Lingua Latīna - Lēctiōnēs

[kanejam]

Intrōductīō

Welcome to the thread on Latin!

I'm sure you all know plenty about Latin; I'm only just learning myself and I in no way consider myself fluent so any corrections, tips or filling-in-the-blanks from other members will be greatly appreciated. Anyway, we'll start with some basics. Latin is an Italic language, descended from Proto-Indo-European and is the only member of the Italic branch with any surviving descendants. Its ancestor Old or Archaic Latin was the language of the Roman Kingdom and the early Roman Republic, with the Classical Latin, presented here, being spoken by the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. The spoken language evolved quickly into Vulgar Latin and soon split into its separate Romance languagegs, but the Classical language continued to be used albeit with various regional pronunciations and morphologies.


Lēctiō Ūnus

Phonology

Here is the the generally accepted reconstructed phonology:
/a e i o u/ <a e i o u>
/m n/ <m n>
/p t k kʷ/ <p t c qu>
/b d g/ <b d g>
/f s h/ <f s h>
/l r j w/ <l r i/j u/v>

All phonemes can appear geminate/long: in the case of the consonants they are written doubled as in annus /ˈanːus/ 'year'. Vowels usually aren't marked (which is a bit of a pain) but I will mark them with a macron in any reference form: ānus /ˈaːnus/ 'ring, anus'. Both annus and ānus contrast with anus /ˈanus/ 'old woman'.

In classical times, no orthographic distinction was made between the high vowels and the two semivowels. I will represent them differently here but please take note that some texts won't make the distinction, especially between i and j. So where in classical times they might write IVLIVS, I will write Jūlius /ˈjuːlius/. This can be helpful to distinguish it from a word such as iūlus /iˈuːlus/. /kʷ/ and borderline /gʷ/ will be written <qu> and <gu>. Following this I will spell the word /kʷatːu.or/ 'four' as quattuor. A <j> when written between vowels is always realised as geminate. This is largely the accepted standard today, although leaning in favor of phonemic spelling rather than traditional spelling.

There are also five or six diphthongs: <ae> /aj/, <oe> /oj/, <ei> /ej/, <au> /aw/, <eu> /ew/ and possibly <ui> /uj/.


Notes on Pronunciation

Take note of these as these are the most important:
- <x> represents two consonants [ks]. It is always voiceless, as is <s> /s/.
- <p t c> are all unaspirated.
- <c> and <g> are always hard [k g], never soft. /g/ before /n/ is realised as [ŋ].
- <h> is always pronounced except after voiced stops.
- /n/ assimilates to [m] before <p b> and to [ŋ] before <c g qu x>.
- <v> is always [w] not [v], <j> when it appears is [j] not [dʒ]. There is an epenthetic [j] between /i/ and another vowel and a [w] between u and another vowel although this isn't written: duo [ˈdʊwa], Julius [ˈjuːlɪjʊs].

And these ones are optional:
- The short vowels can be pronounced as slightly more lax and open /a ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/. This is the pronunciation I try to do, although simple long short variants might be easier for some to pronounce.
- /l/ can be realised as dark in some positions. I'm not entirely sure when, so if you're desperate you can research it yourself. English speakers can get away with using whatever /l/ they would normally use.
- <ph th ch y> are Greek loans; you can pronounce them as /pʰ tʰ kʰ y/ if you want to sound like an educated nobleman. Most people would probably pronounce them as /p t k i/. There is also <z> which might be realised as [z] or [dz].
- Word final /m/ is realised as vowel nasalisation. /n/ before /s/ or /f/ is usually lost and lengthens and nasalises the preceding vowel: monstrum /monstrum/ [mɔ̃ːstrʊ̃].

Please let me know if there is something important I missed! I don't want to go into anymore detail than this though and if you want to know more visit the Wikipedia page which is very informative.


Stress

There is a very easy rule to tell where a word should be stressed, although it can be difficult to work out depending on the orthography used. Any: if the penultimate syllable is heavy then it is stressed, otherwise the antepenult is stressed. A syllable is heavy if it is either long or closed. The syllable can be closed by a consonant, including double consonants, so they are probably better described C.C rather than Cː so for example /pu.el.la/ is stressed on the second syllable: [pʊˈɛlla]. Simple right?

Two syllable words are always stressed on the first syllable, apart from a handful of exceptions that are really contractions. We won't bother with those now. One last thing: suffixes such as -que, meaning 'and', can shift the stress of a word.


