A Place of Brightness: latin grammar

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Grammar Lessons from the Latin Version of "And I Love Her" (Et Eam Amō)

My Latin Language Version of the Lennon-McCartney song "And I Love Her" (Et Eam Amō) is officially released. After the video, I include a description of the grammatical points worth knowing that occur in the song. Enjoy!

Direct Object and Indirect Object

I give her all my love,

omnem amorem meum eī dō

NB: the dative singulars of is and ea (to him/to her) are both eī.

Future Less Vivid Conditional Construction

Both clauses have present subjunctive for a "should-would" conditional:

And if you saw my love

Et si amantem meam videās

You'd love her too.

Eam amēs quoque tū

Neuter Antecedent for Relative Clause

The kiss my lover brings,

Basium quod fert amans mea

She brings to me,

Ea fert mihi

Indirect Statement Introduced by Verb of Knowing

I know this love of mine

Sciō hunc amorem meum

Will never die

numquam morī

Monday, February 11, 2013

A Typo in the Papal Resignation?

Important Update!

The typo has been corrected on the official Vatican site:

Please also see my new post, in which I prove that the Pope himself did not pronounce the typo that was, for a time, posted on the Vatican Website.

Below is my original post from the morning of the announcement:

I wish His Holiness Benedict XVI health and many years of the prayerful retirement he has announced.

At least of this posting, the Latin text of his official resignation contains a typo!

The preposition pro takes ablative. In the opening of the declaration we read "pro Ecclesiae vitae" (with vitae in the genitive like Ecclesiae). "For the Life of the Church." This should be "pro Ecclesiae vita."

Here's an example of the correct formula from a prior Papal document:

I am certain His Holiness knows Latin abundantly better than I and that this is a simple typo and not a grammatical error. He is probably not even personally responsible for the typo. Even so, let's pray it is corrected on the official site.

It is otherwise a grammatically lovely sentence with a Purpose Clause. The actual resignation is conveyed via an Indirect Statement construction:

declaro...me...renuntiare (I declare [that] I am retiring).

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!