Dog Latin, also known as Cod Latin, macaronic Latin, mock Latin, or Canis Latinicus, refers to the creation of a phrase or jargon in imitation of Latin, often by "translating" English words (or those of other languages) into Latin by conjugating or declining them as if they were Latin words. Unlike the similarly named language game Pig Latin (a form of playful spoken code), Dog Latin is more of a humorous device for invoking scholarly seriousness.
Sometimes "dog Latin" can mean a poor-quality attempt at writing genuine Latin.
Video Dog Latin
History
Examples of this predate even Shakespeare, whose 1598 play, Love's Labour's Lost, includes a reference to dog Latin:
Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dungill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.
Holofernes: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem.
Thomas Jefferson mentioned dog Latin by name in 1815:
Fifty-two volumes in folio, of the acta sanctorum, in dog-latin, would be a formidable enterprise to the most laborious German.
Maps Dog Latin
Examples
A once-common schoolboy doggerel which, though very poor Latin, would have done a tolerable job of reinforcing the rhythms of Latin hexameters:
Insofar as this specimen can be translated, it is as follows:
The conscript fathers [i.e. Senators] took a boat and went to Philippi. The boat was upset by a great hailstorm of wind. All drowned who could not swim away. There was a trumpeter, who had a scarlet coat, and a great periwig, tied about with the tail of a dead pig.
The meter uses Latin vowel quantities for the Latin parts, and to some extent follows English stress in the English parts.
Another variant has similar lines in a different order, with the following variants:
Stormum surgebat et boatum oversetebat
Excipe John Periwig tied up to the tail of a dead pig.
The meaning here is "The storm rose up and overturned the boat" and "Except for John Periwig", etc.
Another verse in similar vein, from Ronald Searle's Down with Skool, is:
which, when read aloud using traditional English pronunciation of Latin, sounds like the following:
but which means in Latin
The following spoof of legal Latin, in the fictional case of Daniel v Dishclout (from George Alexander Stevens' "Lecture on Heads", 1765), describes a kitchen:
camera necessaria pro usus cookare, cum saucepannis, stewpannis, scullero, dressero, coalholo, stovis, smoak-jacko; pro roastandum, boilandum, fryandum, et plumpudding mixandum, pro turtle soupos, calve's-head-hashibus, cum calipee et calepashibus.
In English, this is:
A necessary room for the purpose of cooking, with saucepans, stewpans, scullery, dresser, coalhole, stoves, smoke-jack; for roasting, boiling, frying, and mixing plum pudding, for turtle soups, calves'-head hashes, with calipee and calipashes.
From time to time the satirical magazine Private Eye will publish a mock degree citation in dog Latin in order to lampoon a public figure.
See also
- Latatian, dog Latin in the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
- Hiberno-Latin, playful learned Latin literature by Irish monks
- Latino sine Flexione, a constructed language based on Latin, but using only ablative as the standard form
- Law Latin, a form of Latin used in English legal contexts, similarly to Law French
- Lorem ipsum, nonsense filler text based on a Cicero work
- Macaronic language, using a mixture of languages, such as Latin and English
- Medieval Latin, including many influences from vernacular languages
- New Latin, Latin used in the contemporary modern world
- Pig Latin, simple verbal code language based on English
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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