Summary

This should all be very easy but make sure to memorise it. Here are a few exercises: write these in IPA with the stressed marked: quaestiō (inquiry), jānitor (doorman), Cicerō, vehēbantur, lachryma and perjucundus, as well as the title of this thread.

[Lambuzhao]

any corrections, tips or filling-in-the-blanks from other members will be greatly appreciated.

Okay. A teacher needs to use accepted norms of orthography in a language.
Especially if they are going to teach it. It's frustrating enough when learning a new language, but then if a student goes to a dictionary or online resource to look something up, and cannot find it, even more so.

Suggestions -
/l r j w/ <l r i/j u/v>

Did you mean <l r i/j u/w> ?


"Lingva" and "quattvor" look suspiciously like Esperanto. The letter combination "gv" exists in square capitals for monument inscriptions like QVINCTVS AVGVSTVS <Quintus Augustus>. A brief Google search will not produce any Latin Language with "lingva" in it. Lewis & Short does, but as a quotation of the XII Tabulae: VTI LINCVA NVNCVPASSIT <uti lingua nuncupassit>, which, you guessed it, was a monumental inscription (plus, check out how <V> is used for as well. None of my other dictionaries (Cassell's, Vox, Bantam) have that spelling. Since the lesson admits to a "qu", you need to go the full monty and use a "gu". Either that, or go the other way and use "v" everywhere for both "v" and "u". Likewise, then, <c> should do double duty for <c, g>.

Spoiler:

But I had enough of that CARBACE in Latin Epigraphy class.

Similarly, "j" is not a Latin letter per se . It was used as one by either Old French or Middle High German. Again, most accepted orthographies use "i" in all places, even as a consonant. For example, with Google I found perjucundus in a French Latin manual dated 1710. I only find periucundus.

Enough cannot be said about <ch>! It was used Medievally for <h> e.g. michi.


If you're going to to teach a language, be explicit about using something new and innovative in spelling. Otherwise, remember to use more generally accepted norms of the language, so your students have more moments of exstasy rather than agony.

Good start. We will be watching with great interest.

[Ear of the Sphinx]

any corrections, tips or filling-in-the-blanks from other members will be greatly appreciated.

Okay. A teacher needs to use accepted norms of orthography in a language.
Especially if they are going to teach it. It's frustrating enough when learning a new language, but then if a student goes to a dictionary or online resource to look something up, and cannot find it, even more so.

Suggestions -
/l r j w/ <l r i/j u/v>

Did you mean <l r i/j u/w> ?

Didn't ‹w› stand for ‹vu/uv› in Latin?

"Lingva" and "quattvor" look suspiciously like Esperanto. The letter combination "gv" exists in square capitals for monument inscriptions like QVINCTVS AVGVSTVS <Quintus Augustus>. A brief Google search will not produce any Latin Language with "lingva" in it. Lewis & Short does, but as a quotation of the XII Tabulae: VTI LINCVA NVNCVPASSIT <uti lingua nuncupassit>, which, you guessed it, was a monumental inscription (plus, check out how <V> is used for as well. None of my other dictionaries (Cassell's, Vox, Bantam) have that spelling. Since the lesson admits to a "qu", you need to go the full monty and use a "gu". Either that, or go the other way and use "v" everywhere for both "v" and "u". Likewise, then, <c> should do double duty for <c, g>.

Maybe 'e just goes for ‹v j› for non-syllabic and ‹u i› for syllabic ones (‹qu› being a stamped exception)?

[Ambrisio]

Esperanto would of course be u-breve, not v!

Well, let's go ahead and vse 'v' all the time! After all, we're Romans here, aren't we? :-)

Spoiler:

quaestio: - /'kwais.tjo:/
ja:nitor - /'ja:.nɪ.tɔr/
Cicero: - /'kɪ.kɛ.ro:/
vehe:bantur - /wɛ.he:.'ban.tur/
lachryma/lacrima - /'lak.rɪ.ma/
periucundus - /pɛr.jʊ.'kʊn.dʊs/

Lingua Lati:na - Le:ctio:ne:s /'lin:gwa la.'ti:.na - le:k'tjo:ne:s/

I don't have macrons on my keyboard, so I used colons for long vowels. While we're on the subject of weird orthographies, why can't we just write double vowels, Estonian style (like 'leectioonees')? I know it looks weird, but it isn't any weirder than 'töööö' (work night)!

