Dog Latin

Not to be confused with Pig Latin.

Dog Latin, or cod Latin, is a phrase or jargon that imitates Latin,^[1] often by what is referred to as "translating" English words (or those of other languages) into Latin by conjugating or declining them, as if they were Latin words. Dog Latin is usually a humorous device used for mocking scholarly seriousness. The term can also refer to a poor-quality attempt at writing genuine Latin.^[2]

Broken "Latin" inscription in Fishguard

Origins and History

The origins of Dog Latin can be traced back to early examples in literature. For example, Dog Latin predates Shakespeare, whose 1590s play, Love's Labour's Lost, includes a reference to dog Latin:

Costard: Go to; thou hast it ad dungill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.
Holofernes: O, I smell false Latine; dunghill for unguem.^[3][4]

The term was also mentioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1815, indicating its use in scholarly and literary contexts:

Fifty-two volumes in folio, of the acta sanctorum, in dog-latin, would be a formidable enterprise to the most laborious German.^[5]

Examples

• Illegitimi non carborundum, interpreted as "Don't let the bastards grind you down." Offred, the protagonist of the novel The Handmaid's Tale, finds a similar phrase scratched into the wall of her wardrobe: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
• Semper ubi sub ubi is unintelligible in Latin, but translates word for word as 'always where under where', interpreted as 'always wear underwear'.^[6]
• A once-common schoolboy doggerel which, though very poor Latin, would have done a tolerable job of reinforcing the rhythms of Latin hexameters:

Patres conscripti took a boat, and went to Philippi;
Boatum est upsettum, magno cum grandine venti.
Omnes drownderunt qui swim away non potuerunt.
Trumpeter unus erat, qui coatum scarlet habebat;
Et magnum periwig, tied about with the tail of a dead pig.^[7]

Which translates to:

The conscript fathers [i.e. Senators] took a boat and went to Philippi.
The boat was upset by a great hailstorm of wind.
All drowned who could not swim away.
There was a trumpeter, who had a scarlet coat,
and a great periwig, tied about with the tail of a dead pig.

The meter uses Latin vowel quantities for the Latin parts, and to some extent follows English stress in the English parts.

Another variant has similar lines in a different order:

Stormum surgebat et boatum oversetebat
Excipe John Periwig tied up to the tail of a dead pig.^[8]

The meaning here is "The storm rose up and overturned the boat" and "Except for John Periwig", etc.

• Another verse in similar vein, from Geoffrey Willans' Down with Skool, is:^[9]

Caesar adsum jam forte
Brutus aderat
Caesar sic in omnibus
Brutus sic in at

When read aloud using traditional English pronunciation of Latin, it sounds like the following:

Caesar 'ad [had] some jam for tea
Brutus 'ad a rat
Caesar sick in omnibus
Brutus sick in 'at [hat]

But really means:

I, Caesar, am already here by chance
Brutus was present
Caesar thus in all things
Brutus thus in but

• The following spoof of legal Latin, in the fictional case of Daniel v Dishclout (from George Alexander Stevens' "Lecture on Heads", 1765),^[10] describes a kitchen:

camera necessaria pro usus cookare, cum saucepannis, stewpannis, scullero, dressero, coalholo, stovis, smoak-jacko; pro roastandum, boilandum, fryandum, et plumpudding mixandum, pro turtle soupos, calve's-head-hashibus, cum calipee et calepashibus.

In English, this is:

A necessary room for the purpose of cooking, with saucepans, stewpans, scullery, dresser, coalhole, stoves, smoke-jack; for roasting, boiling, frying, and mixing plum pudding, for turtle soups, calves'-head hashes, with calipee and calipashes.

• In a similar vein, a humorous love song of 1782, the text of which is attributed to John O'Keefe, states:

Amo, amas, I love a lass,
As a cedar tall and slender;
Sweet cowslip's grace is her nominative case,
And she's of the feminine gender.

Chorus:
Rorum corum sunt divorum,
Harum scarum divo;
Tag rag merry derry, periwig and hatband,
Hic hoc horum genetivo.

Can I decline a nymph divine?
Her voice as a flute is dulcis;
Her oculus bright, her manus white,
And soft when I tacto her pulse is.

(Chorus)

O how bella my puella
I'll kiss sæcula sæculorum;
If I've luck, sir, she's my uxor,
O dies benedictorum.

• Starting with its second season, The Red Green Show closes each episode with the recitation of the Possum Lodge motto, Quando omni flunkus moritati – which can be translated as "When all else fails, play dead". In one episode, some of the members break away to form the rival Salamander Lodge, whose motto is Quando omni flunkus terra retreatum ("When all else fails, climb under a rock").
• Finnish death metal band Omnium Gatherum gets its name from 1500s era butchered Latin meaning "a hodgepodge of various things".
• The title of death/folk metal Verbal Deception's debut album Aurum Aetus Piraticus is Dog Latin for "Golden Age of Piracy".
• The songs of Era, a musical project by Eric Lévi, usually have nonsensical lyrics written in Dog Latin.
• Many of the Roman military officials in the English version of the cartoon Asterix by René Goscinny have Dog Latin names, e.g. "Crismus Bonus"
• The magazine name Atlas Obscura, while not wrong in and of itself, is improper Latin. In Latin, Atlas is the name of either the Greek Titan, or the mountain range named after him, and does not refer to a collection of maps.
• A running gag in the series of Looney Tunes cartoons starring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner assigns different fake Dog Latin species names in each episode to Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, i.e. "Eatibus Anythingus" and "Acceleratti Incredibilus".^[11] The actual Latin species names for the coyote and road runner were used in a 2003 episode of the series, The Whizzard of Ow.
• The Warhammer 40,000 wargame universe makes frequent use of pseudo-Latin (which is referred to in-universe as 'High Gothic') in its product names and background material.

See also

• Latatian, dog Latin in the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
• Hiberno-Latin, playful learned Latin literature by Irish monks
• Latino sine Flexione, a constructed language based on Latin, but using only ablative as the standard form
• Law Latin, a form of Latin used in English legal contexts, similarly to Law French
• Lorem ipsum, nonsense filler text based on a Cicero work
• Macaronic language, using a mixture of languages, such as Latin and English
• Medieval Latin, including many influences from vernacular languages
• Neo-Latin, Latin used in the modern world
• Pig Latin, simple verbal code language based on English