The Wonderful Language of Latin

New Message Board!

2006-06-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

Salvete, Omnes,
I have a new message board. Feel free to sign up and create posts about the lessons!
It is located at:
http://enyafan713.proboards76.com
Please check it out!
Optationes Optimae

E-mail Change

2006-06-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

Salvete, omnes,
I have made an E-mail change. My new email is magister713@gmail.com.
If you have ANY comments/suggestions/concerns/et cetera, please do not hesitate to email them to me at the above address.
I promise I will post more lessons soon. Exams are all next week, so I should be pretty free in a week or two.
Thank you so much for understanding!
Valete, Omnes,
Magister

Beginning Latin...

2006-05-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Salvete, Discipuli!
I'm sorry I haven't posted in ages; I have a lot going on right now. My teacher and I are starting a catering business, her daughter and I just started going out, and exams are approaching rapidly, so I have almost no time. But here I am with an article from William Harris' website. Enjoy!
Optationes Optimae,
Magister

THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF LATIN
The real stumbling block for students learning Latin is something which is not generally apparent. The following essay is directed specifically to beginning or resuming Latin students, and should make a few basic points clear:
A thousand years ago English had inflected endings like those in Latin, which is quite natural since English is a member of the Germanic family of languages, which ultimately belongs to the Indo-European linguistic group. All I.E. (Indo-European) languages were originally highly inflected with an elaborate series of "endings". English lost its endings in the 9th century through the effect of a heavy stress accent on the first syllable of each word. In order to make endingless sentences intelligible again, English substituted a structured word order, in which the first thing mentioned was to be taken as the subject, the second a the verb, and the third a the object. All English sentences follow this structure, and only in classical English poetic diction can it be violated, under the rubric of "poetic word-order". (Chinese, which is entirely without inflection, uses this same Subject-Verb-Object word order to identify the structure of words in sentences; English having lost endings, has followed the same linguistic route as Chinese.)
Latin with its myriad endings, had no problems identifying the function of words in sentences, and used what may seem to us a "free word order". It is actually not free, often the first word marks a point of considerable emphasis, and if the last word is the verb, a well-known periodic or punch-line structure emerges. But in Latin, the word order is basically at the service of the author and his ideas, it can be a stylistic and an artistic consideration.
Students learning Latin try to find the subject first, then the verb, and finally get a grip on the object, after which they throw in all the other little things like adjectives, adverbs and pronouns. Don't even think of doing this, it will turn the sentence you are reading into a jumble, and you will never see what it really means. Each word must be read as a word, a basic meaning coupled with one or more grammatical functions (who is doing it, is it now or then, active or passive, real or conditional). Each of these "word-packages" must be filed away consecutively, as you move through the sentence, in the order in which it was written. This is hard for English speakers, because it is so contrary to the nature of English sentences, but it is the way Romans thought, and it is the only way to approach Latin. The problem is really not with Latin but with English. Japanese and German students find Latin much easier because it reminds them, in a simpler form, of a linguistic structure which is familiar to them.
It is only at this point, when you face up to this unfamiliar word order of a real Latin sentence, that you can start to understand the basic premise of language study, which is: People Do Think Differently! To learn a foreign language is to learn something about thinking differently, and this is a valuable lesson in the modern intercommunicating world, which has almost eight thousand different families of languages.
But there are other dangers. One of the most insidious is "trans-verbalisation", or the mental conversion of each word into English as the eyes traverse the Latin page. This dull and needless process was once taught in French and Spanish classes, but in the last seventy years it has been fairly well exterminated, as students were taught to "think in the language". Classes in which no word of English entered, pioneered many years ago by Middlebury College's celebrated language isolation system in its summer schools, has become the norm in teaching the modern languages, while Latin teaching has often plodded on in its old habits, unaware of change.
As soon as the student can grasp the meaning of a Latin word, the option of expressing himself in English must be removed. Reading out loud keeps attention on the Latin, and is linguistically proper since Romans always read along and actually were unable to read without phonating. By learning to think in Latin one enters into the thought processes of the author, and in the case of poetry, the gates suddenly come wide open. But the student who transverbalizes, no matter how adroit he is with grammar or facile with his class translations, will never get through the eye of the needle of literary appreciation. Go back to Section 7) of this language series for a full discussion of the untranslatability of Latin verse.
If in question how to go about this process of reading without transverbalizing, take a look at a modern Introduction to Italian, which will be based on the "think-Italian" method. Italian is three quarters Latin, much in a recognizable form, so this can serve as a good model for learning Latin. You can use a standard Introduction to Latin for its information, but for learning to read in an authentic manner, you will have to do something more for yourself. Verbum sapientibus sat.
Return to Latin Background index
William HarrisProf. Em. Middlebury Collegewww.middlebury.edu/~harris

The Eight Fabulous Parts of Speech!

