A Place of Brightness: conversational latin

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Learning Latin with Pope Francis - May 12, 2016

To visit my archive of Latin Papal Tweets, go to my main page.

May 12, 2016

Literal translation of the Latin: Dear men consecrated and dear women consecrated: wake up the world! Show to it another way of thinking acting, and living!

Here's how the Latin works:

Latin	English	Parsing	Grammar Points
Cari	Dear	nom. pl. masc. adj.	carus, cara, carum
viri	Men	nom. pl. noun	vir, viri
consecrati	consecrated	nom. pl. masc. past participle	consecro, consecrare, consecravi, consecratus
carae	dear	nom. pl. fem. adj.	carus, cara, carum
-que	and		conj.
mulieres	women	nom. pl. fem. noun	mulier, mulieris
consecratae	consecrated		consecro, consecrare, consecravi, consecratus
expergefacite	wake up!	pl. imp.	expergēfaciō, expergēfacere, expergēfēcī, expergēfactus
mundum	the world	acc. sing. noun	mundus, mundi
Ostendite	Show!	pl. imp.	ostendō, ostendere, ostendī, ostentus
ei	to it	dat. sing.	is, ea, id
alium	another	acc. sing. adj.	alius, alia, alium
modum	way	acc. sing. neut. noun	modum, modi
cogitandi	of thinking	gen. sing. gerund	cogito, cogitare, cogitavi, cogitatus
agendi	of acting	gen. sing. gerund	ago, agere, egi, actus
et	and		conj.
vivendi	of living	gen. sing. gerund	vivo, vivere, vixi

Friday, August 8, 2014

Adventures in Conversational Latin

Years ago (I mean, like twenty years ago) I took part in a Colloquium Latinum experiment of sorts with other like-minded classicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Basically, we just got together, every Thursday afternoon, as I recall, and we disciplined ourselves to speak only Latin. We conducted this at the Terrace of the Memorial Union on the Madison Campus, and the fact that pitchers of beer were invariably involved at least made us fearless.

And, the fact is, we got better at it as we proceeded.

Yesterday, for the first time in twenty years, I spent an hour speaking only Latin with an intrepid and gracious Latinist whom I met on Twitter.

And what did we discover? Well, most importantly, we were certainly able to make ourselves understood and discuss a

wide variety of topics. Latin really is a language! One can follow its rules and produce a grammatical sentence that another scholar of Latin will understand well enough for Latin to be a communicative tool. This might seem obviously true, but when you've spent decades focusing on just reading and translation, it's important to revisit that aspect of the language.

Now, what else did we learn? Well, we were certainly circumlocuting plenty around words we simply didn't know. But one can learn new words. (Especially when you discover in a conversation exactly which words you needed.)

I immediately detected that my conversation partner was more fluent than I in some key constructions. And by the end of the conversation, I had improved in my Conversational Latin abilities simply by one hour interacting with her.

I personally found that, to my delight, I am actually capable of forming an Indirect Statement construction straight out of my brain in a spoken sentence. That really demystifies grammar!

As I was making things up as I went, I was surprised how Spanish was a bigger help to me than Romanian. Given Romanian's highly conservative grammar and phonology, I would have assumed it the greater assistance. I think the general similarity in word order between Spanish and my native English, coupled with its Latinate vocabulary, made it much easier for me to pretend to speak Spanish and just translate it into Latin as I went.

Anyway, we are planning to open up a Conversational Latin Google Hangout. If you would like to participate, email me and I will add you to the hangout and send you information about the time and topic of the next session. Email me at: keith[ at sign ]keithmassey[ dot.]com.

I've also added to my website a Latin language version of my five phase vocabulary-based language learning program. It's a free download, complete with audio files of me pronouncing the words.

Our Colloquium Latinum Interretiale is open to people of all levels, however people are able to participate, we can all learn from one another! Spero me tecum dicere Latine mox!

In Saecula Saeculorum, the 4th Novel in the Valquist Series

In this fourth novel of the Valquist Series, Andrew Valquist is retired (?) from the National Security Agency and teaching Latin at a Classical Academy in the Washington DC area. But in the world of espionage, looks can be deceiving. He's not necessarily happy with the role he has played in all this, but the school was actually a joint NSA/MI-6 Project in which four young people have been unwittingly prepared for a mission to travel back in time to ancient Rome to retrieve information from a library that may save the modern world from certain destruction. They know they have to at least try to save humanity, but can they also save each other?

Next Stop: Spanish, the 3rd Novel in the Valquist Series

This third novel in the Valquist Series can be read as an espionage action-adventure in its own right, but also you can use it as a way to either brush up on your Spanish or learn functional Spanish for the first time! John Valquist needs to learn Spanish. But he's in luck, since his uncle Andrew is a language expert and a former (?) spy who is taking him on a vacation to Spain so he can study the language. In Next Stop: Spanish, you have the chance to see and study the words John studies, and then watch him add more and more Spanish into his dialogue as the story progresses. During this vacation, they get pulled into espionage intrigue (why do these things always happen to the Valquist family?). In the dramatic conclusion, John will need to put together everything he has learned to save his uncle!

Amor Vincit Omnia: the 2nd Novel in the Valquist Series

In this second novel of the Valquist Series, Keith Massey takes you into the halls of the National Security Agency, where he himself worked for four years after 9/11 and an Arabic linguist. You follow our hero Andrew Valquist, as he starts work as a new recruit at the NSA. Little does he know that on his first on the job, he's about to fly off on an unexpected overseas assignment. He'll be even more surprised when he learns that his background in ancient Latin will be crucial to the mission!