Barack Obama's Latin seal: Vero Possumus / Yes, we can
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Latin's still alive here and there if you look hard enough:
Right above the eagle's head you can see VERO POSSUMUS - yes, we can. In Latino sine Flexione this would be VERO NOS POTE.
Anybody able to photoshop VERO POSSUMUS into VERO NOS POTE?
Edit: I've noticed a lot of comments about the resemblance of possumus to possum. Opossum comes from "Powhatan (Algonquian) apasum "white animal."" The Latin possumus is related to possible and possibility.
And here it is zoomed up:
1 comments:
This is kind of random, but is there some resource on trends in Latin pronunciation? If you read the book "An Instance of the Fingerpost" -- which is very good, by the way -- there is one passage where an Italian makes fun of the pronunciation in vogue in England in the early 1600s.
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