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- "Vir dormit."
57 Comments
Its an early release latin coarse so its to be expected. Im just glad its on here in the first place.
I wanted this course so much! As this course should be a star course, it allows to learn many other languages and to understand well our languages and the etymology!
575
"Vir" or "weer." Ecclesiastical Latin sounds better and has more use than classical. Not weni wedi wici but veni vidi vici.
Well, this course teaches Classical Latin, and "sounds better" is a highly subjective opinion.
I understand your opinion and respect it. But I very much want to learn classical Latin. I disagree very much that Ecclesiastical Latin is more useful (unless you wish to take Holy Orders) or that it sounds better. How a language sounds - like music, is very personal. For a person such as my self - interested in history, classical poetry, etc. classical Latin is more useful. But with several Latin Masses and Many well recorded Gregorian Chants, you will be well prepared!
agreed. late latín developed various pronunciations 2/2 place and time of use. but classicists preferencia classical. since se have no recordings i often wonder how the ancient sounds are known for latín or any language. preferencia=prefer & se=we. i have spanish autocorrector which always gets me.
I too wondered how the "Reconstructed Classical" pronunciation was reconstructed, so I bought and have read Vox Latina, the Pronunciation of Classical Latin, by W. Sidney Allen. I am now convinced. Though there are some open questions, many details have been nailed down quite well. From the forward to that book:
... but the principal types of data invoked in phonetic reconstruction may be summarized as follows:
(1) specific statements of Latin grammarians and other authors regarding the pronunciation of the language;
(2) puns, plays on words, ancient etymologies, and imitations of natural sounds;
(3) the representation of Latin words in other languages;
(4) developments in the Romance languages;
(5) the spelling conventions of Latin, and particularly scribal or epigraphic variations; and
(6) the internal structure of the Latin language itself, including metrical patterns.
Our arguments will seldom rely on one type of evidence alone, and the combinations of evidence will vary from case to case.
Regarding "scribal and epigraphic variations": once again, the bad students and the semi-literate scribes have left a priceless legacy for antiquarians and philologists.
OTOH, just as the sixteenth century English grammarians were overly influenced by Latin, the Latin grammarians were overly influenced by Greek.
one can teach Virgil using late latín pronunciation if one wants 2. it's been done.
I agree. Who is to say that Romans pronounced the way we think. A long time ago, diphthong like ‘ae’ were pronounced ‘a’ then I heard ‘oi’ and now distinctly pronounced a/e. Who makes the rules here? Any academic body out there ? Girasole, maybe
Not so much "rules" as observations and inferences, though there are some rules laid down fairly late in the period by the Latin grammarians.
For the pronunciation of "ae", the answer is "it depends on where and when". Roughly,
1) the sound starts out being written in Latin as "ai" and transcribed into Greek as "αι";
2) by the time of Quintus Terentius Scaurus, the (urban?) sound is still described as a diphthong, but with a lower ending vowel, more like "ae";
3) in the rural areas it was simplifying to a single vowel, something like "ē", eventually in the Romance languages merging with Latin "ĕ" and turning into something like "ę" (lower than "ē").
Exactly. Linguistic rules are just like the laws of nature. They are discovered and described, they are not decreed or imposed.
I answered 'Man sleeps' and it was marked wrong. However, "A man sleeps" was shown as a correct translation.
Yes. Man can refer to human in general. Man lives in houses. The proper translation is A man sleeps.
I answered "The man sleeping" by a mistake and it was marked correct. Weird flex, but okay.
This sentence means all "A man sleeps/ A man is sleeping" and "The man sleeps/The man is sleeping". The article and the "a" are implicit in Latin.
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Can anyone please explain to me why this sentence means all? In every case there is no difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous or just in this case? I appreciate the answer.
Latin had no articles, which is why it can be "a man" or "the man".
Latin did not have a separate progressive aspect. You'll come across this in Spanish as well. The progressive in Spanish is reserved for particular use. They use the simple present in contexts where we in English might use the simple present or the present continuous. This is why it can be "sleeps" or "is sleeping".
Different languages make different distinctions. Having a progressive aspect is not inevitable.
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I want to learn Spanish after the Latin, so this is really useful. Thank you for the answer, I really appreciate it =).
What I don't understand is the pronunciation of the letter v. I mean, I know it's supposed to be formal, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't many people actually used this pronunciation. Kind of like the word thine in English today. Also I agree that they should have recorded a native Italian speaker as well.
