When I was in school, my English teacher – whenever we told her that something was tough – used to reply back saying that what we were supposed to do was easy and it was not Greek or Latin. I used to wonder at that time why Greek and this mysterious Latin were regarded as difficult – I thought they would be as easy or as difficult as any other language. As Latin had the same alphabets as English, I wondered how it could be difficult as it would be so easy to read, once one had learnt the Roman alphabet. It was definitely not Chinese, wasn’t it?
In later years, I added Latin to the list of languages that I wanted to learn – because then I could say that I knew Latin 🙂 I was also inspired to learn Latin by one of the characters called Larry in Somerset Maugham’s novel ‘The Razor’s Edge’. In that book, Larry leaves a good job, goes to Paris, lives in a small apartment, and spends his time learning Greek and Latin and visiting bookshops and cafes. What a life! I also thought that if I learnt Latin, I could get to read some of the classics in the original like ‘The Aeneid’ by Virgil, some of Ovid’s poems, some of Cicero’s speeches and other such interesting stuff. But this dream was always on the backburner and I hadn’t done anything about it. Then I discovered that fellow blog-friends Ana (at Things Mean a Lot) and Jenny (at Jenny’s Books) were Latin ‘experts’ and I was green with envy – it must be so wonderful for them to read ‘The Aeneid’ in the original and other beautiful Latin literary works! So, I thought instead of feeling envy I will do something about it and I thought I will start getting acquainted with Latin. I got a beginner’s book and browsed through it. It had eighteen lessons. I finished the first lesson today – so that is a good start, I guess 🙂
The first lesson talked a little bit about Latin grammar – subject and object and cases. In one breadth the author mentions the nominative, accusative and ablative cases! I learnt cases for eight months in Russian and I am still confused. I hope the author expands on Latin cases in future lessons. The book also touched on the similarities between Latin and English and had some simple Latin phrases and passages. It also talked a little bit about famous classical Latin authors.
One of the first Latin passages in the book went like this :
Paulus in silva ambulat. Mulus cum Paulo ambulat. Mulus non Paulum sed sarcinam portat. Fessus est Paulus et mulus est lentus. Mulus silvam non amat. Mulus silvam spectat. Silva mulum spectat. Mulus est territus.
I tried teasing the meaning out of this passage 🙂 This is what I got out of it.
- Paulus in silva ambulat – Paulus seems to be the Latin version of Paul. ‘Ambulat’ seems to be related to the English ambulatory, which is related to walking and so Paul is probably walking. ‘in silva’ looks like ‘in somewhere’. Maybe ‘silva’ means ‘street’, or ‘forest’ or some place. So this line probably means ‘Paul is walking in some place’.
- Mulum cum Paulo ambulat – ‘Cum’ is similar to the English ‘cum’. It probably means ‘together’ or ‘with’. ‘Mulum’ looks like ‘mule’ (I am cheating here – there is a picture in the book which helped me to guess this :)). So, the mule is walking with Paul.
- Mulus non Paulum sed sarcinam portat – ‘Non’ probably means ‘not’. ‘Portat’ is probably related to ‘porter’ and so has a connotation of ‘carrying’. So this line probably means ‘The mule is carrying not Paul but something else’. (‘Sed sarcinum’ was impossible to guess. Maybe Paul and the mule are going on a long journey. Maybe the mule is carrying a bag with Paul’s belongings and some food.).
- Fessus est Paulus et mulus est lentus – ‘Est’ in French means ‘is’. ‘Et’ in French means ‘and’. So, Paul is something and the mule is something. Can’t guess what these somethings are. Maybe this describes the physical characteristics of Paul and the mule – like tall and short – or maybe it describes what they are doing or their emotional state or their energy levels. ‘Fessus’ and ‘lentus’ don’t look like verbs but look like adjectives. So probably these words denote the physical or the mental state / characteristics of Paul and the mule.
- Mulus silvam non amat – ‘amat’ means ‘love’ (I know it because I read it in Anton Chekhov’s play ‘Three Sisters’, where a character called Masha gives the conjugation of the Latin verb ‘to love’ 🙂 Reading literature helps, doesn’t it?). So this probably means ‘The mule doesn’t love / like the thing where it is walking.
