Latin

Main features

Latin is a Synthetic language|synthetic inflectional language: affixes (which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed stem (linguistics)|stems to express grammatical gender|gender, number, and grammatical case|case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, which is called declension; and grammatical person|person, number, grammatical tense|tense, grammatical voice|voice, grammatical mood|mood, and grammatical aspect|aspect in verbs, which is called Latin conjugation|conjugation. There are five declensions (''declinationes'') of nouns and four conjugations of verbs. There are six noun cases: #nominative case|nominative (used as the subject of the verb or the predicate nominative), #genitive case|genitive (used to indicate relation or possession, often represented by the English ''of'' or the addition of '''s'' to a noun), #dative case|dative (used of the indirect object of the verb, often represented by the English ''to'' or ''for''), #accusative case|accusative (used of the direct object of the verb, or object of the preposition in some cases), #ablative case|ablative (separation, source, cause, or instrumental case|instrument, often represented by the English ''by'', ''with'', ''from''), #vocative case|vocative (used of the person or thing being addressed). In addition, some nouns have a locative case|locative case used to express location (otherwise expressed by the ablative with a preposition such as ''in''), but this survival from Proto-Indo-European is found only in the names of lakes, cities, towns, small islands, and a few other words related to locations, such as "house", "ground", and "countryside". Latin itself, being a very old language, is far closer to Proto-Indo-European than are most modern Western European languages; it has, in fact, about the same relationship with PIE as modern Italian or French has to Latin. There are six general grammatical tense|tenses in Latin (technically they are tense/aspect/mood complexes). The indicative mood can be used with all of them. The subjunctive Grammatical mood|mood, however, has only present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect tenses. These tenses in the subjunctive mood do not completely correlate in meaning to the tenses in the indicative. The following examples are of the first conjugation verb "laudare" ("to praise") in the indicative mood and the active grammatical voice|voice:

Primary sequence tenses

# Present tense|present (''laudo'', "I praise") # Imperfect tense|imperfect (''laudabam'', "I was praising") # Future tense|future (''laudabo'', "I shall praise," "I will praise")

Secondary sequence tenses

# Perfect aspect|perfect (''laudavi'', "I praised", "I have praised") # Pluperfect tense|pluperfect (''laudaveram'', "I had praised") # Perfect aspect|future perfect (''laudavero'', "I shall have praised," "I will have praised") The future perfect tense can also imply a normal future idea (like in "When I will have run...") and so may also sometimes be included in the primary sequence.

Latin and Romance

After the Decline of the Roman Empire|collapse of the Roman Empire, Latin evolved into the various Romance languages. These were for many centuries only spoken languages, Latin still being used for writing. For example, Latin was the official language of Portugal until 1296 when it was replaced by Portuguese language|Portuguese. The Romance languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, the spoken language of common usage, which in turn evolved from an older speech which also produced the formal Classical Latin|classical standard. Latin and Romance differ (for example) in that Romance had distinctive stress, whereas Latin had distinctive length of vowels. In Italian language|Italian and Sardo logudorese, there is distinctive length of consonants and stress, in Spanish language|Spanish only distinctive stress, and in French language|French even stress is no longer distinctive. Another major distinction between Romance and Latin is that all Romance languages, excluding Romanian, have lost their case endings in most words except for some pronouns. Romanian language|Romanian retains a direct case (nominative/accusative), an indirect case (dative/genitive), and vocative. In Italy, Latin is still compulsory in secondary schools as ''Liceo Classico'' and ''Liceo Scientifico'' which are usually attended by people who aim to the highest level of education. In ''Liceo Classico'' Ancient Greek is a compulsory subject.

Latin and English

''See Latin influence in English for a more complete exposition.'' English grammar is independent of Latin grammar, though prescription and description|prescriptive grammarians in English have been heavily influenced by Latin. Attempts to make English grammar follow Latin rules — such as the prohibition against the split infinitive — have not worked successfully in regular usage. However, as many as half the words in English were derived from Latin, including many words of Ancient Greek language|Greek origin first adopted by the Ancient Rome|Romans, not to mention the thousands of French, hundreds of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian words of Latin origin that have also enriched English. During the 16th and on through the 18th century English writers created huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek roots. These words were dubbed "inkhorn" or "inkpot" words (as if they had spilled from a pot of ink). Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, but some remain. ''Imbibe'', ''extrapolate'', ''dormant'' and ''inebriation'' are all inkhorn terms carved from Latin words. In fact, the word ''etymology'' is derived from the Greek word ''etymologia'', meaning "true sense of the word." Latin was once taught in many of the schools in Britain with academic leanings - perhaps 25% of the total http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/teachem2/thennow/ However, the requirement for it was gradually abandoned in the professions such as the law and medicine, and then, from around the late 1960s, for admission to university. After the introduction of the Modern Language General Certificate of Secondary Education|GCSE in the 1980s, it was gradually replaced by other languages, although it is now being taught by more schools along with other classical languages.

