The Definitive Latin Translation of “Baby Shark”
By a Woman with Small Children and a PhD in Classics
A note on vocabulary: until the 16th century, there was no fixed term for the class of animal known today as “shark.” Prior to Linnaeus, these fanged sea beasts were commonly referred to, if at all, as “sea dogs,” or merely “monster.” Faced with thirteen taxonomic orders of sharks, each with its own Latinate classification, I have chosen the Lat. “squalus” both for metrical and lexical reasons (this order includes the modern dogfish sharks, thereby maintaining some continuity of meaning).
I have opted for the diminutive in my rendering of “baby,” as the technical infans lacks the cuddly association of Eng. “baby” and, furthermore, implies that adult sharks have the power of speech despite the fact that scholarly consensus (pace Pixar) clearly holds that sharks cannot talk.
To my knowledge, and after conducting an extensive search on Altavista, I have concluded that the Romans did not commonly use informal terms to address maternal or paternal units, of any generational remove. See my forthcoming article on Eidolon about the degree to which this lack of informality proves definitively that ancient Roman children were more respectful than modern millennials. They probably didn’t text so much, either.
