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On the birth of Latin language
This is my first question here, and though my native language derives from Latin, I, unlucky, didn't get a change to study much Latin at school.
Two questions that have often crossed my mind are:
Is Latin more sophisticated than its predecessor,…
Lingo
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"Friends, Romans, Countrymen...": A Translation Problem from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar"
Mark-Antony's speech (Act III, Scene II), from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", is well-known; at least, the opening lines are:
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives…
tony
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How should I pronounce 'ait'?
I'm interested in the proper Classical pronunciation of the word 'ait'. I've been pronouncing it as 'ate', /eɪt/.
Should it instead be pronounced as /a.it/ or even /aɪ.it/? What evidence is there suggesting how classical Romans would have pronounced…
user11
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Translating "I too can write in Latin"
I want to translate this short sentence to Latin:
I too can write in Latin.
I mean that there are also others who know Latin, not that I can write in other languages or that I can speak Latin.
Here is my translation attempt:
Ego quoque Latīnē…
Craig Harkins
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About capitalization "The first letter of a sentence in Latin is not capitalized"
A Latin tutorial said "The first letter of a sentence in Latin is not capitalized."
That's strange. And most Latin texts I have seen do not obey that rule. Most Latin tutorials I have learned did not mention this rule. Until now I have found only…
user11068
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Roman wedding congratulations
How did the Romans congratulate a couple on their wedding day?
The concepts of wedding and marriage were not quite what they are now back then, but I assume that celebrations and congratulations were not unheard of.
I can think of many possible nice…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Is there any rule for determining whether a verb beginning with ε- will augment to η- vs ει-, or must all verbs' behaviors be memorized?
For instance, the verb ἐλευθερῶ augments to ἠλευθέρουν in the past, whereas the verb ἔχω augments to εἶχον (not ἦχον as might have been predicted).
healynr
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Can I put multiple words in a list, with "-que" on the last one?
As a sort of followup to Are "-que" and "et" equivalent?, I'd like to know if this would be considered a valid construction (in classical-latin):
Arma virum navesque cano
(modified version of Virgil's Aeneid, I.1)
Are there any examples of…
user11
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Was avē truly pronounced with an "unspelled /h/"?
According to the etymology at Wiktionary, avē derived from a Punic word with an initial /h/, and was pronounced as such in the Classical period even though the word was spelt without.
Is this claim, that it was written avē but pronounced *havē,…
jogloran
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Abbreviations used by Romans in their inscriptions
While watching a documentary, I came across this Roman tombstone of three Jewish freedmen (below is the image):
The expanded transcription available online is,
L(ucius) Valerius L(uci) l(ibertus)
Baricha
L(ucius) Valerius L(uci)…
CCCC
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Meaning of "dies illa" from Dies Irae
The first verse from "Dies Irae" goes like
Dies irae, dies illa
I'm trying to understand what "illa" is referring to.
According to the declension table for pronouns, "illa" corresponds either to feminine nominative/ablative plural or neuter…
rmdmc89
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Learn Ancient Greek or Latin first?
I am in the beginning stages of thinking about learning both Ancient Greek and Latin. During my initial research, I have encountered some people saying that learning Latin first is what is commonly done, and that it is helpful when learning Ancient…
Nacht
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Can I passivize a verb with two objects with respect to either one?
If I have a transitive verb with one object, passivizing an active sentence is straightforward.
For example, "te amo" becomes "(a me) amaris".
But how to passivize a verb that has two objects?
For example, can "te rem doceo" be passivized into "tu…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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"Deus tu conversus vivificabis nos..."
This verse from Psalm lxxxiv:
Deus tu conversus vivificabis nos: et plebs tua laetabitur in te.
Appears in the Parvum Officium of the BVM (and other liturgical prayers that currently escape my memory). The Baronious Press edition translates it…
davidrmcharles
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Are there many irregular adjectives for the Latin comparison?
I just learned the comparison for adjectives. Most adjectives have regular conjugations (every case/grammatical gender has its own output). But I learned a few irregular adjectives as well (all in masculinum):
bonus, melior, optimus (good, better,…
L. Peters
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