM Hopkins.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/175789412X13184935045869?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=yusu20

...find fault...

He who would valiant be... let him (dare to) find fault with... G.M. Hopkins!

(I'll be sure to read your article, Kathy!)

I like "Gee!"

Right.

"Golly!" and "Crikey!" have two syllables, unfortunately.

Let's go to THREE syllables with a fine old N.E. Wisconsin "Holy wah!!" Bonus: picks up 'church' lingo, too!!

For some, the ultimate cry of wonder comes out as: "Duuuuuuuuude...!"

I suppose technically one syllable.

where did the street language 'Wow!' come from?

Well fancy that: the latest ‘No Such Thing as a Fish’ podcast says the first recorded use of ‘wow’ in the OED is in a Middle Scots translation of the Aeneid (the Eneados)!

“Aa is but ghaists and eldritch fantasies;
o brounies and o bogles fu this buik.
Out on thir wanderin speerits, wow!” thou cries.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=reus&la=la

It seems its the dative of a 2nd declension relative to the 5th declension res. "concerned in a thing, party to an action" according to Perseus, "guilty" according to Wiktionary.

Are you getting confused by the que, which means "and"? Perseus probably isn't built to take into account particles like that, while Google translate would be.

I think veniam is the accusative of first declension "venia, veniæ" – mercy, pardon, etc. A first person subjunctive verb would make no sense here. "And grant I may approach the guilty" Doesn't really fit contextually :P

If I were to translate that line as literally as possible, I think it'd be something like:

And to the guilty, grant pardon.

Actually, is there a case for translating it as ‘accused’? ‘Devil’ should mean ‘accuser’, and in Rev 12:10, he’s called “accuser” specifically.

‘Venia’ also seems to have meanings less directly associated with guilt: indulgence, kindness, grace, favor, etc.

Aren't "Gee" and "Gad" simply circumlocutions for taking the Name of Our Lord in vain?
(Don't laugh; I once had a man of San Franciscan proclivities object to the phrase "it sucks" as being implicitly anti-homosexual.)