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LATIN: the father of the Romance languages

BASIC INFORMATION
Every great Western society sees itself as better for having held on to inherited Roman traditions. As well as having served as the language of an empire that once ruled over a fourth of the world's population, today, the variant named Church or Ecclesiastical Latin is the official language of the Vatican, and language instructors the world over hold onto it as though it were still very much alive. Its vocabulary has been borrowed into every major European language, and its roots are the basis of scientific and technological vocabulary. One noticeable characteristic of Latin is the heavier reliance on inflections to convey the meaning and use of a word than seen in its daughter languages.

PRONUNCIATION
The pronunciation of written Latin is rather regular; most every letter represents the same sound:

Littera/Litterae ~ Letter/Letters	Sonus ~ Pronunciation (sound)	Exemplum ~ Example
a (á)*	cut (long as father)	fábula (story)
b	boy	bonus (good)
c	cash (always)	centum (hundred)
ch	hotel or as Scottish Loch	monachus (monk)
d	dog	dé  (from, about)
e (é)	let (long as say)	est (is)
f	fish	ferrum (iron)
g	gut	gelidus (cold, icy)
gu	anguish (always)	lingua (language, tongue)
h	home (never silent as in hour)	heia (hey!)
i (í)	sit (long as seem)	in (in[to])
j	sometimes used to replace "i" when it has the "y" sound (i.e. i+vowel)*	juguláre (= iuguláre; to kill, to murder)
l	light	ille (that there)
m	me	mittere (to send)
n	nice	nón (no, not)
o (ó)	often (long as so)	nón (no, not)
p	spite	per (for)
qu	quick (always)	aqua (water)
r	rolled/trilled, as Spanish	ratió (reason)
s	safe	est (he/she/it is)
ss	sick	esse (to be)
t	stake	testámentum (will)
u (ú)	soon (as put when short)	lux (light)
v	between wet and vase	visó (I visit)
x	axe	Xerxés (Xerxes)
y	German "ü" in über	Phyllis (the name Phyllis)
z	zebra

Law of the penultimate: As a rule, the stress falls on the second to last syllable (called the penultimate) if that syllable is long. Clamáre, then, is pronounced "kluh-MAH-reh", with a great amount of weight on the second syllable. If this syllable is not long, the stress falls on the syllable preceding that (such as fábula, pronounced fAH-boo-luh).

*The traditional method marks long vowels with a macron ( ¯ ) above the vowel. Since this is not allowed in standard HTML, long vowels here are marked here with an acute accent.

Exempla (examples):
Céterus (the rest; pronounced kAY-teh-roos).
Cúr (why, pronounced kOOr).

When reading Latin, the vowel length will often not be so conveniently marked (just as an English speaker would not use a mark to indicate the difference of "a" in hamburger and date).

BASIC GRAMMAR
The Latin noun has either a masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. In the singular, masculine tends to end in -us, feminine in -a, and neuter in -um. Words in -tió/-sió (related to Spanish -ción/-sión, Portuguese -ção/-são, French -tion/-sion, Italian -zione/-sione, Romanian -t¸ie [sometimes -t¸iune]/-sie [sometimes -siune], and Catalan -ció/-sió) are feminine, just as in those languages. In forming the plural, an -us becomes -í, an -a becomes -ae, and an -um becomes -a. These apply only to the nominative form of the noun (i.e. when the noun acts as the subject).

The articles (a/an/the) are not present in Latin, so the English speaker must infer them in translation.

Here are the basic Latin declensions for nouns in -us (generally masculine), -a (generally feminine), and -um (generally neuter):

SINGULAR	Masculine -us	Feminine -a	Neuter -um
Nominative	-us	-a	-um
Vocative	-e	-a	-um
Accusative	-um	-am	-um
Genitive	-í	-ae	-í
Dative	-ó	-ae	-ó
Ablative	-ó	-á	-ó

 

PLURAL	Masculine -us	Feminine -a	Neuter -um
Nominative	-í	-ae	-a
Vocative	-í	-ae	-a
Accusative	-os	-as	-a
Genitive	-órum	-árum	-órum
Dative	-is	-is	-is
Ablative	-is	-is	-is

The nominative is the subject form, the noun that directs the sentence (nomen is the Latin word for noun or name). The vocative (Latin vox means voice) indicates only a calling out, and is quite often put to use after Ó! (= Oh!). In this respect, it is not a true case. The accusative receives the action of the verb or of a preposition (hence, it is accused). The genitive shows the possession of the noun (generation, genetics, and gene all entail some form of belonging). The dative is an indirect objective case, delineating the "to" or "for" aspect of a noun (Latin dare "to give"). The ablative is derived from a case indicating motion from, but acquires several other uses before the height of Classical Latin.

