Lexicon recentis Latinitatis
The Lexicon recentis Latinitatis (German: Lexicon of Modern Latin) is a Latin dictionary published by the Latinitas Foundation on behalf of the Vatican .
The lexicon, which in its first edition contains over 15,000 words of today's Italian usage in Latin translation, was published over seven years by 14 Latin experts from the Vatican under the leadership of Karl Egger . Its purpose is, among other things, to keep the one official language of the Vatican, Latin, up to date with the other, Italian. This is to ensure that modern social, political, religious and other problems can be correctly described. Often the new formations of the lexicon, which did not come about without a certain sense of humor, are borrowings from ancient Greek or Italian, but often they are less vocabulary in the real sense than somewhat cumbersome paraphrases of the intended thing, which naturally did not exist in antiquity gave. Here are some examples:
- Barkeeper - tabernae potoriae minister (lit .: "Servant of the drinking tavern")
- Basketball - follis canistrique ludus (lit .: "game of the ball and the basket")
- Computer - instrumentum computatorium (lit .: "calculation device")
- Drug - medicamentum stupefactivum (lit .: "anesthetic medicine")
- Railway - ferrivia (from the Italian "ferrovia")
- Flirt - amor levis (literally: "light love")
- Gangster - gregalis latro (lit .: "group robber")
- Hand grenade - pyrobolus manualis (lit .: "hand-held fire body")
- Hot Pants - brevissimae bracae femineae (lit .: "extremely short female pants")
- Idiot - homo hebes (literally: "feeble-minded person")
- Condom - tegumentum (lit .: "coating, covering")
- Mazurka - saltatio Polonica (lit .: "Polish dance")
- Minigolf - pilamalleus minutus (lit .: "miniature ball hammer")
- Night club - taberna nocturna (lit .: "nightly restaurant")
- Pizza - placenta compressa (literally: "pressed cake")
- Playboy - iuvenis voluptarius (lit .: "young voluptuary")
- Radar - radioëlectricum instrumentum detectorium (lit .: "radio-electrical device for tracking")
- Rodeo - spectaculum equestre (lit .: "riding show")
- Sangría - potio mixta Hispanica (lit .: "mixed Spanish drink")
- Shock - collapsus gravis (lit .: "severe collapse")
- Smog - fumus et nebula (lit .: "smoke and fog")
- Snob - homo affectatus (lit .: "affected person")
- Telenovela - fabula televisifica (lit .: "story on television")
- Videotheque - pellicularum cinematographicarum theca (lit .: "film counter")
- Vodka - valida potio Slavica (lit .: "strong Slavic drink")
- Würstel - botellus Germánicus or botellus Austríacus (lit .: "small German or Austrian sausage")
Editions and edits
The dictionary was published in 1992/97 in a two-volume edition with translations into Italian by Libreria Editrice Vaticana (Volume 1, A — L, ISBN 88-209-1731-9 ; Volume 2, M — Z, ISBN 88-209-2239-8 ). A one-volume edition was published again in 2003 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana ( ISBN 88-209-7454-1 ).
In 1998 Edition Lempertz published a German version under the title New Latin Lexicon ( ISBN 978-3-933070-01-2 ), which in 2001 was identical to the text in Klett as the “ PONS Dictionary of New Latin” ( ISBN 978-3-12-517522 -8 ) was relocated again.