Latin is an inflective language (that is, it has a wide range of affixes), which belongs to the Italian group. Its feature is the free word order when constructing sentences. Nouns are inclined in numbers and cases, pronouns and adjectives (including participles) change in number, case and gender; verbs are inflected by persons, number, tenses, voice and mood. Thus, declension in the Latin language is a category often used. Latin verbal inflections (endings and suffixes) are among the most diverse among the Indo-European languages. Latin is considered a classic in linguistics.
A Brief History of the Latin Language
Latin was originally spoken in Lazio, in Italy. Thanks to the power of the Roman Republic, the Latin language became dominant, first in Italy, and then throughout the Roman Empire. Folk Latin was reborn in Romance languages such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French brought many words to the English language. Latin and ancient Greek roots and terms are used in theology, biology and medicine. Towards the end of the Roman Republic (75 BC), the ancient Latin language grew into a classical one. Vulgar Latin was a colloquial form. She is attested in the inscriptions and works of Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence.
Late Latin writing arose and formed around the third century AD. Medieval Latin was used from the 9th century until the Renaissance. Further, with the advent of modern Latin, it began to evolve. Latin was the language of international communication, science, theology. Latin was the language of science until the 18th century, when other European languages began to supplant it. Church Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and the Latin rite of the entire Catholic Church.
The influence of Latin in other languages
The Latin language in its colloquial form, which is called vulgar Latin (in the understanding - “folk”), has become the primary language for other national European languages, combined into one linguistic branch called Romance. At the same time, there are significant differences between the origin of these languages between them, which formed as Latin developed on the conquered lands over a number of centuries. Latin as a primary language was strongly modified under the influence of local indigenous languages and dialects.
Summary of Latin Grammar
Latin is a synthetic, inflectional language in the terminology of language classification. That is, a language in which word formation is dominated by inflections. Inflections are types of changes in the roots of a word or endings. Latin words include a lexical semantic element and endings indicating the grammatical use of the word. The merging of the root, which carries the meaning of the word, and the ending creates very compact elements of the sentence: for example, amō, "I love", is made from the semantic element, am- "love", and the ending -ō, indicating that this is a singular first person verb , and being a suffix.
The declension of nouns in the Latin language
An ordinary Latin noun belongs to one of the five main groups of declensions, that is, having the same ending form. The declension of the Latin noun is determined by the genitive case of the singular. That is, you need to know the genitive case of the noun. Each case also has its endings. Latin declension of nouns includes the following.
- The first includes feminine as well as masculine nouns, which call a person’s occupation or nationality. 1 declension of the Latin language is defined in the genitive singular ending -ae. For example: persa - pers; agricŏla is a peasant. Basically, the first declension has a case ending -a.
- 2 declension in Latin mostly ends with the letter - about. It is defined in the genitive singular with the ending -i. The second declension is masculine nouns at -us, -er, middle nouns at -um, and a small group of feminine tokens ending in -us.
- 3 declension in Latin is a rather versatile group of nouns. They can be divided into three main categories.
- I agree.
- Vowel
- Mixed. Students are advised to carefully master the first three categories.
- The fourth declension, predominantly ending with the letter -y in the cases of the noun. Defined by the genitive singular with the ending -ūs.
- The fifth declension in Latin predominantly ends with the letter -e in cases. Defined by the genitive singular with the ending -ei. This is a small group of nouns.
Thus, declensions in the Latin language are quite diverse, because, as mentioned above, Latin is a pronouncedly inflected language. The declension of adjectives in the Latin language is practically no different from nouns. In fact, in many ways this is similar to the Russian language, where their declensions also coincide. The largest group of words in Latin is the nouns 1 declension. Latin also includes a number of words that are not inclined.
Cases of the Latin noun
Classical Latin has seven cases of the noun. The declension of adjectives in the Latin language coincides with the declension of nouns. Consider all seven cases:
- The nominative case is used if the noun is a subject or predicate. For example, the word amor is love, puella is a girl. That is, the initial form of the noun.
- The genitive case expresses the belonging of a noun to another subject.
- The dative case is used if the noun is an indirect complement to the sentence using special verbs, with some prepositions.
- The accusative case is used if the noun is a direct object of the subject and with a preposition showing the place of direction.
- An ablative is used if the noun demonstrates separation or movement from the source, cause, tool, or when the noun is used as an object with certain pretexts.
- Vocal case is used when a noun expresses an appeal to the subject. The vocative form of the noun is the same as the nominative, with the exception of the second declension of the noun ending in -us.
- The local case is used to indicate the location (corresponds to the Russian preposition in or on ). This case is used only in this context.
The endings (Latin) of declensions we have reviewed briefly above. For example, for 1 declension they will be: -a, -ae, -ae, -am, -a, -a.
The declension of nouns in the Latin language is manifested in case endings.
Latin verb: conjugation category
The usual verb in Latin refers to one of the four main conjugations. Conjugation is a class of verbs that have the same endings. Conjugation is determined by the last letter of the root of the present tense verb. A root in the present tense can be found by omitting the infinitive ending -re (-ri l for deferring verbs). The infinitive of the first conjugation ends in --ā-re or --ā-ri (active and passive voice), for example: amāre - “to love”, hortārī - “to exhort”, the second conjugation - to -ē-re or -ē-rī : monēre - "to warn", verērī, - to "intimidate", the third conjugation - to -ere, -ī: dūcere - to "lead", ūtī - to "use"; in the fourth -ī-re, -ī-rī: audīre - to “hear”, experīrī - to “try”. Thus, the Latin verb conjugates in persons, depending on conjugation.
Latin tenses
In Latin, there are 6 specific grammatical tenses (tempus), which are only partially available in Russian. These are the following species-time forms:
- Present time.
- Imperfect.
- Past perfect tense.
- The past (long past) time.
- Future perfect time.
- Future imperfect time.
Each time has its own formula and rules of education. Also, the Latin verb has the category of mood and voice.
Latin vocabulary
Since Latin is the Italian language, most of its vocabulary is also Italian, that is, of ancient Proto-Indo-European origin. However, due to close cultural interaction, the Romans not only adapted the Etruscan alphabet to Latin, but also borrowed some Etruscan words. Latin also includes vocabulary borrowed from the Oscans, another ancient Italian people. Of course, the largest category of borrowings is from Greek.
Romance languages
Romance languages - a group of languages, as well as dialects belonging to the Italian subgroup of Indo-European and having one common ancestor - Latin. Their name - Romanesque - goes back to the Latin term Romanus (Roman).
The section of linguistics that studies Romance languages, their origin, development, typology, is called novelism. The peoples who speak them are called Romance speakers. Thus, a dead language continues to exist in them. The number of speakers of Romance languages at the moment is about 800 million worldwide. The most common in the group is Spanish, followed by Portuguese and French. In total there are more than 50 Romance languages.