- Mulus silvam spectat – ‘Spectat’ seems to be related to spectator and so it probably means ‘to watch’ / ‘to see’. So the mule watches that thing.
- Silva mulum spectat – This one is simple. That thing called ‘silva’ watches the mule 🙂 This is getting interesting! The mule and Paul are walking in some place and the mule doesn’t like that place and looks at it and that place looks at it back! Looks like a ghost story / fantasy! Reminds me of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ where the trees in the forest look back at the hobbits.
- Mulus est territus – My guess here is that the mule is terrified / afraid.
If I put this together, the story goes like this :
Paul is walking somewhere. The mule is walking with Paul. The mule is carrying not Paul but something else. Paul is ‘something’ and the mule is ‘something’. The mule doesn’t like the place where they are walking. The mule looks at this place. The place looks back at the mule. The mule is terrified.
Not bad for a first lesson, isn’t it? Eventhough I couldn’t understand some of the specifics, I could follow the overall story 🙂 I can’t wait to find out what happens next!
Who said Latin was difficult? I am already dreaming that maybe once I finish this book in a month’s time, I can start reading ‘The Aeneid’ 🙂 But then the inner voice in my head interrupts my idyllic thoughts and looks at me with contempt and says – “Whom are you kidding? Just learning some elementary alphabets makes you a Latin expert and a literary critic, is it? Wait for the next few lessons and then think about this. You learnt Russian for nearly a year-and-a-half. Can you read a Tolstoy book in the original? If you can’t do that, how are you hoping to read ‘The Aeneid’ after a month? Fat chance!” I hate my inner voice, but I know that what it says is true. But one can always dream, isn’t it? Sometimes dreams do come true too, don’t they 🙂
Have you tried learning Latin? What do you think about it? Do you think it is easy?
I haven’t tried Latin though I have heard people say it’s similar to Sanskrit. I have learnt French though and yes learning a new language is indeed not easy 🙂 But am sure if you are dedicated enough you will learn, even if it sounds very Latin 😉
Yes, it is – with three genders even for inanimate nouns and cases for nouns. I think most European languages (especially Greek, Latin, Russian and some of the East European ones) are similar to Sanskrit.
Great to know that you have learnt French! Comment çava? 🙂
Thanks for your encouraging words!
Wow, very brave of you to try Latin! Good luck!
Thanks for your wishes, Amy 🙂
Tre Bien, Merci. That’s all I could muster with French. Learnt some but gave up so quickly…. I can’t even manage language with 2 gender, and you are learning one with 3??!!
You are a very very courageous knight! 😀
Thanks for the encouraging words, JoV 🙂 Yes, this gender for inanimate nouns is really tough. I don’t know why they can’t do away with that system 🙂
Have fun! I studied Latin in high school, and I think The Aeneid is definitely within your grasp. 😀 The thing about a dead language is you don’t have to worry about conversation & pronunciation, and since you’re doing it for you composition isn’t a big deal, so you’ll be able to concentrate all your effort on reading!
Wow! I envy you 🙂 Thanks for the encouraging words, Eva – it is a big relief that I don’t need to worry about conversation and pronunciation and can just focus on reading 🙂
I was so excited to move to a school that offered Latin, since I’d wanted to study it since 5th grade! I think it provides a GREAT grammar base for future language learning, and in my classes we had to learn English derivatives along w/ our Latin vocab, so it helped my knowledge of English a lot too.
So yeah: keep it at, it’s definitely worth it! I’ve been contemplating an Ancient Greek project.
You school looks awesome! English derivatives with Latin vocabulary – sounds wonderful!
Thanks for your wishes! Wonderful to know that you are thinking of an Ancient Greek project! I am sure that will be very rewarding and you can get to read ‘The Odyssey’ in its original 🙂 All the best!
