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LECTURE 1

THE LATIN LANGUAGE

I. Latin is

- Latin was a highly artificial creation developed by the Romans for literary and political

purposes.

- It is somewhat different in construction from any language used for everyday purposes.

- Latin language expresses the relation of words to each other (syntax) by changes in the endings

of the words rather than as in English by word order and the use of prepositions and auxiliary

verbs.

- These changes in endings are called INFLECTION. The inflection of nouns, adjectives, and

pronouns are called DECLENSION, that of the verbs CONJUGATION.

- English words are inflected very little. A normal English verb has only three forms: make,

makes, made (all other uses are dealt with by the use of such auxiliaries as: is, was, will, has,

should, and might).- An English noun has four forms: boy, boys, boys, boys. While in Latin a regular noun has

twelve forms. Likewise, a regular Latin transitive verb has more than a hundred forms.

II. The Latin Alphabet

- The Latin alphabet has 21 letters: ABCDEFGHILMNOPQRSTUVX- Latin letters are divided into:

o Vowels: a, e, i, o, uo Dipthongs: ae, au, ei, eu, oe, uio Consonants

III. On Latin Pronunciation

A. Vowels1. Each vowel sound has two sounds, the long and the short

2. Long vowels are indicated by a line (called a macron) above it while the short vowels

are unmarked.

Long Vowels Short Vowels

a as in father ( ara =altar) a as in idea

e as in obey (femina =woman) e as in bet

i as in machine (litus =shore) i as in sit

o as in note (totus = whole) o as in omit

u as in rule (luna = moon) u as in put

3. i followed by a vowel is pronounced like y ( pronounced oo). Example:Iulia (Yulia)

4. qu and gu are pronounced like kw and gw, for example: quis (kwis), aqua (akwa),

equus (ekwuus); lingua (lingwa), anguis (angwis), singularis (singwularis)

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B. Dipthongs: Latin has 6 dipthongs pronounced as follows:

ae like eye ( aedes = temple, Graecia = Greece)

au like ow in now ( gaudeo = rejoice,paulum = little)

ei as in neighbor ( deicio = destroy,peior= worse)

eu like ay-oo said as one syllable (Deus = God, meus = mine)

oe like oy in joy (poeta = poet,poena = fine, punishment,proelium = battle)

ui like uee in queen ( anguis = snake,fluitans = flowing, waving)

C. Consonants: The consonants are pronounced as in English with the following exceptions:

C - is always hard as in came; it is pronounced as ch before e, i, ae, oe, for example

cena, coelum.

Tis always pronounced like ts also in the syllable before a vowel, for example

tertia, constantia.

Vis pronounced like wZis like dz in adze

- The letters x and z are called double consonants as representing ks and dz.IV. Stem in Latin Words

1. In two syllable words, the stress is on the first syllable, for example, silve, sonat.

2. In words of three or more syllable the stress is generally on the second to the last

syllable: if this is long, it has