And what do those words mean? (I know 'lachryma' is tear, an 'Le:ctio:ne:s' is 'lessons' (lit. readings). 'Quaestio:' sounds like it's derived from a verb. What is that verb, and does it mean the same thing as Spanish 'querer'? And what about 'monstrum'? It looks like 'monster', but I can see the same root in our word 'demonstrate'.)

[kanejam]

Milyamd is correct, I am trying to distinguish between two pairs or phonemes i.e. /i j/ and /u w/ in my written text for several reasons: just about every text does make the <u/v> distinction in most places except occasionally after consonants like lingua and quattuor. Why not push the distinction all the way? And why not make the same distinction between /i j/ which isn't completely out of the blue anyway? My system has great consistency with only one exception: <qu>

I want my readers to be able to pronounce the words I give them easily, and where to stress a word might depend on whether a word has a syllabic high vowel or a non-syllabic approximant. This is the same reason I will mark long vowels in any citation form I give, which normally aren't reproduced. You won't see a single macron on the Latin Wikipedia but you will see plenty of v's alongside the u's.

If someone needs to look up a word and they can't find it because I am using slightly non-standard orthography then all they need to do is change the j's to i's and the v's to u's, although most resources use <v> intervocalically and word-initially.

I don't think <w> was ever used to write Latin in Classical times. If it was it would have been a simple ligature of UV or VU, as in EQWS/EQVVS. The actual letter <w> didn't become a proper grapheme until much later and was used principally for Germanic languages.

If people find it really too striking I will change the rules slightly to remove v after consonants and possibly even j. This will be about in line with what other transcription methods use.

Good start. We will be watching with great interest.

I hope that wasn't sarcastic. I am trying to make good lessons here but I will accept that I'm not as knowledgeable about this as I should be.

[kanejam]

Esperanto would of course be u-breve, not v!

Well, let's go ahead and vse 'v' all the time! After all, we're Romans here, aren't we? :-)

Spoiler:

quaestio: - /'kwais.tjo:/
ja:nitor - /'ja:.nɪ.tɔr/
Cicero: - /'kɪ.kɛ.ro:/
vehe:bantur - /wɛ.he:.'ban.tur/
lachryma/lacrima - /'lak.rɪ.ma/
periucundus - /pɛr.jʊ.'kʊn.dʊs/
Lingua Lati:na - Le:ctio:ne:s /'lin:gwa la.'ti:.na - le:k'tjo:ne:s/

I don't have macrons on my keyboard, so I used colons for long vowels. Why can't we just write double vowels, Estonian style (like 'leectioonees')? I know it looks weird, but it isn't any weirder than 'töööö' (work night)!

And what do those words mean? (I know 'lachryma' is tear, an 'Le:ctio:ne:s' is 'lessons' (lit. readings). 'Quaestio:' sounds like it's derived from a verb. What is that verb, and does it mean the same thing as Spanish 'querer'? And what about 'monstrum'? It looks like 'monster', but I can see the same root in our word 'demonstrate'.)

Esperanto uses v as well and the word for language is indeed lingva but the <v> is pronounced as a /v/ rather than a /w/. Anyway very good transcriptions! You didn't fall for any traps which shows you know the rules well one small error though, in quaestio and lectiones the i is its own syllable rather than a semi-vowel (which I'll mark with j for now). Also you have a n: in lingua which is wrong but might be a mistake.

Monstrum does indeed mean 'monster', but also a bad omen or anything that invokes fear. If you want to look up a word, wiktionary is very good as it shows long vowels and sometimes even pronunciation. Quaestio means 'inquiry' and is the ancestor to French and English question. It is ultimately derived from quaerō/quaerere meaning among other things to seek or inquire. It is indeed where Spanish querer comes from. Vehebantur is a verbal construction on vehō/vehere which is the verb to carry. Periucundus/perjucundus means 'very pleasant'.

Here is a quote for you: quaerendō inveniētis - seek and you shall find. Next lesson I will introduce cases.

[Lambuzhao]

Good start. We will be watching with great interest.

I hope that wasn't sarcastic. I am trying to make good lessons here but I will accept that I'm not as knowledgeable about this as I should be.[/quote]

Minime gentium - Not in the least! Ignosce mihi!!
I'm very happy to see a fellow amator linguæ latinæ flex their muscle.