If I were to run a hot dog stand, look at how I might use the cases in English:

Nominative:   The dog barks often. (subject)
Vocative:        OH, DOG! (addressed)
Accusative:    I walk the dog. (object of verb)
Genitive:         The dog's bone/The bone of the dog. (possession)
Dative:            I give the bone to the dog. (direction or motion to/for)
Ablative:         I took the bone from the dog. (direction or motion from)

The Latin verb follows many of the same basic principles as its daughter languages, so don't be surprised if you recognize a verb, verb form, or usage of a verb as being similar to Spanish, French, etc. As in any Romance Language, the present indicative active of the verb often occurs where English would use the present participle (in Latin, for example, fábuló means "I speak in fables" or "I am speaking in fables").

Latin has four verb terminations ("infinitive endings"): -áre, -ére, -íre, and -ere. Here are the regular present indicative tense conjugations for each of the infinitive endings, including sample verbs:

	-áre	fábuláre (to speak in fables)	-ére	monére (to warn)	-íre	scíre (to know)	-ere	legere (to read)
egó (I)	-ó	fábuló	-eó	moneó	-ió	sció	-ó	legó
tú (you)*	-ás	fábulás	-és	monés	-ís	scís	-is	legis
is (he)	-at	fábulat	-et	monet	-it	scit	-it	legit
ea (she)	-at	fábulat	-et	monet	-it	scit	-it	legit
nós (we)	-ámus	fábulámus	-émus	monémus	-ímus	scímus	-imus	legimus
vós (all of you)*	-átis	fábulátis	-étis	monétis	-ítis	scítis	-itis	legitis
ií (they)	-ant	fábulant	-ent	monent	-iunt	sciunt	-unt	legunt

* In late Vulgar Latin, tú is used for familiar/informal situations when addressing a single person, vós (or Vós)  for more formal ones. Vós is the plural of tú, but may act as the singular formal form. In Classical Latin, however, we find only tú as singular and vós as plural, with no distinction in the level of formality.

Hispánice loquerisne?, for example, translates Do you speak Spanish? (note that "-ne" attached to the verb loqueris, indicates that this is a question, mandatory in Latin for sentences lacking a question word such as "What...?" or "Who...?") .

Adjectives agree with the noun in number, gender and case, and most often follow them: vir félix ([a/the] happy man). They are declined similarly to the Latin noun.

An adverb is typically formed by adding -e to a stem rather than the regular, nominative stem (-us, -a, -um, et cetera), ex.: láté widely, but látus, -a, -um wide. Note, however, the larger class of adverbial inflections that Latin has at hand, such as the frequentative -im, e.g. stat-im, inter-im.

BASIC WORDS AND PHRASES
These phrases do not reflect the specific dialects of late or Vulgar Latin, but the general usage of the classical language:

Salve! = Goodday!
Salve! = Hello!
Quómodo valés? = How are you?, How's it going?
Quómodo valétis? = How are you? (formal)
Bene. = (I'm) well.
Male. = Badly.
Admodum bene. = So-so.
Multius... = Very...
Quid est nomen tibi/vóbis? = What's your name? / What are your names?
Et tú? = And you?
Et vós? = And you? (formal)
Mé placet té cognoscere. = Pleased to meet you.
Sis. = Please.
Mé excusáte. = Excuse me.
...est = Here is...
...est = There is...
...sunt = There are...
Ita. = Yes.
Nón. = No.
Grátiás (agó). = Thank you.
Salutatió. = You're welcome.
Quid...? = What?
Cúr? = Why?
Quota hóra est? = What time is it?
Vale! / Ave! = Goodbye!, See you later!

Joshua Rudder, talktume@hotmail.com.