Latin/Introduction to Latin grammar

Introduction to Latin

Lesson Plan

• Brief history of Latin
• Intro to Cases
• Intro to Declensions
• Intro to Conjugations
• Vocabulary 1
• Assignment

History of Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the Ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and many schools and universities continue to teach it. Latin is still used in the process of new word production in modern languages of many different families, including English. Latin and its daughter Romance languages are the only surviving branch of the Italic language family.

Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders, seven noun cases, four verb conjugations, six tenses, six persons, three moods, two voices, two aspects and two numbers.

In terms of vocabulary, however, Latin tends to preserve the original forms of many Indo-European roots. Compared to other Indo-European languages of antiquity, such as Sanskrit and Ancient Greek, the word forms in the Classical era are far more reflective of their etyma. Languages such as Sanskrit, however, tend to be more conservative with regards to grammar.

Intro to Cases

Cases are variations on nouns and adjectives that give information about the grammatical function of the word written in that case. By identifying the case of the word, you will know whether it is the subject or object of the verb or preposition, or if it is being used in another way in the phrase or sentence. Latin has 5 cases, compared to the 3 cases in the English language:

• Nominative
• Accusative
• Genitive
• Dative
• Ablative

There are two minor cases in addition to the major 5. One is called the locative, and it is used to give the location of the action. The other is called the vocative, and is used in direct address. In most cases, these meanings will be conveyed through the use of prepositions rather than providing a noun in these cases.

Each case has its own use. The use will be explained later on in Chapter 1.

Intro to Declensions

There are 5 declensions in Latin. Declensions are categories of nouns (e.g. animus is second declension and anima is first declension), and give the standard spelling changes (morphology) needed to form the specific cases for the nouns in that category (e.g. the plural of animus is animi but the plural of anima is animae because they are in different declensions).

Intro to Conjugations

As with nouns and adjectives, verbs also undergo a series of changes to give further information, including how many people are acting, when they are acting, or whether they are the ones acting (subject) or something is happening to them (object). Changing a verb to express this information is called "conjugating" the verb. Like declensions for nouns, there are 4 conjugations in Latin; again, these are categories of verbs that prescribe how to spell the verb differently. For example, the verb ambulare, meaning "to walk", is changed to ambulat to say "someone walks", but the verb dicere, meaning "to say", is changed to dicit to say "someone says".

Vocabulary 1

• agricola, agricolae, masculine (m.)
• aqua, aquae, feminine (f.)
• femina, feminae, feminine (f.)
• insula, insulae, feminine (f.)
• paeninsula, paeninsulae, feminine (f.)
• natura, naturae, feminine (f.)
• nauta, nautae, masculine (m.)
• poeta, poetae, masculine (m.)
• puella, puellae, feminine (f.)
• silva, silvae, feminine (f.)
• via, viae, feminine (f.)
• est
• sunt
• et
• non
• sed

Assignment

The assignment for this section is to define the words above and look for words in English that are derived from them. I would not recommend using Google translate. (Hint: est, sunt, et, non, sed have no derivatives.)

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