It was pronounced like a "u" or "w". The distinction between the letter "u" and "v" is a late one. https://www.quora.com/Is-V-in-Latin-really-pronounced-as-W
I disagree for the native Italian, why Italian and no other languages that is born from Latin? I don't think Latin sounded so much like modern Italian. Italian had the time to be influenced by many accents and languages to give modern Italian. The pronunciation of the "v" etc, is so different in Latin and in Italian for instance. They are as much daughters of this language than Italian, and there are several accents in Italian, so which one is the best one? I wonder. The one still in use in Rome? When I see other countries evolution, the language talked in a place is sometimes very far from the past. For instance, in France, the accent of Québec is closer from the past than the accent used in the modern Paris. In Québec, they kept the ancient accent, and it was forgotten and evolved in Paris.
imho learning latín using any pronunciation is a good thing but suggest being consistent with whatever pronunciation of an era or geographical area is used. one can adapt or change if one's qualitative ideas evolve with exposure to those of others in the field.
No, there are not many accents in Italian. Tonic accent cannot be changed.
The t at the end of dormit sounds aspirated. I didn't think latin had aspirated stops except for in borrowed words?
I, too, think that's what Kat166678 means. That is, "borrowed words" probably does mean "borrowed from Greek". In ancient Rome, knowledge of Greek was a sign of being educated. Since the Classical Attic dialect of Ancient Greek had a contrast between
"φ" vs "π" (phi versus pi),
"θ" vs "τ" (theta versus tau), and
"χ" vs "κ" (chi versus kappa),
educated Romans would try to aspirate their phi's, theta's and chi's, in words borrowed from Greek. The pi's, tau's and kappa's would naturally come out unaspirated without any particular effort.
Of course, as with the word-initial 'h", social climbers, such as Arrius in Catullus 84, would overcompensate in aspirating consonants. (The over-aspiring would over-aspirate.)
"Chommoda dicebat, si quando commoda vellet"
"dicere, et insidias Arrius hinsidias."
("Hadvantages" Arrius was saying whenever he wished to say advantages"
"And ambush he was saying "hambush,")
[translation from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Catullus_84]
Why is this A man sleep rather than THE man sleeps? Still a little confused on latin grammar
Both "a man sleeps" and "the man sleeps" are valid translations. Latin does not have any articles, so without any context, it can go either way. If you responded to the prompt Vir dormit, any of the following ought to be accepted:
A man sleeps.
A man is sleeping.
The man sleeps.
The man is sleeping.
If you wrote any of those and it marked you wrong, please flag it and report "My answer should be accepted."
Is dormit sleep or sleeping or asleep or sleeps? In english these are all different but i dont know wgen to use dormit or dormiunt and dormit has come up several times as slightly different translations
"Vir dormit" can be "A/the man sleeps/is sleeping." It's not "asleep" though because that's an adjective.
"Dormit" vs "dormiunt" is "he sleeps" vs "they sleep". For the regular verbs, the suffixes go like this:
| pronoun | verb suffix |
|---|---|
| ego | -o |
| tu | -s |
| id | -t |
| nos | -mus |
| vos | -tis |
| ea | -nt |
For the ones intervening about the ‘femina’ word as being mulier, I wish to understand the connection between some Italian dialect ‘mugghiera’ or ‘moglie/wife’. I am studying as well Bahasa Indonesia and find curious to learn that wife is ‘istri’ probably connected to histeria
In French we say ‘un homme viril’. It must be a pleonasm as ‘homme’ means man and ‘vir’ means man too. A manly man !?
This is the definition of "virile" in English:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/virile
Does anyone know how to say, "Oh immortal God! Oh angels of the white rings! Hear our grief and look down on the empty crown!"?
No. The 3rd person singular is "sleeps", not "sleep".
A man sleeps.
The man sleeps.
A man is sleeping.
The man is sleeping.
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the "w" pronounciation of "v" is strange and different from what I once learnt at the liceum.
our friend the smiling owl rejected "the man sleeps" which imho is at least as correct as his/her answer. i think duo est vir. not sure. perhaps there is an owl named dua and dua est femina. sed marsala est vir and goddess Juno est femina. ??=-/
In Classical Latin, it is spelled V and pronounced W.
The Latin Alphabet - Consonant Pronunciation | latintutorial | YouTube
Latin does not have word "the" it would be pointless if you make the translation wrong
Latin does not have word "the"
That's right. Latin has no articles at all -- neither definite articles nor indefinite articles. But English does. So you may have to add them when translating from Latin into English.
Much like you can't translate Dormio. into "Am sleeping." -- you have to add the subject pronoun in English and write "I am sleeping." even if you may leave it out in Latin.
And you can't translate Ubi Marcus dormit? into "Where Marcus sleeps?"; you have to add the word "do" because that's how most questions are formed in English, and write "Where does Marcus sleep?".
You have to translate from correct Latin into correct English. This will often require you to add, remove, or rearrange words.
