Sunday, December 22, 2024

Latin Lesson #4: Noun-Is-Adjective, fem.

The focus for today's lesson is adjectives, the words that modify nouns. That means we also need to talk about gender. All nouns in Latin have a grammatical gender: feminine, masculine, or neuter. (The Latin word neuter is a compound — ne-uter, "not either" — so neuter means "not feminine, not masculine.") 

The gender of a noun does not change: a feminine noun is always feminine. But adjectives come in different genders: each adjective has a feminine form, a masculine form, and a neuter form. The form of the adjective always agrees with the gender of its noun. 

To get started with adjectives, we will be looking today at sayings that feature feminine nouns and feminine adjectives.

The verb in these sentences is est, although as you already learned, the verb est can be omitted. You also learned about free word order in Latin. In English, the normal word order for this type of sentence is "Noun-is-adjective." That word order does not vary in spoken English — if you vary the word order in English, you are being poetic. In Latin, however, you can vary that word order for stylistic emphasis however you want, as you will see in the examples below. In a sense, Latin is always poetic, unlike English.

So, here are today's proverbs:

1. Paupertas ingeniosa.
Poverty (is) ingenious.
Pau-PER-tas in-ge-ni-O-sa.

The word paupertas is from the word pauper, meaning a poor man. The Latin word pauper is used in English, "pauper," and it is also the origin of the English word "poor." Latin paupertas is the origin of the English word "poverty."
The word ingeniosa means "full of ingenium," and Latin ingenium means "talent, genius, cleverness." This is the origin of the English word "ingenious."
The idea here is that poverty forces people to be clever and inventive. Poor people cannot just buy their way out of trouble; they have to use their wits instead.


2. Roma aeterna est.
Rome is eternal
RO-ma ae-TER-na EST.

The Latin adjective aeterna is the origin of English "eternal," something that lasts throughout the ages. The root of the Latin word is aevum, meaning "age" or "era," as in the English word "medieval," referring to the Middle Ages; Latin medium-aevum, middle-age.
Rome is also called "the eternal city," urbs aeterna (Latin urbs means "city").



3. Fortuna caeca est.
Fortune is blind.
For-TU-na CAE-ca EST

The word Fortuna in Latin means "fortune," but also something like "luck" or "chance." You can read about the Roman goddess Fortuna at Wikipedia
The word caeca means "blind," and it also has the metaphorical sense of acting randomly or aimlessly, without insight or foresight.
That is the meaning here: the goddess Fortuna is said to be blind because sometimes bad people have good luck, while good people have bad luck. This gave rise to the idea that Fortuna is blindfolded or veiled, so the goddess cannot see what she is doing; that's why she bestows both good luck and bad luck at random.


4. Aequa mors est.
Death is fair.
AE-qua MORS EST.

The word aequa is the origin of the English word "equal." You can also see the root in many other English words, for example: "equator."
The word mors, which has as its root mort-, means "death," and you can see that root in English words like "mortal" and "mortality." 
The idea here is that death comes to all alike: rich and poor, powerful and powerless. Nobody escapes death. Other things in life are not fair (like Fortuna, for example!), but death is fair; she comes to everyone equally in the end.


5. Amara est veritas.
(The) truth is bitter.
A-MA-ra EST VE-ri-tas.

The word amara means "bitter" in the sense of a bitter taste, but just like in English, it covers a range of  negative meanings: unpleasant, harsh, etc. You can see this root in the English word "amaretto," an Italian liqueur that is both bitter and sweet (the word is Italian, which gets almost all of its vocabulary from Latin).
The word veritas, "truth," is a noun formed from the adjective ver-, which you can see in English words like "verify" and "verity."
The idea here is that, while the truth is a good thing, and often desirable, that does not mean it is going to be pleasant.


A final note about feminine nouns and adjectives: you probably noticed that the feminine adjectives in these sayings all ended in "a" — ingeniosa, aeterna, caeca, aequa, amara. That is because these adjectives all belong to what is called "Declension 1." But take a look at the feminine nouns: some end in "a" like Roma and Fortuna, but some do not, like paupertas, mors and veritas. The nouns Roma and Fortuna belong to Declension 1, like the adjectives, but paupertasmors and veritas belong to Declension 3. You will be learning about the different declensions in the coming weeks. Yes, there are adjectives in Declension 3, and yes, there is a Declension 2 (there are 5 declensions total), but don't worry about that for now; just learn the sayings so that you become familiar with all these words. You need to get the words bouncing around in your head before we start organizing them into the different declensions.

  1. Paupertas ingeniosa.
  2. Roma aeterna est.
  3. Fortuna caeca est.
  4. Aequa mors est.
  5. Amara est veritas.

Now here is today's audio —




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