Intro B

The Basics of Latin (via English)

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Pronunciation We will be learning what is known as “classical pronunciation” of Latin – how Julius Caesar or Cicero would have pronounced it. A later form, known as “ecclesiastical”, or “church”, Latin that came about in the very late Roman Empire and into the Middle Ages, has a slightly different pronunciation of some letters, but we won’t bother with that type of pronunciation right now. Vowels: a as in father; e as in eh? (prolonged) or a in date; i as in machine; o as in holy; u as oo in boot; ā as in idea; ē as eh? (clipped) or e in net; ī as in holiest or sit; ō as in obey; ū as oo in foot; y between u and i (like a French u or German u). Diphthongs (two vowels put together to make a new sound): ae like ay; ei as in eight; oe like oy in boy; eu as eh'oo; au like ow in now; ui as oo'ee. Consonants: mostly are the same as in English, with these exceptions: c as in come, never as in city. g as in get, never as in giraffe s as in sea, lips, never as in ease. i (our modern “j”) is like y in young v like w in wing.

Stressed Syllables and other rules:  there are no silent vowels in Latin : if the word ends in “e”, you pronounce that “e”.  Latin tends to stress the ends of words, not the beginning. Usually the second to last syllable of the word. Sometimes you will actually see a stress mark ( -) over a vowel, making it the stressed syllable.  To “stress” a syllable, make the pronunciation of the word just a tad longer and with a slightly higher pitch.

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Latin vs. English : Word Endings (Inflection)

Without a doubt, this will be the aspect of learning Latin that will be the most troublesome for the majority of students. It will take practice and effort to learn this aspect of the language, but it is essential!

Let’s take a nice Roman name, Quintus. Let’s put Quintus in a couple of different sentences and take a look at what exactly is Quintus’ role in these sentences :

1) Quintus walked to the market. 2) The butcher greeted Quintus. 3) The butcher sold Quintus some sausages.

In the first sentence, Quintus is the subject of the sentence. He is performing the action (it is Quintus who walked). In the second sentence, Quintus is the direct object (he is not performing the action, but having the action performed on him – Quintus did not greet, it was Quintus who was greeted). In the third sentence, Quintus is the indirect object (he is the reason why the subject, the butcher, performed the action, sold, on the direct object, sausages.).**

** Don’t worry, we’ll go into more detail on these three different types of English nouns (subject, direct object, indirect object) before too long!

How do we know that Quintus in the second sentence is not still the subject of the verb, as he was in the first sentence? Because, in English, we can tell the function of a noun based on where it is in the sentence in relation to the verb (nouns in front of the verb are subject, nouns after the verb are objects. It takes practice in English to tell the difference between different types of object nouns – direct objects, indirect objects, objects of prepositions – and many native English speakers have trouble identifying different uses of objects).

But look at the noun ‘Quintus’ in each of three sentences above. Is there any spelling change to the noun that would also let you know that it has a different function in each sentence? No there is not! English rarely changes the form of the noun to suit it’s grammatical function. ‘Quintus’ is spelled Quintus no matter what his function....but there is one exception to this in English: Consider this sentence: 4) A dog ate Quintus’ sausages!

Do you see the spelling change? In this sentence, “ Quintus’ ” is used to show possession (the sausages belong to Quintus), as opposed to “Quintus” without the apostrophe. In English, it is ONLY this possessive usage of nouns that gets a spelling change.

Subject Possessive “Mike bought a book” “Mike’s book was stolen”.

“I saw Emily at school” “Emily’s intelligence is off the charts!”

“ She sold her iPod to my friend.” “My friend’s new iPod is broken!”

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This change of spelling to show a word’s function is called inflection. All languages that came from the Indo-European language family are inflected to some degree. English is at one end of the scale, with very little inflection, while Latin is at the other end of the spectrum with a heavy inflection in nouns, verbs and adjectives.

Let’s take a look at the four ‘Quintus’ sentences from above, but this time in Latin – take not of how ‘Quintus’ changes form based on its’ function:

English Latin

1) Quintus walked to the market. Quintus ad forum ambulavit. 2) The butcher greeted Quintus. carnifex Quintum salutavit. 3) The butcher sold Quintus some sausages. carnifex botulos Quinto vendit. 4) A dog ate Quintus’ sausages! canis botulos Quinti consumpsit!

Do you see how highly inflected the noun ‘Quintus’ is in those sentences? Every time his function changed, the ending of his name changed. You will learn to recognize these changes in Latin and, if you practice and put in a little effort, you will soon master the concept of inflection!

Inflection of English verbs also occurs, but just like nouns it happens in only one instance :

I run you run he runs we run BUT she runs you all run it runs they run

When the subject of the noun is in third person singular (either a ‘he’, ‘she, or ‘it’ – more on this later), the present tense verbs add an ‘s’ – yet another example of Indo-European inflection!

The greatest use of inflection in English comes with our pronouns.

“He works in this building” - the pronoun ‘he’ is the subject of the sentence. “ I saw him going to work” - the pronoun ‘him’ is an object of the sentence. “His phone was ringing” - the pronoun ‘his’ is a possessive, showing ownership.

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Latin vs. English Word Order

Since Latin relies on the endings of nouns, verbs and adjectives to give them grammatical meaning (such as identifying subjects vs. objects, information on verb subject and tense), a set word order is not necessary! In most prose (non-poetry) literature, words are arranged in a certain order to show emphasis. If you wanted to emphasis the subject of a sentence, place the subject near the beginning of the sentence. Want to emphasis the action of the verb instead? Put IT near the front. In poetry it is a bit different; words are arranged in a set verse or meter, placing words where they will “sound” the best in the poem’s verse style.

English Word Order Latin Word Order Marcus loves Julia Marcus amat Juliam  (These sentences (this English sentence Marcus Juliam amat  all mean would not make Juliam Marcus amat  the same thing sense using any other amat Marcus Juliam  and could word order) Juliam amat Marcus  have been understood amat Juliam Marcus  by an Ancient Roman)

To read Latin, take the words as they come. Romans did not wait till the end of a sentence to figure out what a person was saying. If, for instance, you said to someone, "My father, who to New York by his boss today called has been” or “in three days cousin my with who us stayed year last , return will", the listener would have to ask you to repeat yourself in order to figure out your strange grammar. But given time, and getting used to your strange way of speaking, that same person would come to understand your bizarre speech impediment. However, we do not talk like Yoda in English, so always use proper English word order when translating from Latin. It is perfectly acceptable to translate Latin words in the order you see them, but once you have read the sentence, rearrange them into good English word order for others to read or listen to. Once you learn the various endings (or “suffixes”) and what they mean (or what grammar function it gives to the word), the order of the words in a sentence won’t trouble you!

REMEMBER, IN LATIN:

WORD ORDER HAS NO RELATION TO WORD FUNCTION!!

WORD ORDER IS FOR THE EMPHASIS OF IDEAS!! (simply put, more “important” words in a sentence come first)

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