From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Dog latin" or mock-Latin refers to the creation of a phrase or jargon in imitation of Latin,^[1] often by directly translating English words (or those of other European languages) into Latin without conjugation or declension. Unlike the similarly-named language game Pig Latin (a form of spoken code popular among young children), Dog Latin is more of a humorous device for invoking scholarly seriousness, especially when creatively used in nomenclature and naming conventions. Sometimes "dog Latin" can mean a poor-quality genuine attempt at writing in Latin.

Dog Latin is rarely put to a serious purpose, but it is used in the temporary naming of undiscovered (or not yet officially named) chemical elements. For example, the name given to element 118 is "ununoctium", the IUPAC systematic element name, from unum, unum, octo, the Latin words for "one, one, eight".

More often, correct Latin is mixed with English words for humorous effect or in an attempt to update Latin by providing words for modern items.

Examples

Examples include the following spoof of legal Latin, in the fictional case of Daniel v Dishclout ("'Sam Weller's Budget of Recitations, 1838) ^[2], describing a kitchen:

camera necessaria pro usus cookoree, cum sauce pannis, scullero, dressero, coalholo, stovis, smoakjacko; pro roastandum, pro rastandum, boilandum, fryandum, et plum puddings mixandum, pro turtle soupes, calves head hashibus, cum calipee et calipashibus.

Dog Latin is often used in comic fiction for:

• Names of fictional Romans. In the Astérix comic books, these are usually puns; examples from the English translations (by Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge) include Noxious Vapus, Crismus Bonus, Encyclopedia Britannicus, and the celebrated duo Sendervictorius and Appianglorius (alluding to lines 4-5 of "God Save the Queen"). Most of the characters in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum are plays on Latin words, including Senex (old man) and Miles Gloriosus (boastful soldier), although several of these are borrowed from characters in actual Latin plays by Plautus. Characters mentioned in Monty Python's Life of Brian include Naughtius Maximus, Biggus Dickus and Incontinentia Buttox. Frankie Howerd's series Up Pompeii featured characters such as Ludicrus Sextus.
• Names of species in zoology and botany; e.g., some of the Warner Brothers cartoons featuring the Road Runner and Coyote open by presenting them with such titles as Accelerati Incredibus and Carnivorous Vulgaris. (The scientific, in this case Greco-Latin names, for the real roadrunners are Geococcyx californianus and Geococcyx velox and for the coyote, Canis latrans.)
• Magic spells, as in the Harry Potter books (see spells in Harry Potter) and the television series Charmed.
• Mottoes, e.g. Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc translated as "We gladly feast on those who would subdue us," motto of The Addams Family in the first movie, or De Oppresso Liber, the motto of the United States Army Special Forces. Magic spells in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are usually in accurate Latin (and occasionally other languages), but the motto of Sunnydale High School is given as Formatia trans sicere educatorum ("Enter all you who seek knowledge"). In The Red Green Show, the motto of Possum Lodge is given as Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati, which according to the show means "When all else fails, play dead." A motto on an unofficial military patch of the U.S. Air Force 509th Bomb Wing reads Gustatus similis pullus, Dog Latin for "Tastes like chicken."^[3]

A notable instance of this is variations on the phrase Cogito ergo sum, such as "Regato ergo sum" ("I row therefore I am", popular motto of university boat teams), and "Tesco ergo sum" ("I shop therefore I am"), or "Cogito ergo zoom" (I think therefore I drive fast).

• Mottoes, legal and scientific terminology in the Discworld series of books, such as the title of the book Carpe Jugulum, or the Ankh-Morpork City Watch motto: Fabricati diem, pvnc

Specific examples

• The motto of the Harvard Band is "Illegitimum non carborundum est", widely understood to be Dog Latin for "Don't let the bastards wear you down".
• The filler text known as lorem ipsum began as a passage by Cicero, but has been mutated and extended to become Dog Latin.
• The British satirical magazine Private Eye often features a mock Latin oration in the style still used at Oxford University for honorary degrees.
• In The Simpsons episode "Bart on the Road", Bart Simpson comments to his sister Lisa Simpson that she is, "as they say in Latin," a dorkus malorkus; Lisa questions the phrase's authenticity.
• Columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a large portion of a New York Times column in Dog Latin.^[4]
• The motto of the Edgemont High School Latin club is "semper ubi sub ubi", which translates literally as the four words "always where under where", but is meant to be said phonetically as "always wear underwear".
• In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, characters that sometimes speak Latin for fun use the phrase sanguinarius mendax for "bloody liar" (in the British expletive sense), damno malo humore for "damn bad humour", and manum ballum for handball.

Verses

In P. D. Q. Bach's Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, the "Monk's Aria" consists of four stanzas of Dog Latin along the lines of

Et in terra chicken pox romana; Sic sic transit gloria mañana; Sanctus estes Kefauviridiana.

On the other hand, the following verses contain only Latin words, but are in fact disguised English (by use of homophones):

Brutus ad sum iam forte / Caesar aderat / Brutus sic in omnibus / Caesar sic in at.
("Brutus had some jam for tea / Caesar had a rat / Brutus sick in omnibus / Caesar sick in hat.")^[5]

A variant is:

Brutus et erat forti / Caesar et sum iam / Brutus sic in omnibus / Caesar sic intram.
("Brutus ate a rat for tea / Caesar ate some jam / Brutus sick in omnibus / Caesar sick in tram.")

Germans have the Dog Latin phrase:

Rex equus ad Germaniam et multo in plus.
(Literally "King horse to Germany and much in more." In German: "Der König Pferd nach Deutschland und viel ins mehr." Read aloud, it may sound like "Der König fährt nach Deutschland und fiel ins Meer," or "The king is going to Germany and [he] fell in the sea.")

And Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed a humorous musical canon (K. 599) on the text:

Difficile lectu mihi mars et jonicu difficile.
(Literally "Military History is difficult for me to read and Ionic is difficult" but, sung aloud, it sounds like the German (with heavy dialect): "Di' fizzele. Leck du mi' im Arsch. Ja,i' ka' di' fizelle", or in idiomatic English "Screw you. Lick my arse. Yeah, I can screw you." Also, jonicu, when repeated, gives rise to the Italian word for testicles, cujoni.^[6]

The Maastricht dialect (South-Eastern Netherlands) knows an apparently religious phrase:

Este nix pax, Christe nix.
This translates into everyday Dutch as "Als je niets pakt, krijg je niets" or "If you don't take anything, you won't get anything."

See also

• Hiberno-Latin, playful learned Latin literature by Irish monks
• HoboSapiens, a John Cale album
• Homo Consumericus, a concept in the social sciences
• Illegitimi non carborundum, well-known Dog Latin for "don't let the bastards grind you down"
• Latatian, Dog Latin in the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
• Latino sine Flexione, a constructed language based on Latin, but using only ablative as the standard form.
• Macaronic language, using a mixture of languages, such as Latin and English
• New Latin, post-mediaeval Latin used for international science
• Pig Latin, simple verbal code language in English
• Reductio ad Hitlerum, a Dog Latin phrase
• Mots d'Heures, a similar venture in cod-French

References