Latin Language
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"latina est linga mortua, quam mortuissima ac potest. Prima necavit Romanos et nunc me necat." (Student saying - means "Latin's a dead language, as dead as it can be. First it killed the Romans and now it's killing me.") |
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An ancient language now long dead in the vernacular. Latin was the language of Ancient Rome, the Catholic Church, government, trade, and John Cleese. It was the source language for the entire Romance Language family, its children being Romanian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian. It also put its influence into many other languages, even those outside of its immediate family. Most notably, English, which is a descendant of German, but got a dose of Latin thanks to the medieval conquest by the Normans, who brought with them the Latin-influenced French.
For help with speaking Latin, see Latin Pronunciation Guide.
History
Archaic Latin was extant in Italy for centuries before Rome was founded. However, written Latin did not begin in proper until the the 200s B.C. Before then, there was some written Latin, but mostly it was for official purposes such as religious rites or laws.
During the medieval period, the lower vernacular forms of Latin mutated away from the base language and became the Romance languages. Latin was still used by the church, governments, nobility, and businesses. It was also a language of international communication, although thanks to linguistic drift and differences in pronunciation, this did not always work. The Church, possessing the only sort of even rudimentary educational system, used Latin for everything. However, over time the Church Latin came to differ greatly from the Classical Latin. Church Latin dropped much of the subjunctive mood, allowed purpose and result infinitives, introduced the soft c and g sounds and the v sound, removed much of the more esoteric grammar, and corrupted much of the vocabulary. The result was a language that differs significantly from Classical Latin.
During the early modern period, Classical Latin was celebrated and taught to those of power and money. This trend halted in the United States in the period following World War Two. Now, unfortunately, the language is in decline. In public schools, there are both increasingly fewer Latin teachers and ever fewer people who want to take Latin. And of those, the attrition rates are growing ever higher. Latin still survives in places that do classical education, like Saint John's College, as well as in established private schools for the gentry, which are the only places where Ancient Greek survives.n
Nouns
Latin nouns are actually rather similar to Russian nouns in that their role in the sentence and other implied meanings are conveyed by word endings. Nouns are grouped by declension, which are similar patterns of how nouns behave when the endings are applied. There are, strictly speaking, only five declensions, but assuming that you consider the 3rd io, and both the neuters to be their own declensions, then the number becomes eight. For the sake of simplicity, we'll limit it to five.
The noun endings in each declension indicate number, person, gender, and case, as well as imply other pronouns. The number indicates whether a noun is singular or plural. Person refers to first, second, or third person, meaning is it about something the speaker does, something you do, or something somebody else does. Gender is normally by far the easiest thing to tell from the outset. It is often tied to declension, but not quite.
Latin has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Any noun in any declension could be masculine or feminine, but that is often tied to declension. Neuter nouns occur only in the second, third, and fourth declensions. The most obvious rule for telling genders apart is that the endings for feminine nouns often include a's and the endings for masculine nouns often include u's. Neuter nouns are a bit harder to spot and normally need to just be memorized (especially as the accusative and nominative have the same endings).
Latin has seven noun cases, and each one has its own version for singular and plural and for different declensions. The cases are nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, vocative, and locative. Nominative is easy enough, being for sentence subjects. Genitive is used for of. Dative means to or for something and works with indirect objects and with prepositions. Accusative is for direct objects and for SIDSPACE prepositions. Ablative is mostly for dealing with a set of prepositions called SIDSPACE; without a preposition it generally means 'by', 'with', or 'from'. Vocative is for calling things by name. Locative is for referring to places without motion being implied. (The locative case is used for cities, towns, and small islands, and the words domus (home), humus (ground) and rus (countryside).)
SIDSPACE stands for Sub/super (below/above), In(in/inside/into), De (about), Sine (without), Per (through), Ad/ab/a (away, toward, by), Cum (withou), Ex/e (outside/out/out of). Some of these prepositions, such as in, ad, and ex, have different meanings when used with accusative and ablative cases. In accusative, in means into, e means out of (ex is not used in accusative), and there are different semantic differences. In general, accusative tends to be more literal in its meaning. Note that Latin lacks articles entirely, so there are no words like of, a, the, or it. These are all implied.
Most nouns have rather predictable gender. Most first declension nouns are feminine. Most second declension nouns are masculine. Third and fifth are a tossup with the latter leaning slightly more feminine and fourth declension being mostly masculine. Note that gender of Latin nouns often does make some sense in advance instead of being totally random. Also, as a hint, thanks to adjective noun agreement, all nouns and adjectives must match in gender, number, and case.
Declensions
First declension tends to contain mostly feminine nouns. Its endings almost all contain the letter However, some words in it are masculine. These are refered to as PAIN words. They include Poeta (poet), Agricola (tenant), Insula (Island), Nauta (Sailor), and many others. First declension lacks a neuter variation.
