Dummy text

March 17, 2014 6:03 AM

Rrow itself, let it be sorrow; let him love it; let him pursue it, ishing for its acquisitiendum. The standard lorem ipsum text has been translated by Jaspreet Singh Boparai. Lorem ipsum is a standard placeholder text which has been used since the 16th Century and is a mangling of a passage from Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum, specifically Book 1, passages 32-33, which you can read in translation here.
posted by Kattullus (15 comments total)

In the translation of De finibus, ctrl+f and write "32" to get to the right place.
posted by Kattullus at 6:04 AM on March 17, 2014

Li Europan lingues es membres del sam familie. Lor separat existentie es un myth. Por scientie, musica, sport etc, litot Europa usa li sam vocabular. Li lingues differe solmen in li grammatica, li pronunciation e li plu commun vocabules. Omnicos directe al desirabilite de un nov lingua franca: On refusa continuar payar custosi traductores.

At solmen va esser necessi far uniform grammatica, pronunciation e plu commun paroles. Ma quande lingues coalesce, li grammatica del resultant lingue es plu simplic e regulari quam ti del coalescent lingues. Li nov lingua franca va esser plu simplic e regulari quam li existent Europan lingues. It va esser tam simplic quam Occidental in fact, it va esser Occidental. A un Angleso it va semblar un simplificat Angles, quam un skeptic Cambridge amico dit me que Occidental es.

Yo prefera ti-ci. Adminim it significa alquó.
posted by graymouser at 6:19 AM on March 17, 2014 [7 favorites]

O si billi, seum go
Fortibusses en aro.
Ono billi, deus trux
Vatis inem?
Caus andux!
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:26 AM on March 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

The tags ipsum and loremipsum cover the previouslies for MeFites geeking about greeking.
posted by zamboni at 6:56 AM on March 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

I recall reading a somewhat more NSFW claimed translation some years ago, which claimed that it was from a poem on sadomasochism, and meant something like "the whip is love and pain".
posted by acb at 7:25 AM on March 17, 2014

Caesar adsum iam forte.
Brutus aderat.
Caesar sic in omnibus.
Brutis sic inat.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:28 AM on March 17, 2014

How did the word "acquisitiendum" end up in the translation, though it is not in the original?
posted by iotic at 8:00 AM on March 17, 2014

Eponystterikal.
posted by incessant at 8:33 AM on March 17, 2014

How did the word "acquisitiendum" end up in the translation, though it is not in the original?

Oh, but it is, more or less. You have to remember that Lorem Ipsum isn't proper Latin. "Acquisitiendum" is Boparai's 'translation' for adipiscing, a Latin word with an English ending. In Cicero, it's adipisci, but Lorem Ipsum changes the ending to the English 'ing'. To translate it back, 'adipisc' changes to English, and 'ing' changes to Latin. Adipiscendus: which is to be reached or acquired.
posted by zamboni at 8:41 AM on March 17, 2014 [9 favorites]

First the Voynich Manuscript, now this? Interesting coupla months for cryptanalysis.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:34 AM on March 17, 2014

zamboni: "How did the word "acquisitiendum" end up in the translation, though it is not in the original?

Oh, but it is, more or less. You have to remember that Lorem Ipsum isn't proper Latin. "Acquisitiendum" is Boparai's 'translation' for adipiscing, a Latin word with an English ending. In Cicero, it's adipisci, but Lorem Ipsum changes the ending to the English 'ing'. To translate it back, 'adipisc' changes to English, and 'ing' changes to Latin. Adipiscendus: which is to be reached or acquired."

That... is bloody brilliant.

I am in awe.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:55 PM on March 17, 2014

Agreed, excellent answer.

Having had it so clearly explained, I do wonder if the translator might have gone for a more Saxon-sounding English word than acquisition (or acquisitive?) to base this chimeral word on. As it is, "acquisitiendum" comes across more Latin (or Romance) in flavor than English, it seems to me.
posted by iotic at 12:20 AM on March 18, 2014

Nice post. Thanks, Kattullus.
posted by homunculus at 12:47 AM on March 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Article in The Guardian about the translation which includes this brief interview with Jaspreet Singh Boparai:

I asked Boparai how he came up with his version; he said his "basic challenge was to make this text precisely as incoherent in English as it is in Latin - and to make it incoherent in the same way".

So, "the Greek 'eu' in Latin became the French 'bien' in my translation, and the '-ing' ending in 'lorem ipsum' seemed best rendered by an '-iendum' in English".

"I could only do this by steadfastly refusing to see the wood for the trees, and faithfully reproducing every error, and every minute instance of 'what the fuck does this mean?'," he said. " When you spend eight hours a day reading Renaissance Latin texts you get used to elaborate Ciceronian syntax that makes no sense whatsoever, and so the absurdity of this content left me serenely unperturbed."

posted by Kattullus at 4:44 PM on March 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

When I was in Latin 2 in High School (the furthest I got in Latin), we had to translate Kick-a-row regularly, and I gave answers on tests that were not so far away from this translation. I could swear I wrote at some point, "Now amour, the, twhose being, drunk, yet twhitch and, an enclosed valley’s always a laugh." It was like Monty Python time for me. Wish I'd kept some of those tests.
posted by not_on_display at 10:00 PM on March 25, 2014 [1 favorite]