ceteri vs alii

[Constantinus Philo]

what is the difference between the two? like ceteri Romani - some Romans- alii Romani - other Romans?

[CMatthiasT88]

"Alius means simply other, another (of an indefinite number); alter, the other (of two), often the second in a series; ceteri and reliqui, all the rest, the others; alteruter, one of the two." -A&G 315, Part 2 Syntax: Pronouns, pg. 192

"ceterus -a -um...nominative singular masculine not found;...usually found in the plural ceteri -ae -a." -Cassell's Latin Dictionary pg. 101

[mwh]

ceteri = οἱ ἄλλοι, alii = ἄλλοι. That's all there is to it.

[CMatthiasT88]

Does that clear anything up, Constantinus?

[Constantinus Philo]

yes thank you but i have another question if possible here: alius vs quisdam. In his first letter, Seneca writes quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. I think it would be wrong to use alia here as we did in the reverse translation today: alia tempora....
Also, the sentence 'Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit.' we back-translated as : turpissima tamen jactura neglegentia fit. is this correct? I think it's quite Ciceronian. thankx

[mwh]

Yes quidam (not quisdam) works a bit differently from alius, so they’re not interchangeable. That said, you could use alia instead of quaedam in this Senecan passage without drastically altering the sense.

But what you are calling back-translating is actually just re-writing, in the same language. Back-translating is turning a translation of something back into its original language. For instance there's a papyrus fragment of a Greek translation of the Emperor Augustus’ funeral oration for Marcus Agrippa (delivered in 12 B.C.), and we can attempt to back-translate it into Augustus’ original Latin.

As for the two iactura sentences, they are approximately equivalent if neglegentia is ablative (certainly not if it’s nominative), but in Cicero as in Seneca per neglegentiam is more likely.

[Constantinus Philo]

actually we are back translating: one day we translate something from Latin or Greek into English and then, a day or two later, we translate back from English into the original language. It's quite fun. Greek particles, of course, prove to be a problem.

[mwh]

That sounds like a good exercise—perhaps even better if you allowed more time to elapse before doing the back-translation? I can see the particles would be a problem in the Greek, when they’re so tricky to translate into English in the first place!

Of course you could also try straight Greek-Latin translation or vice-versa, cutting out English altogether—as with Augustus’ laudatio of Agrippa that I mentioned. (I once had a go at that myself.) That's a good way of coming to grips with the differences between Latin and Greek.

[will.dawe]

what is the difference between the two? like ceteri Romani - some Romans- alii Romani - other Romans?

You can consult with Dumesnil or Ramshorn. There are numerous dictionaries of Latin synonyms.