![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetLatin for Gamers: Intertextuality
Gamer-speak is very allusive (like the language of the Tamarians). The habit of quoting (or misquoting) poignant lines from (un)pop-cultural sources is found as much around the gaming table as it is in any other moment in a gamer's life (if there are others). It enables the gamer to participate in the rich cultural heritage of dorkdom, to display competitively his or her vast knowledge of this heritage, and to fill up gaps in conversation when an original thought simply will not do.
So we'd better translate some of these puppies into Latin. I have had to be highly selective; I could do an entire installment, no doubt, with quotations from just Star Wars or Monty Python, but I think we all get enough of that as it is. In a few cases I had to make sure of the exact wording of the originals -- and that, my friends, is what the internet is for.
In one instance I have "translated" a line from Star Wars with a line from the Heautontimoroumenos. How cool is that?
It's only a flesh wound.
Leve vulnus tantum in carne accepi.
Look at the bones!
Ecce adspicite ossia!
Have fun storming the castle!
Fruamini expugnando castello!
I never drink ... wine.
Numquam bibo ... vinum.
No, Luke, I am your father!
Minime, Luci! Ego sum pater tuus!
Today is a good day to die.
Hodiernus dies aptus est ad moriendum.
I attack the darkness!
Tenebras oppugno!
You have chosen wisely.
Sapienter elegisti.
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
Opprimere hostes, videre eos ante te agi, audire lamentationes mulierum.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Numquam invenies latibulum abiectius sentinae nequitiaeque.
Spoooooooon!
Cooooooooochleare!
There is no spoon.
Cochleare non est.
I'll be back.
Reveniam.
I have a cunning plan.
Est mihi callidum consilium
I've got a bad feeling about this.
Nescio quid profecto mi animus praesagit mali.
I see you shiver with antici - pation.
Vos video horrentes ob exspecta - tionem.
Laugh it up, fuzzball!
Perride, lanate!
Daddy needs a new Sword of Wounding!
Tata eget gladio novo incantato ad vulnerandum!
He's dead, Jim.
Mortuus est, Jacobe.
My Precioussss!
Pretiosisssssimum!
Don't speak Latin in front of the books, Xander.
Noli latine loqui libros coram, Alexander.
Gamer-speak is very allusive (like the language of the Tamarians). The habit of quoting (or misquoting) poignant lines from (un)pop-cultural sources is found as much around the gaming table as it is in any other moment in a gamer's life (if there are others). It enables the gamer to participate in the rich cultural heritage of dorkdom, to display competitively his or her vast knowledge of this heritage, and to fill up gaps in conversation when an original thought simply will not do.
So we'd better translate some of these puppies into Latin. I have had to be highly selective; I could do an entire installment, no doubt, with quotations from just Star Wars or Monty Python, but I think we all get enough of that as it is. In a few cases I had to make sure of the exact wording of the originals -- and that, my friends, is what the internet is for.
In one instance I have "translated" a line from Star Wars with a line from the Heautontimoroumenos. How cool is that?
It's only a flesh wound.
Leve vulnus tantum in carne accepi.
Look at the bones!
Ecce adspicite ossia!
Have fun storming the castle!
Fruamini expugnando castello!
I never drink ... wine.
Numquam bibo ... vinum.
No, Luke, I am your father!
Minime, Luci! Ego sum pater tuus!
Today is a good day to die.
Hodiernus dies aptus est ad moriendum.
I attack the darkness!
Tenebras oppugno!
You have chosen wisely.
Sapienter elegisti.
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
Opprimere hostes, videre eos ante te agi, audire lamentationes mulierum.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Numquam invenies latibulum abiectius sentinae nequitiaeque.
Spoooooooon!
Cooooooooochleare!
There is no spoon.
Cochleare non est.
I'll be back.
Reveniam.
I have a cunning plan.
Est mihi callidum consilium
I've got a bad feeling about this.
Nescio quid profecto mi animus praesagit mali.
I see you shiver with antici - pation.
Vos video horrentes ob exspecta - tionem.
Laugh it up, fuzzball!
Perride, lanate!
Daddy needs a new Sword of Wounding!
Tata eget gladio novo incantato ad vulnerandum!
He's dead, Jim.
Mortuus est, Jacobe.
My Precioussss!
Pretiosisssssimum!
Don't speak Latin in front of the books, Xander.
Noli latine loqui libros coram, Alexander.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 01:49 pm (UTC)White Wolf Report
"I ATTACK THE DARKNESS!"
Members of the band The Darkness were brutally attacked by a crazed D&D Gamer and were bludgeoned with PCP Pipe swords and bags of bird seed.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 01:41 pm (UTC)Re: Help, I fell into the LJ pit...
Date: 2004-01-13 02:15 pm (UTC)I like "Elvides," too, although "Elves" is possible if potentially misleading. "Elvi" is right out, of course.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 08:18 pm (UTC)Nomen mihi Inigo Montoya. Patrem meum interfecisti. Pare te ad moriendum.
Probably there's a more Latinate way to do the name.
As for the first, something like:
Illud verbum dictitas. Non puto id significare quod tu putas id significare.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 02:41 pm (UTC)Of course I've done my own attempts at a few of those, so I lose some honor points by enjoying your translations ;) The only one I really wanted to comment on, though, was this:
I traditionally perform this scene in Latin for my students (complete with silly voices), and it never fails to get applause. The only difference in my translation is: Immo, Luca. Immo means roughly "on the contrary," so it works well here. And of course the English lame Luke is directly equivalent to the Greco-Latin Lucas (which has the added benefit of also being the surname of a certain Georgius).
To be honest, I don't recognize this one. But it does remind me of an exchange from one Tracy Hickman's Killer Breakfast I took part in:
Player: I hide in the shadows.
Hickman: OK. [Pregnant pause.] The shadows attack.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 02:46 pm (UTC)Totus tuus basis sunt esse nostri!
All your base are belong to us!
The problem with this version is that it looks more like a bad an literal translation of the English phrase, rather than an even worse and non-literal translation of the original Japanese.
no subject
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:28 pm (UTC)http://www.deadalewives.com/funny.ccc
There's also a part 2 to the D&D bit, but it doesn't seem to be on their page. Can probably find it on file-sharing services though, they say to on their order page. :D
It was also turned into a video called Summoner Geeks, which can be watched here:
http://www.ifilm.com/filmdetail?ifilmid=220487
:)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 02:44 pm (UTC)I have recently been inspired by a business administration doctoral dissertation that used wizards and dragons as metaphors for interdepartmental dynamics in IT organisations, so now I think everyone's doctoral dissertation should have a fantasy component. But especially yours.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:19 pm (UTC)Noli latine loqui libros coram, Alexander.
I just used this line (in English, and without the 'Xander') as the header for a section of one of my syllabi; I'm not sure whether to be disappointed that I didn't think to use the Latin or pleased that it's a line worth including on this list. I'll have to remain resolutely ambivalent.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 03:58 pm (UTC)I was just commenting the other day how someone needs to produce a Cartoonist's and Gamer's Guide to Latin. It's pathetic how they are drawn in by disjointed Latin caveman babble like "usque noctem" and the like, they need resources to expand their vocabulary and their minds! This could even serve to lure them into the cult known as Classical Studies.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 09:55 pm (UTC)I had wondered why so many folks seemed to prefer "noctem" to the other cases of nox, and now I know that too ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-13 04:02 pm (UTC)Ecce!
Date: 2004-01-13 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 11:45 am (UTC)I think it's cool that Picard reads the Homeric Hymns in that one!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-14 07:29 pm (UTC)