Here's how the conjugation goes:
- Word: puella (girl)
- Singular
- Nominative: puella (girl)
- Vocative: puella (As in the name is Puella - or 'O puella')
- Accusative: puellam (girl as direct object)
- Genitive: puellae (of the girl)
- Dative: puellae (to or for the girl)
- Ablative: puellā (by, with, or from the girl)
- Locative: puella (At (the) girl)
- Plural
- Nominative: puellae (girls
- Vocative: puellae (Girls as a name)
- Accusative: puellās (girls as direct object)
- Genitive: puellārum (of the girls)
- Dative: puellīs (to or for the girls)
- Ablative: puellīs (by, with, or from the girls)
- Locative: puella (At (the) girls)
Second declension tends to contain mostly masculine nouns. Its endings almost all contain the letter u, followed by a consonant. However, some words in it are feminine, although the are very rare and outnumbered by the neuter nouns it contains. Neuter counts have the same nominative and accusative and vocative and locative forms. In neuter, the plural nominative, accusaive, vocative, and locative all use the root word with "a" as the ending.
Here's how the conjugation goes:
- Masculine
- Word: Vīnus (wine)
- Singular
- Nominative: vīnus(wine)
- Vocative: vīne (wine, as if it were a person's name)
- Accusative: vīnum (wine as direct object)
- Genitive: vīnī (of the wine)
- Dative: vīnō (to or for the wine)
- Ablative: vīnō (by, with, or from the wine)
- Locative: vīnus (at wine, as if it were a place)
- Plural
- Nominative: vīnī (wines)
- Vocative: vīnī (wines, like a name)
- Accusative: vinōs (wines as direct object)
- Genitive: vīnōrum (of the wines)
- Dative: vīnīs (for the wines)
- Ablative: vīnīs (by, with, or from the wines)
- Locative: vīnus (at wines, like a place)
Neuter
- Word: scortum (prostitute)
- Singular
- Nominative: scortum (prostitute)
- Vocative: scortum (prostitute, name)
- Accusative: scortum (prostitute as direct object)
- Genitive: scortī (of the prostitute)
- Dative: scortō (to or for the prostitute)
- Ablative: scortō (by, with, or from the prostitute)
- Locative: scortum (prostitute, place)
- Plural
- Nominative: scorta (prostitutes)
- Vocative: scorta (prostitutes, name)
- Accusative: scorta (prostitutes direct object)
- Genitive: scortōrum (of the prostitutes)
- Dative: scortīs (to or for the prostitutes)
- Ablative: scortīs (by, with, or from the prostitutes)
- Locative: scorta (prostitutes, place)
Third declension has both masculine/feminine and neuter forms.
Feminine
- Word: urbs (city)
- Singular
- Nominative: urbs (city)
- Vocative: urbs (city, as if it were a person's name)
- Accusative: urbem (city as direct object)
- Genitive: urbis (of the city)
- Dative: urbī (to or for the city)
- Ablative: urbe (by, with, or from the city)
- Plural
- Nominative: urbēs (cities)
- Vocative: urbēs (cities, like a name)
- Accusative: urbēs (cities as direct object)
- Genitive: urbium (of the cities)
- Dative: urbibus (for the cities)
- Ablative: urbibus (by, with, or from the cities)
Neuter
- Word: mare (sea)
- Singular
- Nominative: mare (sea)
- Vocative: mare (sea, name)
- Accusative: mare (sea as direct object)
- Genitive: maris (of the sea)
- Dative: marī (to or for the sea)
- Ablative: marī (by, with, or from the sea)
- Plural
- Nominative: maria (seas)
- Vocative: maria (seas, name)
- Accusative: maria (seas as direct object)
- Genitive: marium (of the seas)
- Dative: maribus (to or for the seas)
- Ablative: maribus (by, with, or from the seas)
Fourth declension also has both masculine/feminine and neuter forms.
Feminine
- Word: gradus (step)
- Singular
- Nominative: gradus (step)
- Vocative: gradus (step, as if it were a person's name)
- Accusative: gradum (step as direct object)
- Genitive: gradūs (of the step)
- Dative: graduī (to or for the step)
- Ablative: gradū (by, with, or from the step)
- Plural
- Nominative: gradūs (steps)
- Vocative: gradūs (steps, like a name)
- Accusative: gradūs (steps as direct object)
- Genitive: graduum (of the steps)
- Dative: gradibus (for the steps)
- Ablative: gradibus (by, with, or from the steps)
Neuter
- Word: cornū (horn)
- Singular
- Nominative: cornū (horn)
- Vocative: cornū (horn, name)
- Accusative: cornū (horn as direct object)
- Genitive: cornūs (of the horn)
- Dative: cornū (to or for the horn)
- Ablative: cornū (by, with, or from the horn)
- Plural
- Nominative: cornua (horns)
- Vocative: cornua (horns, name)
- Accusative: cornua (horns as direct object)
- Genitive: cornuum (of the horns)
- Dative: cornibus (to or for the horns)
- Ablative: cornibus (by, with, or from the horns)
Fifth declension has a masculine/feminine form, but is not commonly neuter.
Feminine
- Word: rēs (thing)
- Singular
- Nominative: rēs (thing)
- Vocative: rēs (thing, as if it were a person's name)
- Accusative: rem (thing as direct object)
- Genitive: reī (of the thing)
- Dative: reī (to or for the thing)
- Ablative: rē (by, with, or from the thing)
- Plural
- Nominative: rēs (things)
- Vocative: rēs (things, like a name)
- Accusative: rēs (things as direct object)
- Genitive: rērum (of the things)
- Dative: rēbus (for the things)
- Ablative: rēbus (by, with, or from the things)
This page is a work in progress. Please help to expand it.