I was going to say just what Eva did about conversation and pronunciation. If you get a good Latin book, it’s pretty easy to learn–I was mostly self-taught through middle school from my Latin textbook. Our Latin primer was all “Caecilius est pater. Matella est mater,” and like that. You did very well translating your first wee story! “Silvam” is forest, as you guessed, and “sarcinam” means just what you thought, pack of belongings. “Sed” is but.
Thanks for the encouraging words and the translation, Jenny 🙂 So the forest is looking back at the mule, is it? The story is getting really interesting 🙂
It’s very admirable that you’re learning latin! Good work for getting out there and making a start at it. 🙂
I don’t know any latin beyond the couple of legal phrases I had to use when I was doing my law degree. It looks very difficult to learn.
I actually can only speak English and some very basic Japanese, but not enough to have a conversation. I’d love to learn another language properly some day, but every time I start to teach myself I get distracted and stop for awhile and then I foorget everything and am back to where I started!
Thanks for the encouragement, Dominique 🙂 Arigato 🙂
Hope you get to learn more Japanese. Hope you can also learn some Chinese when you go your holiday to China.
Wow, you’re busy learning all the languages, Vishy! 🙂 I ‘m sure you’ll do well with Latin.
I chose French instead of Latin in school, I prefer learning languages through speaking and hearing them, I’m too lazy for learning all the grammar by heart.
Since Latin is a very early development of the Indo-European languages, and close to Sanskrit, it’s a good base for learning all other IE languages. Especially once you’ve got the basic grammar down. Of course you can also use the knowledge of other languages you have, to trace the language developments back to Latin 🙂
And Latin is kinda cool, in a nerdy way 😀
Thanks for the encouragement, Bina 🙂 I am learning Latin slowly and it has been interesting so far. It seems to be similar to Russian in some ways – the cases and the change of endings and the way one can re-order words in a sentence without any change of meaning. I guess like you said, these must be some of the similarities between the IE languages. I don’t know Sanskrit, though I know Hindi, which has the same alphabet as Sanskrit. Interesting to know that Latin and Sanskrit are closely related. I agree with you that learning languages by speaking and hearing them is more fun 🙂
I did take a couple of years of high school Latin. I did not enjoy the experience at the time, but I did respect it, in part because I had a demanding teacher. She taught me the importance of details — like case endings — but also overwhelmed the experience of the language and what it was trying to communicate. Your first translation is imaginative and shows how you are using the Latin roots which persist in modern languages.
Did you ever move on lesson 2?
Thanks for stopping by, Nancy 🙂 Glad to know that you liked this post on Latin. Wonderful to know that you learnt Latin in high school. I can understand how difficult it must have been. I did move on to lesson 2 🙂 I will write more about my Latin lessons soon.
Okay, this is officially one of my favourite blog posts ever. It is the kind of thing you force all your (language-buff) friends to read! Loved it 🙂 My sister and I did this sort of thing with Spanish when I was little. And I have always wanted to learn one of the, you know, “old” languages – Latin or Greek or Sanskrit. I’ll probably end up with Sanskrit, though I am not sure I’ll be able to do the learning part so well on my own. I’m still only getting used to German!
Glad to know that you liked this post so much, Priya 🙂 Wonderful to know that you learnt Spanish and are thinking of learning one of the ‘old’ languages. Sanskrit is definitely a wonderful language to learn. Hope you enjoy learning it. I am thinking of revising my Latin and probably start on Ancient Greek sometime in the near future. Ancient Greek is very similar to Latin in grammatical structure, but the alphabets are different. If you are thinking of learning Latin or Ancient Greek do let me know. Maybe we can do some lessons together.
I admire your wanting to learn Latin. And the character Larry–yes what a life. I’m in the process of learning Spanish. I’m only on lesson 8 and I haven’t been diligent enough. I hope to travel to South America in 2014 and I want to try to communicate. I won’t be fluent, but will hopefully make a better effort than when I was in Spain and had to point and act things out. That was embarrassing.
Thanks TBM. Wonderful to know that you are learning Spanish. Hope you are enjoying it. South America is a place I would like to visit someday, especially Argentina. I am already looking forward to reading your travel posts and seeing your pictures 🙂 Happy Spanish learning / speaking!