If someone needs to look up a word and they can't find it because I am using slightly non-standard orthography then all they need to do is change the j's to i's and the v's to u's, although most resources use <v> intervocalically and word-initially.

That just seems like extra work for a student to remember

Spoiler:

on top of 5 declensions, 4 regular conjugations

Why not push the distinction all the way? And why not make the same distinction between /i j/ which isn't completely out of the blue anyway?

I understand from a linguistic perspective, how that would make sense.

Why not, indeed. Historically, though, the Romans either used all <V> (in monument inscriptions) for /u,v/ . Same with <C>, which did duty for /g,c/, and <I> for /i,j/.

Lupus Augustus equum Gaii ubicumque ululavit.

LVPVS AVCVSTVS EQVVM CAII VBICVMQVE VLVLAVIT

Hmmm, do you mean something like this -

lupus Avgustus eqvum Gaji ubicumqve ululavit.

It isn't impossible. And as you put it, for examples like equus, populusque,
Gaius, why not eqvus, populusqve, Gajus?

why not push it all the way?

Well, there are reasons. I will point out something relating to <quattuor>. From a Latin Scansion perspective, <u> is treated as a short vowel /u/ and not /w/ - /qua.t:u.or/ not /quat.twor/. Frankly, I do not believe that <ttu> or <ctu> or <ptu> were ever realized as triconsonantal cluster in Latin, and we can look back at poetry to give us some ideas. Ironically, the Romans themselves actually did us a favor in some graffiti, and wrote <quattor> (!)

As for words like ninguit, languor, lingua, pinguis and sanguis, the <u> scans like a /w/. It seems like <ngu> was an allowable triconsonantal cluster after all(?!) According to your new rule, these words would be ningvit, langvor, lingva, pingvis and sangvis. Kewl Kevl.

Cf. Califf, A Guide to Latin Meter and Verse Composition.

Bene factum,


Post Scriptum -

I don't have macrons on my keyboard, so I used colons for long vowels. While we're on the subject of weird orthographies, why can't we just write double vowels, Estonian style (like 'leectioonees')? I know it looks weird, but it isn't any weirder than 'töööö'

Well, first, in Latin-country, those colons are called diaeresis. They are used to make a vowel sound apart from another nearby vowel, instead of as a diphthong.

Second, a macron is the most generally accepted way to show length. However, the Romans also used something that looked like the acute accent to indicate vowel length, at least in the Square Capital inscription style for monuments.
Ergo

LÍNCVA LATÍNA LÉCTIÓNÉS

Post Post Scriptum -

I think that one of the DUMBEST things regarding "modern" Latin orthography happens to be NOT INCLUDING macra/some other way to easily indicate vowel length. After all, for all Latin verse it's so darned important, so why make it a secret?
I say KUDOS to your efforts in this arena!

[Ambrisio]

those colons are called diaeresis

I use the diaeresis for long vowels in my conlang Quququqquq, which coincidentally has three Latin borrowings: aqua 'water', qua 'as', and quaqua 'wherever'. (But the pronunciations are very different - /a.qu.a/, /qu.a/ and /qu.a.qu.a/). I guess I should post a Proto-Ginosic or Quququqquq lesson thread soon, if anyone's interested.

vehō/vehere 'to carry'

So: is it /'vɛ.hɛ.rɛ/?

quaerendo invenietis

I know this saying from Bach's Musical Offering. And by the way, are there any long vowels in this saying? I need to know this so I can stress the right syllable.

[kanejam]

Good start. We will be watching with great interest.

I hope that wasn't sarcastic. I am trying to make good lessons here but I will accept that I'm not as knowledgeable about this as I should be.

Minime gentium - Not in the least! Ignosce mihi!!
I'm very happy to see a fellow amator linguæ latinæ flex their muscle.

Tibi ignosco! I don't know how you complain about my orthography when you use <æ> but anyway, amator sum, but also a bit of a novice - novicius sum?

If someone needs to look up a word and they can't find it because I am using slightly non-standard orthography then all they need to do is change the j's to i's and the v's to u's, although most resources use <v> intervocalically and word-initially.

That just seems like extra work for a student to remember

Spoiler:

on top of 5 declensions, 4 regular conjugations

Why not push the distinction all the way? And why not make the same distinction between /i j/ which isn't completely out of the blue anyway?

I understand from a linguistic perspective, how that would make sense.

