English-Latin Dictionary -91 include St. Thomas "The Dumb Ox" Aquinas and John "Dunce" Scotus, as well as Petrus Hispanus, a pope who was killed when a ceiling collapsed on him. All learned writing is done in Latin, a practice which persisted until the 20th century at some fairly silly universities. Mid 14th century — The Black Death kills a lot of people, including students, professors and other people who live in crowded, unsanitary cities. This is bad for the educational system. Meanwhile, an Italian poet named Petrarch decides that plague-infested professors and anyone else who doesn't write the classical Latin used by Cicero is a moron. In fact, everyone between Cicero and Petrarch was a moron in the latter's opinion, so it was high time to have a Renaissance and make fun of everything medieval. 1400-1650 — During the Renaissance, which spreads from Italy to France and finally to England, people start reading Latin classical authors and bringing Latin words into their languages. In England, this is called "aureate diction" and is considered evidence of great learnedness. Furthermore, as science develops, Europeans find it useful to have a universal Latinate terminology to facilitate international research. up till 1900 — Almost everyone who goes to college has to learn Latin, and most humanities majors have to study Greek as well. Many of the Latin roots borrowed during the aureate diction period have come to seem native and can be used in forming new words. mid 1960s — The Catholic Church decides that Latin is no longer the obligatory language of Catholic liturgies. Meanwhile, what with free love and everything, most young people of the 60s figure they have better things to do than learn Latin. Today — Nobody speaks Latin well, and few people can write it, but lots can read it. Many of them are tenured professors, so they'd be hard to get rid of even if we wanted to. Latin Grammar In Latin the syntactic role of a word is expressed by declension generating a sentence that does not depend on word order. In Latin there is no indefinite article or definite article. On the noun tables there are usually 5 (sometimes 7) cases: Nominative: indicates the subject of the sentence, or a predicate nominative. Vocative: case of direct address. Genitive: indicates possession (most of the time). Dative: indicates an indirect object. Accusative: indicates a direct object. The accusative may also indicate the extent of time or space. Ablative: - the object of a preposition: He is inside the palace. - time: At the tenth hour he died. - means: He yelled with a great voice. - agent of a passive verb: The cookie was thrown by Cornelia across the room. Locative: used to describe the location of something. There are 5 declensions. Most nouns in the 1st are feminine, most in the 2nd are masculine and neuter (usually distinguished by the m. -us and n. -um endings), 3rd can either be masculine, feminine, or neuter, 4th is either masculine or neuter, and 5th is usually feminine with a couple masculine. All adjectives must agree with the noun they describe in number, case and gender. Adjectives are either 1/2nd declension or 3rd declension. In 1/2nd declensions, -a endings are treated as feminine and are declined like 1st declension nouns, and -us endings are treated as masculine, and -um endings are treated as neuter and both are declined like second declension nouns. In 3rd declension adjectives, for masculine and feminine, most of the time there are no changes which are needed to be made to match gender as both masculine and feminine decline the same (make note that in the ablative usually you use an -i instead of -e as most 3rd declension adjectives are -i stemmed). Neuter has one important difference, as nominative and accusative in all declensions are English-Latin Dictionary -92 the same (-um for 2nd etc.) and for plural nominative and accusative have -a (all neuters in all declensions do this as well). Adjectives can also have comparative forms and superlative forms. Basically, you drop the ending (-a, -us, -um) and place -ior to get the comparative or add -issimus to make superlative form. There are four conjugations in Latin. A verb either falls into one of these conjugations or is considered irregular. In Latin, a verb is defined by its person, number, tense, mood and voice. Each verb has two stems - a present stem and a perfect stem, to which various endings are added to make individual forms of verbs. There are six tenses in Latin: Present, indicates actions happening at the time of speaking. Imperfect, describes actions which were going on over a period of time. Future, used for actions which have not yet taken place, but will do so at some point. Perfect, describes actions in the past which have finished. Pluperfect, describes actions further in the past. Future Perfect, used for actions which will be completed some time in the future. There are three moods: Indicative, which states indisputable facts. Subjunctive, which is used for possibilities, intentions, necessities etc. Imperative, used for commands. There are two voices: Active, where the verb is done by the subject. Passive, where the verb is done to the subject. Latin Pronunciation Guide Consonants Consonants in Latin are basically pronounced in the same way as in English, bar the following exceptions. c - This is always pronounced hard - like a 'k', not an 's'. g - Also a hard sound in Latin, pronounced as in 'great'. i - When before a vowel, it is a consonant and is pronounced like a 'y'. r - Roll your 'r's. t - Always pronounced hard in Latin, like 'time' not soft like 'lotion' v - Pronounced like a 'w' Vowels Vowels can be pronounced either long or short. In English this affect isn't very noticeable, but in Latin, it's important to get right. Additionally, long vowels should audibly be held for longer. This is because Latin rhythm in poetry depends upon the length of syllables, instead of stresses. Short a - Like the English 'car' e - Like the English 'met' i - Like the English 'skip' o - Like the English 'for' u - Like the English 'put' Long a - Like the English 'ha!' e - Like the English 'they' i - Like the English 'pea' o - Like the English 'low' u - Like the English 'true' Diphthongs Latin has three diphthongs (two vowel sounds pronounced as one syllable), ae, au, and ei. ae - Pronounced as the y in the English 'fly'. au - Pronounced as the ow in the English 'cow'. ei - Pronounced as the ay in the English 'day'. Stress Accent Just as in English and other languages, certain syllables were stressed. A general rule for working out where the stress should fall is the following: If a word has only two syllables, the accent will fall on the first syllable eg, ámo, únus. If a word has more than two syllables The stress will fall on the second last syllable if that syllable contains a long or a short vowel followed by two consonants, eg amátis, deféssus;. Otherwise the stress will fall on the third last syllable, eg celériter, sollícitus. Ngô Đình Bảo Thoa . an -i instead of -e as most 3rd declension adjectives are -i stemmed). Neuter has one important difference, as nominative and accusative in all declensions are English-Latin Dictionary -9 2. comparative forms and superlative forms. Basically, you drop the ending (-a, -us, -um) and place -ior to get the comparative or add -issimus to make superlative form. There are four conjugations in. stresses. Short a - Like the English 'car' e - Like the English 'met' i - Like the English 'skip' o - Like the English 'for' u - Like the English