# Mark Twain Imaginary High School



## linguos

So there's a character in my story, called Peter, who enters an imaginary wonderland and starts attending a school there, which goes by the name of "Mark Twain Imaginary High School". Peter stumbles upon the school accidentally, while having a country walk outside the imaginary town of _Inglostia_. The first time he glances at the school's building he isn't quite aware of its function until he notices the Latin inscription over the front gate with the name of the school in Latin. 

In English it's easy as for some reason they usually don't even use the possesive form with the names of streets or institutions. 

With Latin, the case is however quite different. How should one decline the personal names and surnames? This is as far as I got:
*
Schola Secondaria Imaginaria Marci Twain* (from Mark Twain -> Marcus Twain, I'm not sure what to do with the surname though).

Another problem is that I wasn't certain how to translate "high school" either. I believe that there are at least 3 options here: _Lyceum, Gymnasium_ or simply _schola secondaria_.

What do you think?


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## wandle

The idea of a school building with a name over the gate is already foreign to the ancient world, in which a school would be held in the master's house, with no special name, let alone over the door. The school would usually be named after the master.

Therefore we cannot achieve an authentic ancient concept: but there is no need to try that. 
What we can do is create an imaginary title using genuine classical words.

As to the name Mark Twain, I assume your school is named in honour of him: and that he is not the master teaching the school. Now 'Mark Twain' is actually the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He took it from the call of boatmen on the Mississippi when sounding the depth. 

The boatmen's call 'Mark twain!' means 'Record [a depth of] two [fathoms]!' (A fathom is six feet; two fathoms was the safe depth for a steamboat.) Thus 'Mark Twain' can itself be translated directly as *Nota Duo*, which in Latin is as imaginary as a name could be.

The term 'secondary school' is also foreign to the ancient world: it belongs to the age of public education systems.
An ordinary school would be a *ludus*, or *ludus litterarum*. A more advanced one could be called a *gymnasium*, and *schola* was regularly a term for a philosophical or rhetorical school, at the highest level of study, comparable to a university, though without the great variety of disciplines we associate with that today.
For 'imaginary', a good Ciceronian word is *commenticius*, *imaginarius* being somewhat later.

Hence I would suggest (treating *Nota Duo* as an indeclinable proper name):

*Gymnasium Commenticium in Honorem Nota Duo*


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## linguos

Thank you very much for your illuminative answer, *wandle*. 

I need, however, to straighten things out a little bit with respect to what I was actually trying to achieve, namely a Latin name of a modern type of secondary school with its curriculum and organisation very close to that of the British grammar schools. A name that would be fairly easily understood to any person who had any previous contact with the language of the ancient Romans. 

Many modern institutions of higher education still preserve the tradition of using their Latin names on some of their isignia or even during formal events. Thus, _Universitas Oxoniensis_ is the Latin name for the University of Oxford, _Universitas Cantabrigiensis_ belongs to the University of Cambridge and the Latin equivalent of the Polish Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń is _Universitas Nicolai Copernici, _with the eponym in the genitive case. I'm sure there are also some secondary schools which do the same, for instance, in my own city there's a private Catholic high school called _Collegium Salesianum Bydgostiensis_ and there's a school in Brooklyn with the inscription _Schola Latina Brookliniensis_ and a Latin motto _Cui multum sit datum, multum ab eo postulabitur_ on their emblem (vide: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5b/Brooklyn_Latin_School_Logo.png). In fact this seal of the Brooklyn Latin School is my reference point - I would like my imaginary school from the story to have such a seal carved on its front wall. 

In the given examples we can see two different terms applied in various places to mean "high school": _collegium_ and simply _schola_. Therefore the whole list so far of potential terms which we could use for the story is as follows:    _ateneum,   collegium,  gymnasium, lyceum _and_ schola (secondaria)_.  