Why not, indeed. Historically, though, the Romans either used all <V> (in monument inscriptions) for /u,v/ . Same with <C>, which did duty for /g,c/, and <I> for /i,j/.

- Lupus Augustus equum Gaii ubicumque ululavit.
- LVPVS AVCVSTVS EQVVM CAII VBICVMQVE VLVLAVIT
Hmmm, do you mean something like this -
- lupus Avgustus eqvum Gaji ubicumqve ululavit.

It isn't impossible. And as you put it, for examples like equus, populusque,
Gaius, why not eqvus, populusqve, Gajus?

why not push it all the way?

Well, there are reasons. I will point out something relating to <quattuor>. From a Latin Scansion perspective, <u> is treated as a short vowel /u/ and not /w/ - /qua.t:u.or/ not /quat.twor/. Frankly, I do not believe that <ttu> or <ctu> or <ptu> were ever realized as triconsonantal cluster in Latin, and we can look back at poetry to give us some ideas. Ironically, the Romans themselves actually did us a favor in some graffiti, and wrote <quattor> (!)

As for words like ninguit, languor, lingua, pinguis and sanguis, the <u> scans like a /w/. It seems like <ngu> was an allowable triconsonantal cluster after all(?!) According to your new rule, these words would be ningvit, langvor, lingva, pingvis and sangvis. Kewl Kevl.

Cf. Califf, A Guide to Latin Meter and Verse Composition.

Bene factum,

Hmmm... I was going to leave qu as qu simply because it can't be confused with q+syllabic u and also because qv looks unnatural to people familiar with the Latin alphabet. I wanted to be exceptionless elsewhere but now that I see the g+v combo in words I see that it is ugly and a bit misleading. Also the stress in all those words doesn't really depend on whether the u is syllabic or not...

Wikipedia seems to state as fact that quattuor is disyllabic, and that this is clear from poetry. Maybe these should be spelt with u... I might go over that and drop it and simply go with the normal conventions, e.g. keep it in words like salvē but remove it from quattuor and sanguis.

But now I'm not sure about <j>, I wanted this to mirror the distinction that is made between u and v, because what's the point in marking one and not the other? So yes I was planning on marking Gaius as Gajus so that /gaj.jus/ is distinguished from /ga.i.us/. But maybe this isn't a completely accepted phonological phenomenon? Again Wikipedia presents it as fact but I see that /ga.i.us/ has a similar sound and is stressed identically... But yes, again, Gaji looks a bit weird and unnatural... Now I'm not sure what to do...

But if there is definite evidence that the i's and u's might be syllabic in this position rather than semi-vowels then I suppose phonetically either spelling is valid and it would be sensible to go with the standard rather than a non-standard orthography...

Post Scriptum -

I don't have macrons on my keyboard, so I used colons for long vowels. While we're on the subject of weird orthographies, why can't we just write double vowels, Estonian style (like 'leectioonees')? I know it looks weird, but it isn't any weirder than 'töööö'

Well, first, in Latin-country, those colons are called diaeresis. They are used to make a vowel sound apart from another nearby vowel, instead of as a diphthong.

Second, a macron is the most generally accepted way to show length. However, the Romans also used something that looked like the acute accent to indicate vowel length, at least in the Square Capital inscription style for monuments.
Ergo:
- LÍNCVA LATÍNA LÉCTIÓNÉS

Post Post Scriptum -

I think that one of the DUMBEST things regarding "modern" Latin orthography happens to be NOT INCLUDING macra/some other way to easily indicate vowel length. After all, for all Latin verse it's so darned important, so why make it a secret?
I say KUDOS to your efforts in this arena!

Apparently a few authors did write long vowels as doubled but it didn't catch on. It would make sense seeing as that's how long consonants are usually written (although apparently the apex accent could also be used over consonants to represent length). I do find it annoying that length isn't usually marked because as a beginner it is very difficult to know we're they are and I'm sure I sounded like I was reading Esperanto.

But having said that, most Latin texts are perfectly understandable with length marks ignored. That's why I'm going to give citation forms with the macrons but any texts I give will be without them.

@Ambrisio: it is indeed /'vɛ.hɛ.rɛ/. The phrase with the correct vowel lengths is quaerendō inveniētis. I will post the next lesson as soon as I get home tonight


Edit: the more I delve into this the more it seems that in a lot of positions /u i/ are interchangeable with /w j/. Maybe it would be okay to leave a bit of ambiguity in the spelling as long as the syllable stress is still easily predictable...

