The 53rd Language

In the 70 years since Author Carlo Collodi of Tuscany invented Pinocchio and told his story in Italian, children all over the world have come to know the long-nosed puppet and his kindly maker, Geppetto. His adventuresfrom the day the old woodcarver hewed him out of a log to the morning he turned into a real, live boyhave been told in 52 languages. In Italy last week, Puppet Pinocchio was going through his paces in Language No. 53: a breezy but excellent Latin.

The newest Pinocchio (Pinoculus this time) sold 6,000 copies in a month, and schoolmasters all over Italy were ordering more. Even the Vatican's top classicist, Monsignor Antonio Bacci, was plugging the book as something that Latin teachers have always neededan easy bridge between grammar and the classics. "Here," said Monsignor Bacci, "at last is something."

To keep his version lively, Translator Enrico Mafficini modeled his dialogue on the colloquial Latin of Plautus (died 184 B.C.), and from the first "Fuit quondam . . ." (Once upon a time), the adventures of Pinoculus move as swiftly as ever. He is set upon by bandits who demand his money or his life ("Emitte nummos aut morerel"), and later decide to hang him ("Suspendamus!"'). He is robbed, imprisoned ("Subito in carcarem mittite," cries the judge), encounters a "horridum serpentem," is nearly eaten alive by a fisherman who thinks he is a crawfish.

After these "calamitates," Pinoculus runs off to "Toy Land" (Crepundovia), where there are no schools ("Scholae non sunt") and the walls of the houses bear "Down with arithmetic!" slogans and other "flores sententiarum"

Pinoculus thinks this is a wonderful life ("0 quam dulcis vita!"), until he is turned into a donkey. Later, after being thrown into the sea to drown and being swallowed by a terrible shark ("Ehi, mihi misero," he wails in the black stomach), he finally gets back home and, as a reward for his general goodness, turns into a boy. "Oh," says Pinoculus, "how ridiculous I was when I was a puppetQuam deridiculus apparui, donee pupulus fueram."

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