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- "Litteras latinas scribitis."
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Since English doesn't have a distinction between you singular and plural anymore, we sometimes add extra words to convey the plural. The all is optional in the English translation.
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I suspect that Duolingo added this since so many people were griping about not knowing whether Duolingo meant the plural or the singular 'you'. Now they are griping because Duolingo added 'all' in order to differentiate between the two and it's STILL causing confusion!
- 872
"Littera" can also mean a letter. Thus "You write Latin letters" should be accepted, too.
Just pointing out that in previous sentences, in the Latin version, the adjective Latin(-a, -as, etc.) has been capitalized, but here it isn't. ""Litteras latinas scribitis." What is the rule?
It is convention in edited texts in English to capitalize proper nouns. The Romans, of course, wrote in all capital letters.
So, I don't think it should be capitalized in Latin. That's a mistake to anglicize this course.
Late Latin had texts with uppercases and lowercases (books of science, laws, theology, etc...), but I think this rule comes from the English language, not the Latin.
Is "You all write Latin literature" grammatically correct vs "All of you write Latin literature"? Just wondering...
Both are grammatically correct in English, but "you all" (or "y'all") is the more typical second person plural. If you say "all of you" you emphasize the idea that what you are saying encompasses and applies to every single person you are speaking to.
We only say "you all" in English to disambiguate the singular "you" from the plural "you". Latin does not need to do that because it has the singular "tu" and the plural "vos". Translation is not about just wholesale swapping out word-for-word.
I learn something... I lived for 8 years in the US and I never added all to you...
- 640
Can 2nd person plural "you" also be a polite formal singular "you" as in French & German?
No, such things developed during the Medieval period and I don't think it ever applied to Latin.
No V-T ("vouvoiement" in French,) in classical Latin.
But it does exist in medieval Latin, that's true.
https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_1986_num_130_2_14393
("Premières recherches sur l'apparition du vouvoiement en latin médiéval [article in French]: First researches on the appearance of the T-V in medieval Latin)
The birth of this concept is more early than Medieval times.
Pluralis majestatis" (plural of majesty)
Vouvoiement is born in Latin when the Imperial power was split between several imperial representative. When addressing one, it was always under the plural form to imply all of other 2 or 3 representatives. Wikipedia quote:
In Latin, tu was originally the singular, and vos the plural, with no distinction for honorific or familiar. According to Brown and Gilman, usage of the plural to the Roman emperor began in the 4th century > AD.
They mention the possibility that this was because there were 2
emperors at that time (in Constantinople and Rome), but also
mention that "plurality is a very old and ubiquitous metaphor for power". This usage was extended to other powerful figures, such as > Pope Gregory I (590–604). However, Brown and Gilman note that it was only between the 12th and 14th centuries that the norms for the > use of T- and V-forms crystallized. Less commonly, the use of the plural may be extended to other persons, such as the "royal we"
(majestic plural) in English.
It's also a source for the unidentified gender pronoun "they" in English.
And it's also a source for the modern "you" that is the plural form, English removed the singular pronoun, and kept only the plural "you" for everyone.
To expand on what 1e7n0WG said, the Latin verb "studere" more literally means "to dedicate oneself to", which is why it takes the dative and not the accusative.
There is this plain-English overview of what the cases are and how they work:
Latin cases, in English
There are also these declension charts:
declensions 1-3
declensions 4&5
Adjectives must agree in gender, number, and case with the nouns they modify, but they have their own declensions. Sometimes you get lucky and the adjective just happens to follow the same declension as the noun, but that is not a guarantee.
There are these conjugation charts:
Latin verb forms
It's a difference in grammatical case: "litteras latinas" is accusative plural, whereas "litteris latinis" is dative or ablative plural. Most verbs take the accusative case for their direct object, but a few, such as studio, take the dative case as what, from an English speaker's point of view, we would see as the direct object.
I applaud the course developers for using the "you all" form to specify a 2nd person plural. Not nearly enough of that on Duolingo.
- 433
Pity then it confuses anyone outside of the US - who seem to understand a plural you. Why not also introduce some convoluted way to mark the French formal and informal?
If the prompt is "You all write Latin literature", then no. You are forced into the plural "(Vos) litteras latinas scribitis".
If the prompt is simply "You write Latin literature", then it could be the plural or it could be the singular "(Tu) litteras latinas scribis".
Thank you ... Another question .. if "scribitis" is plural form .. then when can I use " scribunt" ??
"Scribitis" is "y'all write".
"Scribunt" is "they write".
Here are the verb conjugation charts:
1st Conjugation
2nd Conjugation
3rd Conjugation
3rd i-stem Conjugation
4th Conjugation
Here is a plain-English overview of what the cases are and how they work:
Latin cases, in English
Here are the noun and adjective declension charts:
declensions 1-3
declensions 4&5
Adjectives must agree in gender, number, and case with the nouns they modify, but they have their own declensions. Sometimes you get lucky and the adjective just happens to follow the same declension as the noun, but that is not a guarantee.
