![]() ![]() Linney's Latin Class: Free audio lectures and resources centered on a free Latin textbook, The First Year of Latin, by Gunnison and Harley.Latin was released on Duolingo on the 28th August 2019. Luis von Ahn has stated that Latin is in scope for Duolingo, but not necessarily a high priority. Its influence can be seen in a variety of languages, especially the Romance languages. Although its primary uses today are in academia and the Catholic church, it is the language used in gatherings in Europe and the United States and there are internet groups. More writings are available in the language since then than by the Romans. None of this would work in English, because “dog” and “cat” don’t change to reflect their role in the sentence, whereas “canis” and “cattus” do in Latin.Latin is a classical language that was used throughout the Roman Empire. If you saw that as a line of poetry, you could ask questions like “why does the verb come first? Is it to draw attention to the violence of the action?”, “why is the cat placed last? Is it to keep us wondering about who or what is the victim of the bite as long as possible, building tension?” So “the dog bites the cat” might be “canis cattem mordat”, which is sort of the “traditional” way to translate it, but you could also have “cattem canis mordat”. ![]() Typically the verb comes at the end of the sentence, but that is not required. In Latin word order is much less strict, which allows for more fluidity in sentence construction, especially in poetry. “The dog bites the cat” has a different meaning to “the cat bites the dog”. In English, word order is strictly tied to meaning. As I understand it, the case system is useful because there is much less importance given to word order in Latin. I’ve seen lots of explanations of how this works, but no mention of why this might be. ![]()
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