Latin
- Alternate meanings: See Latin (disambiguation)
Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire.
All Romance languages descend from a Latin parent, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. Moreover, Latin was a lingua franca, the learned language for scientific and political affairs, for more than a thousand years, being eventually replaced by French in the 18th century and English in the late 19th. It remains the formal language of the Roman Catholic Church to this day, which includes being the official national language of the Vatican.
Latin has an extensive flectional system, which mainly operates by appending endings to a fixed stem. Inflection of nouns and adjectives is termed "declension", that of verbs, "conjugation". There are five declensions of nouns, and four conjugations for verbs. The six noun forms (or "cases") are nominative (used for subjects), genitive (show possession), dative (indirect objects), accusative (direct objects), ablative (used with some prepositions), and vocative (used to address someone).
Romance languages are not derived from Classical Latin but rather from Vulgar Latin. Latin and Romance differ (for example) in that Romance had distinctive stress whereas Latin had distinctive length of vowels. In Italian and Sardo logudorese, there is distinctive length of consonants and stress, in Spanish only distinctive stress, and in French even stress is no longer distinctive.
Another major distinction between Romance and Latin is that Romance languages, excluding Romanian, have lost their case endings in most words (some pronouns being exceptions). Romanian is still equipped with several cases (though some, notably the ablative, are no longer represented).
Latin and English
English grammar isn't a direct derivative of Latin grammar. Attempts to make English grammar fit Latin rules -- such as the contrived prohibition against the split infinitive -- have not worked successfully in regular usage. However, as many as half the words in English come to us through Latin, including many words of Greek origin, not to mention the thousands of French, Spanish, and Italian words of Latin origin that have also enriched English.
- Latin phonemes
- Latin declension
- Latin conjugation
- Latin lexicon
- List of Latin phrases
- Compound verbs in English consisting of Latin prefix and Latin verb
See also: Latin literature, Latin proverbs, List of Latin phrases, Brocards, Roman Empire, New Latin, Latin names of European cities, Latin names of European rivers.
External links
- The Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/) has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including an interactive Latin dictionary (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=Latin).
- Ethnologue report for Latin (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=LTN)
- Free online course in Latin (http://www.sprachprofi.de.vu/latin)
Please note that there is also a Latin Wikipedia (http://la.wikipedia.com/)
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scoundrel?
B. B. You are a scoundrel, sir.
LOUIS. Just so. What is a scoundrel? I am/am.html">am. What am I? A
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B. B. I--I--I--I have a good mind to take you by the scruff of
it out of court afterwards. [B. B., baffled, flings away from him
my own house? I should like to get them over before my wife comes
must find a remedy for themselves. I will not lift a finger to
certainly are a thoroughgoing specimen.
SIR PATRICK. You know.html">know our opinion of you now, at all events.
LOUIS [patiently putting down his pencil] Look here. All this is
ordinary criminal.
WALPOLE. Not an ordinary one, Dubedat. Do yourself justice.
LOUIS. Well youre on the wrong tack altogether. I'm not a
believe.html">believe in morality. I'm a disciple of Bernard Shaw.
SIR PATRICK [puzzled] Eh?
B.B. [waving his hand as if the subject was now disposed of]
exactly a Superman; but still, it's an ideal that I strive
perfectly. Say no more, please. When a man pretends to discuss
of a notorious and avowed anti-vaccinationist, there is nothing
in parenthesis to Ridgeon] Not, my dear Ridgeon, that I believe
neednt tell you that. But there are things that place a man
seat on the dais].
SIR PATRICK. Bernard Shaw? I never heard of him. He's a Methodist
living: he isn't anything.
SIR PATRICK. I assure you, young man, my father learnt the
before you or Mr. Shaw were born. It used to be very popular as
sound Methodist, my lad; only you don't know it.
LOUIS [seriously annoyed for the first time] Its an.
On
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