I named my column when it began in 2003 for the old writing rooms in monasteries, the Latin word for a writing room coming from the root scribere, not because I long to live a cloistered monk’s life but because I love calligraphy and old-style paper. So one day I was wondering what I would call my library if I used the Latin word. “Ex Libris,” seen on bookplates, made me think that “libris” means library, but it means “books,” and “Ex Libris” means “from the books of.” I think the phrase means “from the library of” in a more relaxed, symbolic sense.
I studied a Latin dictionary but did not find libris, so I went to the English-to-Latin section, looked up book, and found liber. Liber means the inner bark of a tree, and from that it came to mean book because the “thin inner bark of certain trees was used for writing.” (Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.) Inflected it is libri, and libris is the plural. From liber comes the English word library. But the Latin for library is bibliotheca.
The “biblio-” combining form comes from Greek biblion, meaning book, a diminutive of byblos, which means papyrus, named for the ancient Phoenician city from which papyrus was exported. Biblio- led to “Bible,” and it combines with many suffixes to create a wealth of book words:
Bibliotheca, also an English word. French is bibliotheque.
Bibliography and bibliographer: the list of references, and one who compiles it, at the back of a book.
Bibliology: the history and science of books as physical objects.
Bibliopegy: the art of binding books; bibliopegic and bibliopegist.
Bibliopole: a dealer in rare or curious books.
Bibliotherapy: the use of reading materials for help in solving personal problems or for psychiatric therapy. Reading is daily therapy for me. Sometimes I consult books specifically to solve problems, but mostly the act of reading and the joy of a book made of paper provide therapy no matter the subject, unless it’s economics or politics.
Bibliophile: a lover of books; adjective: bibliophilic; nouns: bibliophilism and bibliophily (this is making my eyes go bibliophunny).
And the winner: Bibliomania: extreme preoccupation with collecting books; a bibliomaniac is a person with such tendencies, and bibliomaniacal is the adjective. Brewer’s said a Spanish scholar named Don Vicente allegedly committed murder to obtain a unique book. I’m a bibliophile, not a bibliomaniac.
(Definitions come from Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary 11th Edition.)
That was fun, but I’m not wild about “bibliotheca.” I just don’t like the sound or look of that word. Some words bother me like that, while others, like scriptorium and libris, make me feel good. So maybe I’ll explore Latin words related to reading.
You know how everybody says that the speaker stands at the podium? Well, he doesn’t stand at the podium; he stands on the podium. He stands behind a lectern, a stand that holds written material. Lectern comes from the Latin legere, which means to read. To keep them straight, think about a podiatrist (a foot doctor) and podium versus a lectern and a lector, the latter meaning one who reads during a worship service. Lector is Latin for reader, and if I understand Latin, a room for reading is a lectorium. I like the sound of that better. So my sanctum sanctorum (sanctum is Latin for sacred place and sanctum sanctorum is the innermost and most sacred chamber of the Jewish tabernacle and temple) is my Scriptorium-Lectorium.
But I also play music in that room, so it is also a Musicium, I think. (I’ve studied enough Latin to throw it about but not enough to be sure of myself.) My room, then, is the Scriptorium-Lectorium-Musicium — I’ll take the Latin over the fun but overused man-cave.