- Forum >
- Topic: Latin >
- "Quid est California? Califor…
"Quid est California? California est civitas Americana."
Translation:What is California? California is an American state.
121 Comments
Ok, this particular course/track is kicking me in the rear.
"Where is California? California is a state in America."
I get that I mixed "quid" and "quis" up, but what about the second half? Is "Americana" a possessive adjective of "state" instead of the subject of a preposition modifying "state"? Does Latin even have prepositions?
Man, I haven't thought this hard about grammar words since high school! I feel slightly out of practice, yet oddly comfortable like an old bicycle. . .
1026
Kate, what are you signifying when you write ”Americanus, -a, -um”? It's obviously a modifier - but for what?
There are masculine (-us), feminine (-a), and neuter (-um) forms of the adjective. I wrote the "dictionary entry" for the form--what you would find if you looked it up. In this case, civitas is feminine, so you use Americana. But if you wanted to modify a masculine word (like pater), you would use Americanus.
359
I wonder the same thing. Is it because of the gender of the word civitas? How could we know about the gender of a word in Latin?
Good question. In classical Latin, status means either fixed (hence ‘static’) or ‘position’ (like the modern word ‘status’). In medieval Latin, the word also gets the modern meaning of ‘state’. So yes, in medieval Latin, this translation could be understood. Don’t forget to change the adjective accordingly, though.
359
I decided to ask that kind of question to Wiktionary. It answers with IPA symbols or sometimes with a recording: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/civitas#Pronunciation_2
/ˈkiː.wi.taːs/, [ˈkiː.wɪ.t̪aːs]
Personally, I disagree with the pronounciation taught here. I attended law school, learnt Latin, also fan of history and stuff. "C" shouldn't be always pronounced "k". Especially not before "i" or "ae". After all "Caesar" is not "Käsar". Although I know there is this kind of pronounciation but I find it sounds very weird. Erasmus one is better and more natural in my opinion. Also it was widely used in Europe until Latin disappeared.
/kae̯.sar/
(Classical)
ˈt͡ʃe.sar/
[ˈt͡ʃɛː.zar]
(Ecclesial)
That's weird, because I hear
Kaezar with a "z" soud like in "zebra" on Wikipedia, and they say it's classical.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Caesar#Pronunciation_3
Why?
901
I'd like to add something here. Both pronunciation are, more or less, correct. However, I think Duolingo teaches us Classical Latin, not Medieval/Ecclesiastical Latin. In Classical Latin, "C" and "G" is always hard, and "V" is pronounced as "W". But the pronunciation shifted to more like Italian during the Medieval Era because of the influence of Italian--therefore Medieval Latin.
In my humble opinion, the pronunciation we should use is of Classical Latin, because it is the version that the Romans spoke.
the pronunciation we should use is of Classical Latin, because it is the version that the Romans spoke
Quote from the Stackexchange site:
One common argument for classical pronunciation is that it's "the way Romans spoke Latin." While I appreciate (and usually try to make) historically informed choices, this argument only tells part of the story. Yes, it's the way Romans spoke Latin—until the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. At that point Latin started to turn into Late Latin, and what we think of now as ecclesiastical pronunciation started to enter the language. (There's a good summary of the shift on Unam Sanctam Catholicam, a website run by a lay apostolate about history and tradition in the Church.)
So yes, while classical pronunciation is indeed the way Romans spoke Latin, ecclesiastical pronunciation is also the way Romans spoke Latin. It's just that Cicero was dead by then, so people are less interested in the literature. :)
A quote from Quintilian "Nam k quidem in nullis verbis utendum ❤❤❤❤ nisi quae significat etiam ut sola ponatur. Hoc eo non omisi quod quidam eam quotiens a sequatur necessariam credunt, cum sit c littera, quae ad omnis vocalis vim suam perferat." or in english " As for k my view is that it should not be used at all except in such words as may be indicated by the letter standing alone as an abbreviation. I mention the fact because some hold that k should be used whenever the next letter is an a, despite the existence of the letter c which maintains its force in conjunction with all the vowels."
We can only go on the arguments (based upon not only the scientific study of language change but also on what Classical Latin writers themselves had to say) expressed by historical linguists. With regard to your "probably", can you name any authorities able to back the claim that "ae" was ever pronounced /ei/ or intervocalic "s" as /z/?
The word isn't really anywhere in the sentence, you can recognize it by looking at the case it's in. Locative or preposition-less ablative is for the question "where?", Ablativus Seperativus - also a preposition-less Ablative - for the question "where from?" and Accusative for "where to?" I hope I didn't forget anything :| (Edit: woops I confused the sentence, look at the solution, it isn't even supposed to be in the sentence)
394
I used contractions: "What's..." and "California's..." and was marked wrong. I reported it.
599
This Oliver Hardy pronunciation is offensive. Not even a barbarian would say "Cal'fowna'a" for California.
Not to complain, but I do prefer the original audio... This speaker has a highly American accent, which can be helpful, but in my opinion it doesn't flow naturally.
Also, probably just a glitch, but the audio goes "qUId est" with this strangely loud microphone noise. Again, most likely nobody's fault, but it's a mildly distracting bug.
570
This is crazy! Why this obsession with references to American states/cities when Latin was spoken /written within the context of the Roman civilisation !!!
901
Please read the other comments, it's been discussed before. To put it simply:
-
California is an American state = California civitas americana est.
-
California is a state of America = California civitas americae est.
672
Press the speaker icon to make her read it at normal speed. There are two: one for normal speed, one for slow speed.
396
A glottal stop between i and a in "California" doesn't strike me as credible. "Californ - ih- a" cannot be correct, sorry.
1735
Adjectives, nouns, pronouns have declensions in Latin, that is different endings for the grammatical genders and numbers and also different endings for the function of the word in the sentence, that is, if the word is the subject, it goes in the nominative case, if it is direct object, it must go in the Accusative case, etc
The words in Latin have a lot of different endings, and that is the base of the Latin Grammar. It is very different from English.
901
See the answer above. "civitas Americana" means "American state"; "Americana" is an adjective. "(a) state in America" would be "civitas in America"