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- "Estne Bostonia civitas?"
47 Comments
10
City as in City-State...as when Florence and Venice and Rome were each powers unto themselves, ruling the city proper and the lands surrounding them, with wars, skirmishes and trading between them.
I don't think Latin has a word for what the states in America are, so the course uses urbs for city and civitas for state
180
Agreed, and let's not the forget the Borgias, Julian II and the Papal States. Which, relatively speaking, are modern.
296
This constant referencing of the U.S.A. when we are supposed to be learning Latin with classical pronunciation is very annoying.
I don't want to learn someone's idea of a made-up Latin-sounding word. That is not Latin.
It's just a few Latinizations of place names, the majority of which were probably Latinized 300+ years ago, because the Vatican keeps its records in Latin.
They're by no means faux Latin like that Dorime song.
On another note, while this course uses classical pronunciation, most of the team members who made it are from a group that encourages usage of Latin as if it is a living language - they host multiple events every year to further that goal. That means that you will come across words and names that didn't exist in 50 B.C. both in this course and in the Latin speaking community at large.
382
For those who sre interested: there is a Finnish internet radio station that every day offers a news bulletin in Latin.
-ne
at the end of a word is one of a few word endings that can be slapped on the end of nearly any word. It basically transforms the sentence - "Bostonia civitas est" = "Boston is a state" (yes, I'm aware it's not) - to a question: "Estne Bostonia civitas?". Note that it's usually the first word, and it's usually a verb that gets the -ne
.
Another, similar ending is -que
, which can be slapped on the end of a noun and means "and". Senatus Populusque Romanus: The Roman Senate and Roman People.
382
Free tip: the suffix - ne is used in neutral questions, Num in questions when you expect a negative answer, and Nonne when you expect a positive answer.