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Translation Help

PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:01 pm
by C. Cornelius Rufus
REPOST from the Collegium Linguarum where I didn't get any responses. Any help would be appreciated!

Would like some help translating the following terms into Latin. The context is that these terms would be applied to positions on a sports team and also, if different, to the individual players playing those positions. For example "Marius was playing 'wing'" as one might play a position in hockey or "there are multiple positions on a hockey team including center and wing," etc. Also, left/right modifiers would be appreciated. Military-like parallels for the terms would be perfect if they exist. Just doing a little speculation here as to how the game of harpustum may have been played.

Thanks!

Center
Ranker
Scout
Wing
Archer


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Sports Terms

PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:40 am
by Valerius Claudius Iohanes
Salve, Gaii Cornelii -

Perhaps there exist proper terms, but my thoughts are these:

Center => Medius ?
Ranker [someone ranking the players?] => Iudex [vel] Aestimator ?
Scout [someone on the lookout for new players?] => Investigator ?
Wing => Ala ?
Archer => Saggitarius ?

How would one translate "playing" in the sense of having the role of "Medius" or "Ala"? I'm looking at my dictionary and it seems that "ludo/ludere/lusi/lusus" comes through as the verb of choice. One of the idioms uses "reddere", to render, so that might be an alternate choice.

Vale bene.

Re: Sports Terms

PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:57 am
by C. Cornelius Rufus
Valerius Claudius Iohanes wrote:Salve, Gaii Cornelii -

Perhaps there exist proper terms, but my thoughts are these:

Center => Medius ?
Ranker [someone ranking the players?] => Iudex [vel] Aestimator ?
Scout [someone on the lookout for new players?] => Investigator ?
Wing => Ala ?
Archer => Saggitarius ?

How would one translate "playing" in the sense of having the role of "Medius" or "Ala"? I'm looking at my dictionary and it seems that "ludo/ludere/lusi/lusus" comes through as the verb of choice. One of the idioms uses "reddere", to render, so that might be an alternate choice.

Vale bene.

Thanks!

I was thinking "Ranker" like in a military formation one who is in the ranks.

And "Scout" likewise like a military scout who would go out ahead of the formation.

And to add one more not on the previous list, what about one who throws a pila, ie., in English perhaps "pila thrower"?


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Oh, all right...<g>

PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 5:18 am
by Aldus Marius
Salve, clare Rufe!

Well, I had some ideas (being a military type on both ends of the timeline), but I thought I'd wait to see if anyone else did first. There's a rather dismaying tendency for all discussion to stop once Mari chimes in...I mean, look at last week!!!

But OK, here are mine for the situations for which I have any...

Ranker, as in the army: miles (soldier); miles gregarius (soldier of the crowd/group/herd/ranks); gregarius (member of the grouping [herd, etc.])
...as in the Senate: pedarius (footman)

Scout, straightforward: explorator (what it looks like)
...of the sneakier sort (say one whose job is to fake out the opposition, or who is not what he seems): frumentarius (this term was used for Imperial agents, informers, spies and other information-gatherers...intel, I suppose, being the "fruits" of frumentum, itself the term for the grain handouts, the assessment of which was originally a major part of a frumentarius' cover story.)

Wing: ala (a cavalry wing)

Archer: sagittarius (knew you'd seen that somewhere, nonne..?) >({|;-)

Happy Pilum-Pusher: iaculus (but watch the entendres), hastatus (spearman, not javelin-man, but the name for the more lightly-armed soldiers in the Republican Legions)

For your 'center' player-position, you could use any of the variations on the -ifer ('standard-bearer': aquilifer, signifer, imaginifer...) theme if that person serves as someone to rally around, or if he's supposed to lead the charge. If he carries a flag, he's a vexillarius. If he's just there as a hindrance to the other side, that'd be called something else.

Taking the English labels another way, Iohannes' suggestions are also quite sound. It'd be hard to refine these much further without knowing the rules for the game. Quid est 'harpestum'?

In amicitia et fide,

Re: Oh, all right...<g>

PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:50 pm
by C. Cornelius Rufus
Aldus Marius wrote:It'd be hard to refine these much further without knowing the rules for the game.

Thanks much for the suggestions. I hope to include a fictional game of harpustum in a story I'm working on so I have to invent the rules. Whereas people are always people, given what little we DO know about the game I'm just trying to be logical. For example, one assumption that I'm making is that it evolved as a military-oriented game. So following that logic, how many men would be on a team? Seems to me then that 9 men per side (a conterbernium and a "captain") would make sense. Something one squad could play against another for fun and exercise during what must have been long stretches of boredom for most soldiers.