| A sample from Teach Yourself
Beginner's
Latin ....
Subjects
and objects
Latin is an inflected language. This means that the final syllable(s)
of a word can vary according to the way the word is being used in the
sentence:
Mulus
silvam
spectat.
The mule is watching the wood.
Here the mule is doing the watching, the wood is being
watched. The
mule is the subject of the sentence, the wood the object, the
difference
being that the subject is the ‘doer’, the object is on the receiving
end
and is ‘done to’. Latin makes this clear by having different endings
for
subject and object.
Mulum
silva spectat.
The wood is watching the mule.
Now silva no longer has a final ‘m’, and mulus has been changed to
mulum. This makes silva the subject and mulum the object. English word
order is more restricted because we recognise a subject by its position
in a sentence, not by its ending. Latin’s word order is more flexible:
in general the subject appears before the object, with the verb at the
end to complete a sentence or word-group, although variations, for a
particular
emphasis or rhythm, often occur. The verb’s place at the end may seem
strange
at first, but you will get used to it. Reading is a process of
anticipation
and completion of meaning; in English this function is often performed
by the object:
Today the milkman delivered ...... ['bottles of milk' is the
anticipated
object, 'the post' would come as a surprise and 'twins' even more so].
Latin has us predicting the action, not the object:
Today the milkman ... two pints of milk ... ['delivered' is
what we
are expecting, ahead of 'stole' or 'threw at the boy on the
skateboard'].
Paulus
in silva
Paulus in
silva
ambulat. Mulus cum Paulo ambulat. Mulus non Paulum sed sarcinam portat.
Fessus est Paulus et mulus est lentus. Mulus silvam non amat. Mulus
silvam
spectat. Silva mulum spectat. Mulus est territus.
(Each unit has lexical help and exercises)
About Latin:
the Classics
Latin was the language spoken in Rome and the surrounding region Latium
as early as the 6th century BC and possibly earlier. The number of
Latin
speakers grew with the expansion of Rome’s empire around the
Mediterranean,
and the vocabulary swelled and forms modified under the influence of
languages
in the new subject territories (especially Greek).
The classical Latin authors lived within a few decades either
side of the life of Christ. In the first century BC Cicero tried to
prevent
the republican government falling prey to the ambitions of dictators. A
compelling public speaker, his honey-voiced skills brought him to the
attention
of politicians such as Caesar and Pompey, and he was courted by them as
an owner of a newspaper or television station might be today. His
writing
was greatly admired, and the elegance and rhetorical flair of his prose
became a model for later scholars and schoolboys to imitate. He was
followed
by, amongst others, the historian Tacitus, whose pointed asides on the
theme of moral and aristocratic degeneration enliven his account of
Rome
under the early emperors. Of the poets the best known is perhaps
Virgil.
His story of the founding of Rome by the Trojan fugitive Aeneas emerged
within a few years of publication as a political symbol and literary
masterpiece.
Horace, a friend of Virgil, is remembered for his Odes, four books of
lyric
poetry drawing on themes of love and friendship, and yearnings, never
quite
fulfilled, for homely contentment and rustic ease. The erotic elegies
of
Propertius and Tibullus echo Catullus’ earlier infatuation for Lesbia
and
foreshadow the work of Ovid, a decade or so later. Ovid’s wit and fresh
invention brought new twists to the elegiac genre, and his verse was
imitated
more than any other by medieval writers; partly, perhaps, because
copies
were available, but also because of a lightness of touch which won him
universal appeal.
These classics have a timeless feel about them.
They have been drummed into pupils for the best part of two thousand
years
(less the last few decades, perhaps). They are literature’s heroes and
anti-heroes. If other heroes are found, more often than not they are
those
heroes’ heroes. Classical authors have been trotted out as arbiters of
good taste throughout the centuries, medieval and Renaissance,
neoclassical
and new wave.
This aura of permanence is reinforced by the serene
grandeur
of classical civilization, by the durability of buildings and statues
which
survive it. Much of what actually went on, however, was anything but
serene
and civilized. Writers and artists are known to find inspiration under
duress and in times of political insecurity. So it was with some of the
best Roman literature. Throughout most of the first century BC Italy
suffered
from political chaos and intermittent cruelty and bloodshed. ‘O Tempora
O Mores!’ (‘What an age! What moral standards!’) cried Cicero, rounding
on his peers for failing to live up to earlier times, and damning the
period
we have subsequently identified as one of the greatest in our history.
The classical period of Latin was a moment in the
language’s
evolution which could not endure, for no living language can remain the
same for long. The efforts of later grammarians to preserve classical
Latin
were a symptom of its passing. As the living, spoken language moved on,
eventually evolving into French, Spanish, Italian and other Romance
languages,
this classical, literary Latin was preserved and ‘pickled’ by later
generations
of writers and scholars, and after the fall of the western empire, by
monks
in their monasteries.
Thus the rules of classical Latin, the grammar and
syntax, are something of a still shot of what was essentially
transitory.
Nonetheless these rules are instrumental in shaping all the Latin which
followed, for almost all subsequent Latinists have attempted, with
different
degrees of success, to remain faithful to classical norms. Where
possible
the Latin in this course, the grammar, syntax, idioms and
pronunciation,
are based on the ground rules of classical Latin, including our story
set
in a medieval monastery. There are some inevitable twentieth-century
inventions,
and a number of words are used in their medieval sense such as ecclesia
(church) and presbyter (priest).
Living
Latin
This section of each unit contains some authentic Latin, most but not
all of which is classical. The pieces are included as both a rest
and a stimulant. You are not advised to read them too closely, in fact
you are advised not to! Many of the words and endings will be
unfamiliar
— so be positive and accumulate what you can. With the help of the
translations
see what you are able to work out, then sit back and listen to the
recordings,
and repeat them for pronunciation practice.
1.
Verberat nos
et lacerat fortuna. [SENECA, Dial. i,4,12]
Fortune batters and torments us.
2. Defendi rempublicam
adulescens, non deseram senex.
[CICERO, Phil. ii,118]
I defended the republic as a young man, I shall not desert it
in my old age.
3. Ubi
solitudinem
faciunt, pacem appellant. [TACITUS, Agricola
xxx]
They make a desert and call it peace.
4. Aurora
interea
miseris mortalibus almam.
extulerat
lucem referens opera atque labores. [VIRGIL, Aeneid
xi,
182-3]
Dawn now raised her nourishing light upon the suffering mortals
and renewed their daily grind.
5.
O tempora,
o mores! Senatus haec intellegit, consul videt.
What an age! What moral standards! The senate knows what’s going
on, the consul has it right in front of his eyes.
[CICERO, In Catilinam i, 1]
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