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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on REQ: Latin translation for HPMOR - Less Wrong
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Comments (52)
I went with nec because I liked the sound better with one syllable. Neque would work as well (as I understand it, the only difference is that neque slightly stresses that it is a conjuction).
As for modo/sola, I had sola but then changed it...both translations share the same issue, which is that the original English "only nothingness" doesn't quite work for me. "Only", to me, suggests that there's at least something. What do you think of the following sentences?
My opinion is that those are ill-formed in the same way as "Only nothingness above"; all three would be better off without "only". Similarly, neither modo nor sola seem right when applied to nihilitas, and for the same reason: the nothingness isn't alone, it just...isn't. I guess my real suggestion here is to modify the English.
Thank you for making me do the research on the phonetics. I reached for a term that meant "that sound that a g makes when it's right before an n", and incorrectly came up with "glottal stop". Now I know that it's a "velar nasal", so I learned something today!
Modifying the English isn't unthinkable. What sounds right in Latin?
Here are some possibilities:
nulla res curans superna -> nothing above [i.e., in the heavens] that cares
nihil nisi stellae supernum -> nothing above but stars
nihil nisi inanitas supernum -> nothing above but the void (or, nothing above but emptiness)
nihilitas inanis superna -> an empty nothingness above (maybe too redundant?)
"Nihilitas superna"?
Yes, works great.
Maybe I'm pushing my luck, but "Nihil supernum"?
As a reader, I'm glad you pushed your luck. While I don't know Latin well enough to comment on correctness, this version sounds the coolest.
Yes, that's grammatical (as would be "nihilum supernum"). Those are closer to English "nothing" than "nothingness", and maybe too short to fit with the preceding lines, but I don't know if that's an issue.
This is a monolingual dictionary of medieval Latin, and the uses of "nihilitas" it quotes have a distinct moral connotation of humility/self-abjection (kind of like the English "I am nothing before you"); I can't find other uses of the term either. So I would probably steer away from 'nihilitas'.
Depending on how 'physical' that "nothingness" is supposed to be, I would go for either just "nihilum" (more abstract) or "inanitas"/"vacuitas" (more concrete), as in the translation of Genesis "et terra erat vacuitas et inanitas" ("and the Earth was waste and void").
Also, "neque nec" seem to usually be placed next to each other.
Finally, I think "supernus" has more of an absolute than relative meaning, i.e. something that is up high in the heavens, rather than specifically above the subject of the paragraph. Wouldn't you just use "insuper" in the latter case?
You're right about nihilitas, it seems to have shifted sense since classical times. I should have been double-checking my work with a medieval dictionary. I do like inanitas.
I agree that supernus is absolute rather than relative, but I read the English version as having the absolute meaning: "Only nothingness above [i.e., in the heavens, where you'd expect gods to be, but they aren't, so there's nothingness instead]" so it seems like it fits.