Your suggestion of "Gymnasium Commenticium" sounds very good to me - the reader should automatically realise that the protagonist is looking at a building of a school of secondary education as there are quite a few European countries, of which Germany is probably the best example, where high schools are called _gymnasia_. Futhermore, the word "commenticium" would (hopefully) allude to a small aura of mysticism, as it may be slightly less straightforward than "imaginaria". 

So the only problem would remain with affiliating our school with the famous writer:_
- Gymnasium Commenticium in Honorem Marci Twain(i)_? 
_- Gymnasium Commenticium in Honorem Marcus Twain_? _
- Gymnasium Commenticium Marci Twaini_?


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## wandle

> So the only problem would remain with affiliating our school with the famous writer:
> - Gymnasium Commenticium in Honorem Marci Twain(i)?
> - Gymnasium Commenticium in Honorem Marcus Twain?
> - Gymnasium Commenticium Marci Twaini?



Why not *Nota Duo*? My feeling was that the writer would have appreciated this (if I may say so) witty rendering, as it preserves the meaning of the name and the association with the Mississippi.


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## linguos

Yes, it is indeed very clever and it gave me this idea that the pupils  at the school could have their own sort of slang in which the term "Nota  Duo" would mean the renowned writer.

However, in case of the  official name of the school, it just doesn't seem as "apt" to me.   Besides I want the reader to know why the students and the staff are  using terms from Twain's books or why the 30th of November is an  important day at this school without explaining it later through the narrator. 

And  I also want to have a model for declining other modern names and  surnames in Latin. So, should I decline only the first name or the  surname as well? If so, how should I treat the surname? The name Mark is  derived from Marcus, so the 2nd declension applies, but what about the  surname Twain?


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## wandle

The usual convention is that if the surname is not already a declinable form, then *-ius* is added at the end, thus: *Twainius*.
That is why many north European surnames have that or a similar ending.

The genitive will be *Twainii*.

What, I wonder, would be the reaction of the creator of Huck Finn and author of the line, 'Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run' (see The Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation)?


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## linguos

Heh, yes, I know, it's supposed to be an irony.  

Mr Clemens was mostly a homeschooler, so I liked the idea of a classical grammar school with rigourous curriculum in Latin and mathematics named after him.  

At one point in the story, the main character (called Alex) will start a small rebellion against the more strict teachers who flood the students each and every day with an immense amount of homework, so that the pupils have no time left for entertainment and some more creative activities than mechanically declining and conjugating Latin parts of speech or finding the limits and derivatives of given functions. The students led by Alex, with the help of the few more understaning teachers, will try to make their rigid pedagogues realise that there's more to education than sitting obediently in a classroom. As you can see, the plot of the story is going to be slightly based on the _Dead Poets Society_, which is a drama that the author of my favourite line - _"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."_ - would probably appreciate.

Anyway, _Twainius_ sounds perfect, but appart from the "acustic merits" is there any (linguistical/historical/etc.) reason why it'd be better to add the _-ius_ suffix rather than the simpler _-us_? (This is just to satifsy my greedy curiosity as I'm more than settled on _Marcus Twainius_ and _Nota Duo_)


Btw, if we were to Latinise the original name of Mark Twain, would _Samuel Clementius_ be sufficient? Samuel is an ancient, Hebrew name, and it seems that the speakers of the ancient Latin didn't add any suffixes to it in order to make it sound more Latin.


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## wandle

> is there any (linguistical/historical/etc.) reason why it'd be better to add the -ius suffix rather than the simpler -us?


The form *-ius* is used because Twain by itself does not constitute a Latin stem. 
The *-i-* acts as a means of converting any non-Latin stem into a Latin form.


> if we were to Latinise the original name of Mark Twain, would Samuel Clementius be sufficient?


Well, Clemens itself is the nominative form of the Latin word for merciful, so you could say *Samuel Clemens*; or *Samuel Langhornius Clemens*; unless we invent a name *Longicornus *(long-horned).


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