Latin language thread

Latin language thread.

I'm starting from plain sentences with vocabulary from a single verbal conjugation and a single noun declension, and working my way through all combinations. No sense in trying to juggle every category at once.

Once I understand the conjugations and cases for each verb and noun category, I'll start to focus on learning vocabulary. I'm starting with -are verbs and the most regular masculine and feminine nouns in -us and -a.

One thing, though: Should sentences with unstated subjects have the verb go first?
e.g.
"Servus floras parat" (the slave is arranging flowers)

Should the unstated subject version be:
"Parat floras" (he is arranging flowers)
or:
"Floras parat"? (Flowers, he's arranging! Oy vey!)

In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram

nigga start with declinations first

Download the Vulgate app and start reading (out loud) and listening. You may not like The Bible, in any form, but it will get you used to hearing Latin and speaking it. You can follow the text in Latin, English or both.

IIRC my highschool teacher said was that you would put words that you would want the reader to know first, put before all others in the clause. I haven't read much prose in a while, but I would probably write object verb if there was an unstated subject.

I always wondered where all of those statue limbs were.

I guarantee that at least one has been ground into powder and snorted by a Chinaman.

That's kind of the same in Spanish.

see declinations are the basics

Why would anyone today consider learning latin? What is the pleasure in spending your time on a dead language? Don 't hate on me, I'm just curious on your personal opinion.
P.S. I have been studying Latin for a couple of months.

you have to start w/ the declinations, then the verbs. Caesar is one of the easiest classical authors, in your first transation, try with the De Bello Gallico.
The verbs come ALWAYS last in a latin phrase, with some exceptions here and there. It's easier to understand Latin when you already speak Italian, because sometimes the languages are similiar, but don't give up. Buy some basic latin grammatic books, they'll help you a lot!

Also, before Caesar try also with Aesopus. (Esopo), he wrote really nice fables in latin, that are really easy to translate.

Futue meratrices pecuniamque accipe

Quam meretricem futuendam? Soror materve tua?

>Vulgate app
which one?

Post again after you educate yourself more. The usefulness of Latin is far beyond just translating old texts

Such as?

"The Vulgate Bible in Latin and English"
iPhone App.
It's the only one with audio.

Is that the one that costs 8 dollarydoos? That's a bit steep for an app.

It's free. If you want to get rid of ads it's $4.99

I asked this in but figured I asked here as well

Stupid pronunciation question.
How do you pronounce Caesar?
Shouldn't it be closer to Kaiser?
Isn't "ae" in Latin pronounced like the "ai" in the word aisle.
And isn't the "C" in Latin always hard, like in cat.
Like I said. THE stupid question

Flora, Florae is a goddess. The word for flower is the 3rd declension flos, floris.

So that sentence should read:

servus flores parat.

or

flores parat.

Putting the verb first would be considerably more common in later Latin than classical Latin - the only reason to put it first really would be if you wish to place an unusual emphasis on the action for some narrative reason.

But yeah, wherever you got flora, florae meaning flowers - don't use that source for vocab again.

Depends. Reformed classical pronunciation would be:

Kai-sar

Ecclesiastical/Later Latin:

Chaysar.

But to be perfectly honest with you, nobody knows for sure. It has been seriously argued that we look at words like 'canis' and assume in Classical Latin it would have been said 'kanis', but there is as much evidence to suggest it was perhaps from an early stage pronounced closer to French 'chien'.

mine's saying 7.99 to 'unlock audio & erase ads.' I'll probably still get it but that seems stiff.

Your name wouldn't happen to be Li Liangpu would it?

Patience please... I have only been working with Latin for a very short time. In the example above, it goes (in beginning - verb subject object & object). This is consistent throughout the first Chapter of Genesis.
Had Latin already moved toward the verb coming first or did Jerome's Vulgate start the trend? Or possibly, was it a mistranslation by Jerome that forced this pattern upon Latin as Latin started to die out?

>But to be perfectly honest with you, nobody knows for sure
Not really. The fact that the daughter languages don't palatalization velars uniformly and some didn't at all (Sardinian) means the change post-dates the breakup of Vulgar Latin.

>but there is as much evidence to suggest it was perhaps from an early stage pronounced closer to French 'chien'.
Definitely not. Northern Gallo-Romance is the only branch that palatalizes velars before /a/.

No. I am not the dude. Test it out before you pay. That's weird. I got mine about about 6 weeks ago. Finally bought at beginning of June and 3 it was only 4.99.

>Learn Latin
Ja, Plebs.
Just Learn Roots

The Latin of the Vulgate is just that - 'vulgar', in the sense that it was significantly closer to the spoken Latin of the day. The Greek of the Bible was 'Koine Greek', similarly, a lower register of Greek.

The thing to remember is that the Latin you will most often read, written c.3rd C BC - 5th C AD and occasionally later (but pre Carolingian Latin 'reforms') is a consciously curated language. The Latin of Cicero's output was already in the 1st century BC very far removed from spoken Latin.

Originally a SOV word order was the usual, but 'vulgar' Latin began to move towards a more rigid word order, SVO, as inflection began to be lost.

I'd assume that the verb subject object word order is a stylistic choice, considering that it's also the word order of Biblical Hebrew, whence i assume the old testament section of the Vulgate is translated.