Use of The Term in Modern Languages
The Latin word sanctum may be used in English, following Latin, for "a holy place," or a sanctuary, as in the novel Jane Eyre (1848) which refers to "the sanctum of school room."
Romance languages tend to use the form sancta sanctorum, treating it as masculine and singular. E.g., the Spanish dictionary of the Real Academia Española admits sanctasanctórum (without the space and with an accent) as a derivative Spanish noun denoting both the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem, any secluded and mysterious place, and something that a person holds in the highest esteem.
Read more about this topic: Sanctum Sanctorum
Famous quotes containing the words term, modern and/or languages:
“I am a colored woman or a Negro woman. Either one is OK. People dislike those words now. Today these use this term African American. It wouldn’t occur to me to use that. I prefer to think of myself as an American, that’s all!”
—Annie Elizabeth Delany (b. 1891)
“These modern ingenious sciences and arts do not affect me as those more venerable arts of hunting and fishing, and even of husbandry in its primitive and simple form; as ancient and honorable trades as the sun and moon and winds pursue, coeval with the faculties of man, and invented when these were invented. We do not know their John Gutenberg, or Richard Arkwright, though the poets would fain make them to have been gradually learned and taught.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.”
—Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1934)