Disputatio:Musica Rockica - Vicipaedia

# Disputatio:Musica Rockica

### E Vicipaedia

Is this really the correct latinsation of 'rock music' (at least that's what i assume it's going for)? --Alynna Kasmira 03:08, 24 Ianuarii 2006 (UTC)

  It seems stupid to me, but it's not the first time I've seen it. --Iustinus 07:07, 24 Ianuarii 2006 (UTC)

  Leo had asked me how to translate it and I told him this (alongside LRL's "modi musici nutantium seque torquentium") was in David Morgan's lexicon. I believe he was going to use "roca et rollus". —Myces Tiberinus 16:49, 24 Ianuarii 2006 (UTC)

  Seems stupid to me, too, barely tolerably so, but I'm hard pressed to think of a better one...musica saxosa for instance doesnt work at all.--Ioshus Rocchio 17:11, 24 Ianuarii 2006 (UTC)

    Yeah, I used that turn of phrase earlier for want of something better. I originally came up with it as a joke title for my mix tape (this was quite a while ago) of modern music with Latin lyrics: Carmina Saxosa. But of course even if "Rock & Roll" did refer to geological rocks (which of course it doesn't), "rocky" might not translate it well.
    This might make me a bad wikipedian, but honestly my philosophy on things like this is that until a perfect translation should turn up we should just try to avoid the subject. --Iustinus 17:25, 24 Ianuarii 2006 (UTC)

  This dispute is sort of my fault, since I'm the David Morgan in whose "lexicon" Myces found "musica rockica." That document (which I put in cyberspace 5 or 6 years ago for a couple of colleagues to consult, then forgot about) was actually a hastily compiled list of all the recent Latin coinages I had found or heard (whether good or bad, silly or serious), as a convenient reference for those colleagues and me to use while preparing an English-Latin dictionary useful for current writers and speakers of Latin (we're still working on it). I agree -- "musica rockica" (which I think I had heard someone use at a spoken Latin conference in Europe) probably goes in the silly category. Remember: not every word we use when writing in Latin has to get case endings slapped on it. The names of pop music categories -- jazz, blues, rock, rap, etc. -- seem to me prime examples of the sort of terms best used in Latin as unaltered, indeclinable loanwords (and so italicized), for several reasons: (1) it's extremely difficult to describe or define them, even at length, let alone in a short expression fit to serve as a name; (2) they're completely international; (3) adding case endings or suffixes to them tends to produce silly-looking, easily ridiculed results (are we really going to say "musica hiphopica"?); and (4) it's usually easy and natural to use the undeclined vernacular terms in apposition with declinable nouns (like "musica," "modi musici," "cantilena"), which avoids syntactical ambiguity. Latin writers from antiquity on (and especially from the Middle Ages on) have dealt in just this way with concepts it wasn't practical or worthwhile to come up with full-fledged declined Latin words for. "Musica rupica" and "musica saxosa" are of course just comic expressions, a quibble on the English word. Speaking of comic expressions, nothing beats in its genre the florid, Ciceronian, slightly moralizing translation of "rock" by the Vatican Latinists -- "modi musici nutantium seque torquentium" ("the music of those who totter and twist themselves"). In the same vein is the phrase of an Italian friend of mine, a brilliant Latinist and passionate adversary of all post-Gregorian-chant musical styles, who calls rock "modi musici hominum perditorum sese effrenate volutantium" (something like "the music of dissolute men who wallow about riotously"). Anyway, I took the liberty of going ahead and rewriting the brief article along the lines of this suggestion; if you all agree with this approach, maybe someone can have the title changed to "musica rock" (with appropriate redirects). Valete, effrenati nutatores. David Morgan, 14 April 2005.

    For my part, I would agree. Musica Rock is much better than rockica or rockosa or rockifer or any other sufficized attempt. Let's go with David's suggestion.--Ioshus Rocchio 17:37, 14 Aprilis 2006 (UTC)
      I agree with his emendations, too, and note the more humble tone of this suggestion, than my suggestion. Let's move it.--Ioshus Rocchio 01:43, 15 Aprilis 2006 (UTC)
        And yes, musica hiphopica would be the height of absurdity.--Ioshus Rocchio 01:45, 15 Aprilis 2006 (UTC)

I think that we should use a single word to express "rock" in latin whithout using an adjective for music, also because we have to find a way to express sub-genres, like hard rock, gothic rock and so on.

    Previous comment by 02:46, 20 Iulii 2006 Flauius Claudius Iulianus

  And what one word can you think of? It's not one word in any language I have ever seen.--Ioshus Rocchio 03:18, 20 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, David's suggestion of "Musica Rock" is probably the best, but I note that Stephanus apparently uses Musica Vibrivolens which is kinda cool. Perhaps as an alternate name or gloss. Also on Stephanus' list of music genres were iassiaca and agrestis. --Iustinus 03:48, 20 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

  Haha, and not musica rustica? I like agrestis. As for iassica, it's too bad about the proper pronunciation of a latin z, otherwise iazica might have been cool (I have always thought the word "jazz" had as much sonorous aesthetic as visual). And while I agree with you Vibrivolens is kind of cool, and a nice coinage, I think you're probably right about David's suggestion.--Ioshus Rocchio 04:00, 20 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

    Proper pronunciation of Latin z? Well, it seems to have been [zd] in Classical Attic Greek, and [ts] in Etruscan, but the fact that the Romans spelled it as ss before they had a <z> shows that it had already gone to [zz] by Helenistic times. I suspect it was just a simple [z] by the classical Roman era, but poets still (out of tradition) scanned it as a double consonant. So really there's no reason that z wouldn't work, but ss just sounds more verisimilar ;)
    And yeah, most people say musica rustica, but musica agrestis might make it clearer. --Iustinus 04:32, 20 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

      Hmmm, I remember a few notes in Palmer about the evolution of "z", and I think he argued more of the dz/zd sound, and Traupman advises "z, dz as in adze", which is certainly a more Italian take on the letter (although the Fiorentine/Toscan dialect is now standard italian, so it's curious that there is no trace of ts anywhere in italian dialects that I have heard (though admittedly, my experience is mostly limited to standard italian and southern dialects)). The ss reminds me of non attic Greek dialects that subsitute σσ for ττ, ie πράττω, πράσσω. Though, I suppose iazica would look like something transliterated from Greek too, like Tzatzicium...--Ioshus Rocchio 05:46, 20 Iulii 2006 (UTC)

Whence the kay? Isn't musica roc, or just plain roc, OK?—that is, with roc indeclinable? Alternatively: if both consonants are to be pronounced (as the typography implies, at least for reconstructed Latin of the Golden Age), ck would automatically become cc, maybe leading to musica rocca. (Remember to sound both cees.) Does anybody object to that? IacobusAmor 21:49, 16 Augusti 2006 (UTC)

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