Latin education

The linguistic element of Latin courses offered in high schools or secondary schools, and in universities, is primarily geared toward an ability to translate Latin texts into modern languages, rather than using it in oral communication. As such, the skill of reading is heavily emphasized, whereas speaking and listening skills are barely touched upon. However, there is a growing movement, sometimes known as the Living Latin movement, whose supporters believe that Latin can, or should, be taught in the same way that modern "living" languages are taught, that is, as a means of both spoken and written communication. One of the most interesting aspects of such an approach is that it assists speculative insight into how many of the ancient authors spoke and incorporated sounds of the language stylistically; without understanding how the language is meant to be heard it is very difficult to identify patterns in Latin poetry. Institutions offering Living Latin instruction include the Vatican City|Vatican and the University of Kentucky. In Britain the Classical Association encourages this approach, and there has been something of a vogue for books describing the adventures of a mouse called Minimus. In the United States there is a thriving competitive organization for high school Latin students, the National Junior Classical League (the second-largest youth organization in the world after the Boy Scouts), backed up by the Senior Classical League for college students. Many would-be International auxiliary language|international auxiliary languages have been heavily influenced by Latin, and the moderately successful Interlingua considers itself to be the modernized and simplified version of the language (''le latino moderne international e simplificate''). Latin translations of modern literature such as Paddington Bear, Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, The Little Prince|Le Petit Prince, Max and Moritz|Max und Moritz, and The Cat in the Hat have also helped boost interest in the language.

See also

About the Latin language

Latin grammar

Latin spelling and pronunciation

Latin declension

Latin conjugation

Latin alphabet

List of Latin words with English derivatives

Latin verbs with English derivatives

Latin nouns with English derivatives

ablative absolute

Word order in Latin

About the Latin literary heritage

Latin literature

Romance languages

Loeb Classical Library

List of Latin phrases

List of Latin proverbs

Brocard

List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names

List of Latin place names in Europe

Carmen Possum

Other related topics

Roman Empire

Internationalism

References

Bennett, Charles E. ''Latin Grammar'' (Allyn and Bacon, Chicago, 1908)

N. Vincent: "Latin", in ''The Romance Languages'', M. Harris and N. Vincent, eds., (Oxford Univ. Press. 1990), ISBN 0195208293

Waquet, Françoise, ''Latin, or the Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries'' (Verso, 2003) ISBN 1859844022; translated from the French by John Howe.

Wheelock, Frederic. ''Latin: An Introduction'' (Collins, 6th ed., 2005) ISBN 0060784237

External links

http://www.jambell.com/latin.html

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lat

http://forumromanum.org/literature/index.htmlis a comprehensive webography of Latin texts and their translations.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=Latin

http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exeis a dictionary program online capable of looking up various word forms.

http://retiarius.org/includes a Latin text search engine.

http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm

http://latin-language.co.uk/History of Latin language, Latin texts with English translation and a collection of dictionaries.

http://augustinus.eresmas.net/scl/gathers together Latin Circles all over the world.

http://www.learnlatin.tk- Free online course in Latin

http://www.latintests.net/- Lets Latin learners test their grammar and vocabulary with self-checking quizzes.

http://thelatinlibrary.com/contains many Latin etexts

http://www.textkit.com/has Latin textbooks and etexts.

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Latin-english/ from Webster's Rosetta Edition.

http://www.language-reference.com/Cross-foreign-language lexicon powered by its own search engine. All cross combinations between Latin and French, German, Italian, Spanish.

http://comp.uark.edu/~mreynold/rhetor.htmlwas originally published in 1577 and never again reprinted.

http://freewebs.com/omniamundamundisLatin hypertexts from fourteen ancient Roman authors.

http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm

http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii written and spoken (RealAudio) news in latin. Weekly review of world news in Classical Latin, the only international broadcast of its kind in the world, produced by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.

http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&type=text&text=Replace%20Me&from=eng&to=ltt Translate from Latin to ENGLISH or vice versa.

http://www.latinvulgate.comThe Latin and English of the Old & New Testaments in parallel, along with the Complete Sayings of Jesus in parallel Latin and English.