[atman]

@ kanejam:

As a teacher you should try and make your students' job as easy as possible. Using non-standard orthography is a good way to make things harder for them when they'll want to read an actual Latin text.

For instance, if I put together some Spanish lessons on the forum, could I use the quasi-forgotten non-standard Bello orthography? Not at all, because it'd be my duty to help the students with real Spanish. Sudden spelling reforms should be limited to conlangs, where the creator is the absolute ruler of the language standard .

And there's indeed no reason to make things harder: Latin is already a complex, frequently irregular and at times plain evil language (like the other members of the Classical Big Three: Ancient Greek and Sanskrit).

And because of this I agree tōtō corde with Lambuzhao: macrons make your life easier, not only in poetry but also when distinguishing homographs. And indeed texts are understandable even without macrons, but they add clarity especially for beginners.

[kanejam]

To keep you guys satisfied until the next lesson, here is the Latin alphabet:
A ā, B bē, C cē, D dē, E ē, F ef, G gē, H hā, I ī, K kā, L el, M em, N en, O ō, P pē, Q qū, R er, S es, T tē, V ū, X ex, Y ī Graeca, Z zēta.
Note that there are only 23 letters and three of them, <k y z>, are only used in Greek loans.

And a few words and phrases. For more, see the omniglot page of useful Latin phrases. Just take note that they don't mark long vowels!
- heus - informal 'hey!' or 'hi!' *keep in mind this is pronounced with a diphthong
- salvē - 'hello' to one person
- salvēte - 'hello' to more than one person
For 'hello' or 'hail', you can also you avē/avēte.
- quid est? quid tibi est? - 'what's the matter?' lit. what is it? what is it to you?
- sōdēs - 'please'
- grātiās - 'thanks'
- tē amō - 'I love you'
- valē/valēte - 'goodbye'

Good news! There is no T-V distinction in Latin! So feel free to address VIP's with tū, same as you would address your children or slaves.

[kanejam]

@ kanejam:

As a teacher you should try and make your students' job as easy as possible. Using non-standard orthography is a good way to make things harder for them when they'll want to read an actual Latin text.

For instance, if I put together some Spanish lessons on the forum, could I use the quasi-forgotten non-standard Bello orthography? Not at all, because it'd be my duty to help the students with real Spanish. Sudden spelling reforms should be limited to conlangs, where the creator is the absolute ruler of the language standard .

And there's indeed no reason to make things harder: Latin is already a complex, frequently irregular and at times plain evil language (like the other members of the Classical Big Three: Ancient Greek and Sanskrit).

And because of this I agree tōtō corde with Lambuzhao: macrons make your life easier, not only in poetry but also when distinguishing homographs. And indeed texts are understandable even without macrons, but they add clarity especially for beginners.

I have changed my orthography. It is now an orthography which is used to write Latin (it keeps <v> but used in the way that is standard everywhere i.e. word initially, intervocalicly and also after liquids, however it I might still keep <j> word initially (and possibly even intervocalicly)). If people are still distressed that <j> is still in there I will remove it; bear in mind though that it is used. I don't think it makes the language any harder - it is still the same language and it is a simple mental conversion to switch between i/j. Thoughts on when to use <j>? I might remove the intervocalicly <j> before <i> and mark length on the preceding vowel as is sometimes done. My aim is to make it readable but still have it easily pronounced.

[Ambrisio]

- heus - informal 'hey!' or 'hi!' *keep in mind this is pronounced with a diphthong
- salvē - 'hello' to one person
- salvēte - 'hello' to more than one person
For 'hello' or 'hail', you can also you avē/avēte.
- quid est? quid tibi est? - 'what's the matter?' lit. what is it? what is it to you?
- sōdēs - 'please'
- grātiās - 'thanks'
- tē amō - 'I love you'
- valē/valēte - 'goodbye'

Well then: Salvē, Kanejam! Quid tibi est?

It may be useful to introduce glosses at this stage:
Quid tibi est?
what you-DAT be-3SG.PRES
so it'll be clearer.

And what about word order? "Tē amō" looks SOV to me, but it could also be the typical Romance word order (SVO, unless O is a pronoun, in which case it's SOV). I've heard that the Latin word order is simple SOV--but there are sentences like 'Caecilius est pater' (macrons?) which look SVO to me.
So if I had to say 'I love Beth' ... how would I put Beth in the accusative case? I guess we should go into pronouns and cases next.