2006-05-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, now we're getting into the icky grammar stuff...I know, no one wants to do it, but we must. These should be memorized, along with their uses.
Noun- Name of a person, place, thing, idea
Pronoun- Takes the place of a noun
Verb- Shows action or being
Adjective- Modifies a noun or pronoun; answers one or more of the following questions:

Which
What kind
What colour
How many
How much

Adverb- Modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb; answers one or more of the following questions:

How
When
Where
How much
To what extent/degree

Preposition- The long definition is, "a word that shows the relationship of one noun to another," i.e. the house is on the hill. The simple one is, "anything a faerie can do to a cloud," "anything a mouse can do to a house."

Conjunction- Joins words, phrases, clauses, and/or sentences

Interjection- Shows strong emotion; grammatically loosely related to the sentence

So these are the fabulous eight parts of speech in English, Latin, and almost all other languages.

By the way, I'm sorry it took so long for this lesson to get posted. I will try to keep a more regular schedule, but that is not easy while still a freshman in High School. If a week goes by without a post, PLEASE email me and remind me to post.

Thanks!

Valete, omnes, (Goodbye, everyone,)

Magister

Sources for My Lessons

2006-04-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

Salvete, discipuli,
My aunt (http://phyllistheauthor.com) kindly pointed out that plagarism is possible without posting my sources. Being in 9th grade English, I should have forseen this, but I did not. But anyway, here are my sources:

My Latin lessons from Mrs. Helyn (I love the spelling of her name) Robinson in the school year of 2005-2006

"First Year Latin," Editor: Rita R. Riley, Copyrighted 1979 by Allyn and Bacon, Inc.

"Collins Latin Dictionary," by Harper Collins Publishers, Copyrighted 1997 by Harper Collins Publishers

Many websites that I read and forgotten, but my two very favourites are:

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/SubIndex/classics.lat.html

http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin/

Optationes Optimae, (Best Wishes,)

Magister

Lesson 1~~~Pronunciation

2006-04-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

Salvete, discipuli! (Hello, students!)

Welcome to Lesson 1~Pronunciation of Latin
For this course, I will be using Classical Latin pronunciation, not Ecclesiastical. But I will say that the main difference is that Ecclesiastical Latin is pronounced like Italian.
So, on to the pronunciation of Classical Latin. Let's start with the 5 vowels and 6 dipthongs. (Dipthongs are a combination of 2 vowels that make a single sound.)
~N.B. (=Nota Bene=Note Well=Pay Attention): Vowels in Latin have two sounds, Long and Short. Long vowels are marked by a macron (small line over the top of the vowel.) Since I cannot do this on the internet with any great ease, they will be posted in bold type.~
Short Vowels:
a= u as in put
e= e as in pen
i= i as in pin
o= o as in pot
u= u as in full

Long Vowels:
a= a as in father
e= ay as in pay
i= ee as in keen
o= o as in hope
u= oo as in spoon

Dipthongs:
ae= y as in try
au= ow as in town
ei= ayee as in payee (possibly not a word, but you get the idea.)
oe= oy as in toy
oi= uey as in gluey

And now for consonants.
The ancient Latin alphabet was basically the same as our own. They did not have a j, v, or a w.
In ancient Latin, the vowel u would represent a w sound. In more recent times, the letter v has been substituted to do this job.
Only consonants and consonant groups that have different sounds compared to English will be listed.
bs= ps
bt= pt
c= c as in cat, never as in city
g= g as in go, never as in giant
i= when between two vowels or at the beginning of a word and followed by a vowel, i makes a y sound
qu= qu as in quail
r= rolled as in the Romance Languages
v= w as in wine
w= only appears in Latinized forms of some modern names, i.e. Westmonasterium=Westminister
x= ks
y and z= only appear in words of Greek origin
ph and th= are normally (but unhistorically) given their English equivalents of phone and thatch respectively.

And finally, stress.
There is never a silent vowel in Latin. There is one vowel or dipthong per syllable.
Consonants always go with the following syllable. (Ex. amare- a-ma-ray) Two or more consonants are divided down the middle, whether they are the same or different.
There is a basic rule, called the Rule of the Penultimate.
Only the last 3 syllables concern us in a Latin word when determining primary stress. The last syllable is called the ultima, the second-to-last is called the penult, and the third-to-last is called the antepenult. Remember that.
Now, a syllable is long in two ways:
A. by nature (it contains a long vowel.)
B. by position (the vowel in it is followed by two or more consonants.)
If the penult is long, it gets the stress. If it is short, the antepenult gets the stress. Simple, no?

Next time we will cover the 8 Fabulous Parts of Speech!!! Hooray!!!!!!!

Valete, (Goodbye,)
Magister (Latin word for a male teacher.)

Welcome! Salvete!

2006-04-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Brian's Latin page! Here I'll be teaching Latin to anyone who cares to learn.
I will try my hardest to post on a regular basis, probably weekly. But, I am still in High School, so I may not be able to post regularly. I apologize.
I hope I may teach you the wonders of Latin through this blog. Coments are always welcome.
If you have any questions, please send them to enyafan713@yahoo.com.