Taru weapon naming irony.

As you all know, the level 40 Taru weapons have a -suma suffix on their names and the level 80 have a -magna suffix, while level 10 are just the root words by themselves (wherever they come from).

Consulting Wiktionary:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/magnus#Latin
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/summa#Latin

Magna is the feminine form of magnus, meaning large, great, etc. Makes sense, until you look up summa, which is the feminine form of summus meaning highest. So logically, shouldn't -magna be the 40 suffix and -suma be the 80 suffix?

Sorry if this is old news.

Whoa, that is weird. Log a ticket. :f6:

Guess what, Taru isn't Latin.

I don't think Nexon cared as long as it sounded foreign and mystical.

Guess what, Taru isn't Latin.

Yes, but it's no coincidence that the suffixes match two Latin words along the lines of "good, better, best". Names come from somewhere.

I wouldn't go so far as to log a ticket, but I just thought it was a bit ironic.

Hmmm... I always assumed that suma meant total (sum of two numbers) and that magna meant bigger (magnifying glass).

I doubt Nexon really cares about the meaning enough though; it's not worth the time to send a ticket.

I don't think Nexon cared as long as it sounded foreign and mystical.

Precisely.
That's why the Heart Staff is actually a Wand.

This can be taken in more then one way...

Also, it might be based on Latin, but this is a game. Usually games can be based on something, but then twisted up, so it resembles, yet is different.

The Taru Language, Heh.

I know the Latin language very well and summa means something a little bit different:

From the Latin-Spanish VOX dictionary: summa,ae: main, fullness, main circumstance, pre-eminence, primacy, government.

while magnus, a, um: important, most important, powerful, magnanime.


so yeah. I hate to admit Nexon is just ok.

"From the Latin-Spanish VOX dictionary: summa,ae: main, fullness, main circumstance, pre-eminence, primacy, government."

so summa means fullness huh... my ign = rain to the fullest

so summa means fullness huh... my ign = rain to the fullest

lulz. ^^

Interesting. Didn't think Nexon would look up latin stuff for their names. x3

I know the Latin language very well and summa means something a little bit different:

From the Latin-Spanish VOX dictionary: summa,ae: main, fullness, main circumstance, pre-eminence, primacy, government.

while magnus, a, um: important, most important, powerful, magnanime.


so yeah. I hate to admit Nexon is just ok.

Ooh, exciting, another Latin person Special cookie! [On topic] While I agree that Nexon is silly with regard to its understanding of precise Latin semantics...

[Slightly off topic] ... I thought i'd add my bit on the exact meaning of summa and magna.

summus, -a, -um: more like "utmost" rather than "main" or "fullness" - would you agree? It is also "highest" in the sense of "the highest mountain" (mons summa) but it seems to me to stem mainly from "utmost" rather than a separate definition of its own. My definition is based on how I often translate classical texts, rather than a dictionary, so it may be less reliable.

NB: I've just noticed you said "summa, -ae" - maybe you looked up the noun by mistake instead of the adjective?

magnus, -a, -um: more like "great," pretty much covered by the OP. I haven't really seen it used as "important" except metaphorically... Definitely it can be applied to metaphorically great - "She was a great lady" (femina magna erat) - but can also be used as literally great, as in larger - "Pompilius built a ship greater than that of Lucius" (Pompilius navem magnam quo Lucii aedificavit)....Would you agree, Rob? It's difficult to really make any solid statements about a dead language of course

Ooh, exciting, another Latin person Special cookie! [On topic] While I agree that Nexon is silly with regard to its understanding of precise Latin semantics...

[Slightly off topic] ... I thought i'd add my bit on the exact meaning of summa and magna.

summus, -a, -um: more like "utmost" rather than "main" or "fullness" - would you agree? It is also "highest" in the sense of "the highest mountain" (mons summa) but it seems to me to stem mainly from "utmost" rather than a separate definition of its own. My definition is based on how I often translate classical texts, rather than a dictionary, so it may be less reliable.

NB: I've just noticed you said "summa, -ae" - maybe you looked up the noun by mistake instead of the adjective?

magnus, -a, -um: more like "great," pretty much covered by the OP. I haven't really seen it used as "important" except metaphorically... Definitely it can be applied to metaphorically great - "She was a great lady" (femina magna erat) - but can also be used as literally great, as in larger - "Pompilius built a ship greater than that of Lucius" (Pompilius navem magnam quo Lucii aedificavit)....Would you agree, Rob? It's difficult to really make any solid statements about a dead language of course

Sure I agree, but since I've been translating Horatium and Plauto lately, the meanings that came to my mind while looking up for them in the dictionary were those. But, despite the examples which were really good for simple sentences, I would like to add the dictionary itself quotes: magno aestimare 'to estimate the most' or chopping the root of the word (magn-) and comparing it to nouns and verbs like magnitudo, -inis; magnificentia, -ae; magnifico [1, tr.]