Good news! There is no T-V distinction in Latin! So feel free to address VIP's with tū, same as you would address your children or slaves.

Nice! It's certainly easier than Sanskrit (which does have a T-V distinction).

[kanejam]

To keep you guys satisfied until the next lesson, here is the Latin alphabet:
A ā, B bē, C cē, D dē, E ē, F ef, G gē, H hā, I ī, K kā, L el, M em, N en, O ō, P pē, Q qū, R er, S es, T tē, V ū, X ex, Y ī Graeca, Z zēta.

With a few exceptions (C, H, R, Y, Z), these look just like English, but without the Great Vowel Shift!

Well to my knowledge, the English names of the alphabet are mostly taken from French which are direct continuations of the Latin names. And y in French is called 'i grec' and remember that z is called 'zed' in a lot of the English speaking world.

[...]

Is 'tibi' in the dative case, like Sanskrit 'tubhyam'? What about 'grātiās'?

Yes, tibi is the dative. For some reason īgnōscō takes the dative case. Grātiās is in the accusative plural; it is in fact completely regular.

[Ambrisio]

I just installed a Māori keyboard so I can type macrons without having to copy/paste!

And:

tōtō corde

I think it means 'wholeheartedly'. Are these correct?
1) tōtō is the ablative case of tōtus, which means 'all'
2) corde is the ablative case of cor, which means 'heart'

[kanejam]

Lēctiō Duo

Here we will introduce noun cases and a few nouns. I am taking this part of the lessons from G. D. A. Sharpley's Teach Yourself: Beginner's Latin.


Nouns

Look at these two sentences: mūlus silvam spectat - the mule watches the forest, mūlum silva spectat - the forest watches the mule. Note the usual sentence order is SOV, as in the first sentence, but because of case endings it can be in any order you like. So silvam mūlus spectat means the same thing as the first sentence. The change in word order might draw a slight emphasis on silvam - forest, or might be done for metrical reasons in poetry.

So the words mūlus and silva change their endings depending on what role they have in the sentence. But they don't have exactly the same endings. Mūlus is a regular second declension masculine noun and silva is a regular first declension feminine noun. A noun's declension is separate from its gender, although most first declension nouns are feminine and most second declension nouns are masculine or neuter.
- There are five declensions, but don't be put off by this! Many nouns are in the first two declensions and I will introduce the case paradigms slowly so you can learn them one by one.
- There are three genders. From now on I will let you know the gender of a noun and will explicitly mention any irregularities.

There are no articles or markings for definiteness, so silva could mean a wood, or the wood. It depends on context and you'll soon find that it isn't so much of a big deal anyway.


Nominative and Accusative

So to write explicitly what was implied above: -us is the nominative ending for most masculine second declension nouns (mulus nouns) and -um is the accusative. For feminine first declension nouns (silva nouns) the nominative is -a and the accusative is -am. Here are a few more nouns in a nice little table:

Code: Select all

___________________|__nom.____|__acc.___
sarcina  f. bag    | sarcina  | sarcinam
monachus m. monk   | monachus | monachum
schola   f. school | schola   | scholam
cibus    m. food   | cibus    | cibum

Here is another sentence: Paulus est monachus - 'Paul is a monk' (est - 'is'). It is the 3rd person present active of esse - 'to be'. Notice that with est, the predicate is in the nominative. Here are some more examples: mūlus est territus - 'the mule is scared', Paulus est fessus - 'Paul is tired'.


Exercises

Here are a few more words: amat - likes, loves, ambulat - 'walks', cum - 'with', portat - 'carries' and nōn - 'not'. Note that these verbs are all in the singular third person present, and there is no difference between 'walks' and 'is walking'. So without further ado, translate the following passage (remember there aren't any vowel lengths marked):
- Paulus cum mulus ambulat.
- Mulus sarcinam portat.
- Mulus silvam non amat.
- Silva mulum spectat.
- Paulus cibum amat.

Choose the correct word:
- Mulus (sarcina/sarcinam) portat.
- Mulum (Paulus/Paulum) portat.
- Paulus silvam (amat/ambulat).
- Mulus silvam (portat/spectat).

Translate the following:
- Paul watches the monk.
- The mule carries the food.
- The monk is tired.

