What is the -ē form in “Latīnē loquor”?

Question

To say you speak in Latin or in Greek, you say “Latīne” or “Graecē”. What is that -ē form? I cannot figure it out from any declension table I am aware of.

Does the same -ē ending work for any other language, or is it only a set form for some languages? E.g. can you say “Francogallicē” or “Japonicē”, or do you need to use some standard case & declension (ablative maybe)?

See this: "Instead, the adverbial form was preferred: latine loquor..." — cmw, Aug 13 '22 at 22:43
Related: How to speak a language with a third declension adjective? — Asteroides, Aug 13 '22 at 23:10

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 14 '22 at 00:26

6

That is the adverbial ending. To convert a first/second adjective to an adverb, you replace the declension ending with -ē: if a document is hard to understand, it's obscūra (or obscūrus etc), but if I do something in a way that's hard to understand, it's obscūrē.

For third adjectives, -iter is more common: a celer person acts celeriter.

answered Aug 14 '22 at 00:26

Draconis

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@Florianus The adverbial ending is used in some other contexts, and I usually interpret it to mean "in Latin". For instance, Kurt and Barbara Aland's edition of the New Testament, Novum Testamentum Latine. – Figulus Aug 16 '22 at 00:09

What is the -ē form in “Latīnē loquor”?

1 Answers1