And I put summa, -ae, the noun, instead of the adjective since the noun had more possible translations. (It never came to my mind that anyone here studied Latin too). I was looking for this: vitae summa brevis(Horatium, Liber 3, XVI (if i remember well)): the life's shortness. See? Despite summa means big or great (moreless), here emphasizes shortness.

Oh, btw, in the second sentence (Pompilius navem..) it's better, or at least I prefer, to use the comparative form of the adjective instead of the subordination cuz the sentence ends up being shorter and easier to read

Sure I agree, but since I've been translating Horatium and Plauto lately, the meanings that came to my mind while looking up for them in the dictionary were those. But, despite the examples which were really good for simple sentences, I would like to add the dictionary itself quotes: magno aestimare 'to estimate the most' or chopping the root of the word (magn-) and comparing it to nouns and verbs like magnitudo, -inis; magnificentia, -ae; magnifico [1, tr.]

And I put summa, -ae, the noun, instead of the adjective since the noun had more possible translations. (It never came to my mind that anyone here studied Latin too).

Oh, btw, in the second sentence (Pompilius navem..) it's better, or at least I prefer, to use the comparative form of the adjective instead of the subordination cuz the sentence ends up being shorter and easier to read

Oh true. I guess that should be Pompilius navem maior quam quo Lucii aedificavit? Unfortunately magnus is irregular so a comparative wouldn't have worked anyway. I was trying to think of an example that used magnam that in English would have illustrated the literalness of the magnam. How about "Portia is a tall girl, but Caecilius is still taller"? (Portia puella magna est, Caecilius etiam maior)

EDIT: oops, classic mistake - put enim instead of etiam. - doesn't change the example though

This is a very stimulating topic Hope you don't mind if I explore that very interesting phrase "magno aestimare" - this is an interesting example you've raised. Isn't that Latin idiom for "value"? As in, "I value your friendship" (amicitiam tuam magno aestimo). I must admit that I've never heard it translated as "estimate the most" - that seems rather too literal to me, but perhaps you can illuminate some more. I can't think of an author offhand sorry. If it is idiom, perhaps we shouldn't take its meaning as a blueprint for defining magnus/a/um alone?

Regarding looking up the compound derivations of magnus/a/um - forgive me but perhaps this is not the most accurate way to determine the exact meaning of the original word? After all, in English, the word "range" is an element of "rangehood" but you could not define its very diverse meaning (expressing different varieties of "extent") just from looking at "rangehood" "driving range" and "ranger."

Similarly in Latin, if you were trying to define "facio, -ere, -eci, -actum" (make, cause) and just looking at compounds like:
- pontifex, -icis (pons+feci "bridge maker") - literally, "priest"
- magnifico, -ere (magnus+ficio "make great") - not sure what the def. is, but I'm sure you do (:
- interficio, -ere (inter+ficio "between make") - literally, "kill"
- adficio, -ere (ad+ficio "to/at make") - literally "affect" (verb)
As you can see, you might be quite hard pressed to get the entire range of meaning of facio just from looking at "priest", "affect" and "kill".

However I suspect we both agree that magnus can have more than merely metaphoric meaning Some dictionaries would say it has primarily physical meaning, and secondarily metaphorical (different to the English definition of "great"), but that is another discussion for another thread. In MS, certainly, both understandings can apply meaningfully.

Horatium - do you mean Horace? If you are, I loved Horace, I wish I could study him again!

Yeah, I meant Horace, but since I'm not native english speaker I dunno how you call him (My main language is spanish).

Well, estimate the most was very literal, but you got my point

And as for the compounds and the root of the word, you're right about saying that I'm broadening the meanings, but once a professor I had (eminence btw) told me that mashing up different words with the same root gave us an accurate (if not the most) translation of what we try to explain or translate.
After all it's a language and all of them are ruled by the same basics, but together with ancient greek these two tend to take more in count the root meaning when they make compounds.

You brought up pontifex that means ''bridge maker'' and, literally, they were. As in ''In Galliam'' Julius Caesar explained how they builded bridges . The thing here is that what we recognize today when we translate the word isn't their original meaning, is their final form and the mixed up-after-time meaning. (I don't rly know if what I put here is understandeable lol).

And as for ''magnum aestimare'', in fact it means exactly that, so we can clearly agree that this word 'Magnum' is one of the ones that can be used as the writer wants, isn't it?

ON TOPIC(lets see if anyone realizes that after all this Latin conversation we're actually talking about the topic) Magna is better for the lvl 80 wep than Summa.


Sorry Sign if I'm not too clear with what I'm trying to say. It's 6 A.M. here lol.

Btw, did you study Classic Language at university? Or at school?

Interesting, I never knew that...
personally I believe that Nexon wouldn't have cared unless the suffix is interesting enough...