----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton"
>> Any of you out there who can direct me to a reliable Mediaeval Latin
>> dictionary? I'd be glad to know of one.
>>
>> best joanna
>
> Lewis&Short is FOE via the Perseus project:
>
> http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
>
> ... but that's classical Latin rather than Medieval.
>
> There is, I think, an ongoing Medieval Latin dictionary in hardcopy, which
> has reached somewhere about fascile T. But as Joanna knows more about
> this
> than anyone else on the list, why she's asking, other than the triumph of
> hope over experience, *I* don't know.
I *hope* I don't! It's only bits I've picked up over the years, sculling
around in historical and ecclesiastical byways out of sheer general
interest, using my wits and noticing the differences from Classical Latin. I
could give actual references for very little, which in terms of this list
makes me feel pretty amateurish. Although I suppose if I say 'I saw this on
such and such a tombstone', that presumably counts as a reference. Only I
can't always translate *quite* all the tombstone; and indeed there was one
where I felt pretty certain that somebody, possibly the stonemason, had made
an error . . . it was a seventeenth century tablet in a country church. I
have this image of the monumental masons having pattern books, not only of
the skulls, flowers, cherubs' heads, etc, but of suitable Latin honorifics
with spaces left for names ages and family details.
Thanks, Daniel, have bookmarked both those references. I think the first in
particular will come in pretty useful. I was expecting to find that there
was a huge tome of grammar and usage on the subject, that everyone knew
about but me! So if there is, speak up, please.
best joanna
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