[Ambrisio]

silvam mūlus spectat

Each word is a spondee - so it would fit the first half of a dactylic hexameter!

accusative

Would the Latin -am (as in silvam) be pronounced as a long nasalized /a/, not like /am/? And how do you pronounce 'ambulat'? (Is the 'am' a nasalized a, or /am/?)

Here are my answers:

Spoiler:

Paul walks with the mule.
The mule (mūlus) carries the bag.
The mule (mūlus) doesn't like the forest.
The forest watches the mule (mūlum).
Paul loves the food.

Mūlus sarcinam portat.
Mūlum Paulus portat.
Paulus (in silvā) ambulat, or Paulus silvam amat (there seem to be two subjects in this sentence!)
Mūlus silvam portat (actually both sentences are grammatically correct, but I chose the funnier one)

Paulus monachum spectat.
Mūlus cibum portat.
Monachus est fessus.

And I think you forgot to mention that 'in' and 'cum' take the ablative case!

esse 'to be'

Is there a distinction like Spanish 'ser' vs. 'estar'?

[kanejam]

silvam mūlus spectat

Each word is a spondee - so it would fit the first half of a dactylic hexameter!

accusative

Would the Latin -am (as in silvam) be pronounced as a long nasalized /a/, not like /am/? And how do you pronounce 'ambulat'? (Is the 'am' a nasalized a, or /am/?)

Nasals only disappear before s and f, and they only cause lengthening before s and f, so ambulat would be pronounced /'ambulat/ and the ending of silvam would be a short nasalised /a/, probably not long although you have a bit of freedom in this area.

Here are my answers:

Spoiler:

Paul walks with the mule.
The mule (mūlus) carries the bag.
The mule (mūlus) doesn't like the forest.
The forest watches the mule (mūlum).
Paul loves the food.

Mūlus sarcinam portat.
Mūlum Paulus portat.
Paulus (in silvā) ambulat, or Paulus silvam amat (there seem to be two subjects in this sentence!)
Mūlus silvam portat (actually both sentences are grammatically correct, but I chose the funnier one)

Paulus monachum spectat.
Mūlus cibum portat.
Monachus est fessus.

And I think you forgot to mention that 'in' and 'cum' take the ablative case!

esse 'to be'

Is there a distinction like Spanish 'ser' vs. 'estar'?

Very good! I'm sorry I made a mistake in the second exercise, it should indeed be Paulus silvam amat, as I was going to wait till the next lesson to introduce ablatives as well as neuter nouns and possibly plurals. Also you picked up that the only long vowel missing was the one in mūlus! This was a taste of real life Latin where usually length isn't marked.

The only criticism of your exercises is that, because definiteness isn't marked in Latin, Paulus cibum amat is probably better translated as Paul loves food, rather than the food - although I'm sure there could be some context where the food is acceptable. And obviously in the second exercise the correct answer to the last one is mulus silvam spectat, but the other sentence is indeed grammatical.

And esse is always the verb to be. The Spanish estar developed from the Latin verb 'to stand' which I think was stāre.

[Ambrisio]

mulus silvam spectat

Of course, you meant "mūlus silvam spectat". I guess "mūlus silvam portat" is about as grammatical as "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" (since portāre takes the accusative case).

And what's the difference between portāre and vehere?

And esse is always the verb to be.

It's kind of interesting that Latin lacks many grammatical features that I expected from a Romance language (no T-V, no 'ser'-'estar', strict SVO ordering except when the object is a pronoun ...) So do those features derive from Vulgar Latin, perhaps?

[Celi-Folia]

It's kind of interesting that Latin lacks many grammatical features that I expected from a Romance language (no T-V, no 'ser'-'estar', strict SVO ordering except when the object is a pronoun ...) So do those features derive from Vulgar Latin, perhaps?

That's right, Vulgar Latin (i.e. the spoken language) had some innovations that didn't exist in the classical (written) language:

> I've heard that the T-V distinction dates back to the fourth century AD and the plural vos was used to signify authority, according to Brown and Gilman in "The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity"

> The ser-estar distinction differs between Romance language, where in Italian and Occitan for instance, the cognate of stāre is much less common than in Spanish, and while Old French had the distinction the two merged into one in modern French. But how it started, I'm not totally sure..

> The loss of case marking may have made freedom of word order less feasible so the SVO word order dominates because the subject comes first and the verb separates it from the object, if SOV were default then the subject and object would be more difficult to distinguish. Of course, with object pronouns there's little opportunity for confusion between subject and object so the SOV order can be retained in that case.