I am reading Lingua Latin Per Se Illustrata: Pars I, Familia Romana. I must say that the book is excellent and is helping me a lot.
However, I have noticed that a lot of the words from the book, when I look them up on Whitakers Words (http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe, they are listed as “rare”, “uncommon”, “medieval”, or “lesser” (which I assume means simply “less common”).
Does this mean that these words were not in common use? If so then why are they included in a beginners book? I am not sure which is more reliable, the Lingua Latina book, or Whitakers Words.
For example, if you look up these words from the book on Whitakers Words:
Operiri - listed as “lesser”
Vereri - listed as “lesser”
Pretium - listed as both “medieval” and “uncommon”
These are just a few I can remember, but there are many others. Any ideas on this? Should I bother to memorize these words?
Sometimes Ørberg might have used an in the Roman time uncommon word, because it’s familliar to a word used today. Also, what’s wrong with medieaval words, they’re a part of the latin language as well.
Yeah, if you search perseus, which I don’t think is a very exhaustive source of classical Latin, there are many examples of “pretium” or “vereor”, which I know I’ve come across many times.
There’s a description of how words works at http://users.erols.com/whitaker/wordsdoc.htm and frequency is judged by number of citations in dictionaries, and this can’t be a 100% reliable method.
Where? Looking up “operiri” yields “operio, operire, operui, opertus V (4th) TRANS [XXXAO]” – doesn’t say “lesser” anywhere.
The other two do show up as you described, though. I can’t say anything about “pretium” (though others have already), but “vereor” does appear in Wheelock.
In my experience, the vocabulary in LL is very common. This makes sense, given that Orberg’s goal is to build you up so that you can read the unadapted texts in Volume II.
I do recall “peristylum” being used early in Vol. I, and I’m not sure I’ve encountered that in any of my reading. I imagine that Orberg may occasionally use some less common words to complete the descriptions of various scenarios he sets up.
To echo the others, pretium and vereor are common (e.g., Cicero’s speech “Pro Roscio” starts “Etsi vereor…”). I wouldn’t say that operio is uncommon.
Both “pretium” and “veriri” are listed in Wheelock’s vocab which is definitely for beginners, and not all that exhaustive at that, so I’d go with Orberg on this.
Most Latin courses in a school setting requires the students to learn a lot about Rome and the life of the romans – the Roman house being one of them – and since the peristyle is an important part of the Roman house: perhaps Ørberg included it for the sake of realia.
Vereri and pretium are extremely common words in the Latin of every age.
Whitaker’s Words says all sorts of odd things. Don’t trust it. It’s good for figuring out what inflectional form a word may be, but don’t take it as a substitute for a good lexicon.
I should have expected vereri to be listed: “veriri” doesn’t exist.
Whenever Whitaker says something like this, it means “This word doesn’t appear in the dictionary. It might be an alternate spelling of one of the following, but take these suggestions with a grain of salt.”
(I figure you know that, adrianus; I’m just pointing it out for anybody who doesn’t.)
