Talk:Latinum

RFM discussion: May–August 2020

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Latinum, latinum

The noun sections defining this as a neuter 2nd declension noun for "the Latin language": seems like one should probably be given as an {{altcaps}} of the other, although one has a context label the other doesn't and one claims to have a plural. - -sche (discuss) 07:35, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Merged onto Latinum. The template still automatically says the capitalized form is singular-only while the lowercase lists a plural. - -sche (discuss) 01:17, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Pinging two recently-active Latin speakers, @Brutal Russian, GianWiki: does the noun mentioned above have a plural (in which case it should be made to display somehow on the capitalized entry), or not (in which case it should be suppressed on the lowercase entry and the forms, if spurious, should be deleted)? - -sche (discuss) 01:42, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@-sche No, it can't have a plural. The noun is properly either an abstract noun meaning "the effect or state of being Latin", or a concrete noun meaning "a Latin thing", and the fact that it refers to the language is idiomatic more than anything else, and in the non-peculiarly medieval language can only be used in prepositional phrases or as part of the compound predicate - the second usage example illustrates the latter. There are some examples of prepositionless oblique cases in DMLBS, but the hearer simply wouldn't know which "being Latin" you meant if you made it the subject of a sentence. If you make it a plural, it stops being abstract and starts being a concrete referrence to writings, or, in Medieval Latin, words (for those folks seemingly a metaphysical concept). I'm not sure how to capture all of this, to be honest. Brutal Russian (talk) 07:08, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@-sche If the term is used to indicate the Latin language, I'd say there's no plural. — GianWiki (talk) 10:08, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Latīnitās just like Latinity and Englishes does have a plural - languages are countable. Brutal Russian (talk) 10:13, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Resolved. - -sche (discuss) 08:13, 2 August 2020 (UTC)