Howdy folks.
I was wondering if we will have to “un-learn” all this stuff as and when we move on with Latin. The reason I ask is that I remember when I was learning Spanish, I had to dive straight into the meaty stuff. For example, in Spanish, a sentence without a subjunctive is a rare beast indeed. One can’t really say much at all without a fairly good grasp of all aspects of grammar.
Does this apply to “real” Latin?
No you won’t have to “unlearn” anything. The only thing I have come across which is a bit odd is “Quae est Iūlia?” when “Quis” is more normal for both feminine and masculine. This is mentioned in the companion.
The main difference is that you will read literary Latin which is obviously not written so that you can learn the language. Authors have different stylistic quirks and all of them “break the rules” from time to time.
As I have said on previous occasions in other contexts, the Latin in LLPSI is as “real” as any other. Its not perhaps of the highest literary merit but it doesn’t pretend to be. It has a job which it does very well.
I wonder in what sense Cicero or Tacitus could be regarded as “real Latin”? Tacitus in particular writes in such an elliptical way that I am sure his readers were as baffled by some of it as we are. One only has to compare Cicero’s letters to his speeches to see how artificial and “unreal” the language is. Not enough material survives to make proper comparisons but from what we see of surviving private correspondence it is as error prone as one would expect. Perhaps “real latin” is not such an easy or obvious category? It rather depends on context and point of view. Is Finnegans wake “real English”?
There isn’t anything particularly difficult about the use of the subjunctive in Latin. Its unfamiliar to English speakers but I think that’s not the same as difficult. There is less to learn than in Greek which also has the optative and so there are circumstances where one mood might be substituted for the other.
I hope you are not feeling too overwhelmed. I wish I had started learning latin with LLSPI!
I’ve been confused about this for a long time.
If you look at the table of interrogative and relative pronouns on page 308 of LLPSI Part 1, it seems to me that Ørberg might be saying that quae applies in the feminine for both the interrogative and the relative pronoun. It isn’t clear to me though, since the table appears to be a merger of what might have been better presented as two tables.
Section 148 of Allen & Greenough’s New Latin Grammar has, commenting on the quis m./f. quid n. interrogative pronouns:
The singular quis is either masculine or of indeterminate gender, but in old writers it is sometimes distinctly femnine.
This seems to be saying to me that, if we have a distinctly feminince gender, quae makes more sense, but quis is seen in old writers nonetheless.
Quae est nātūra animī? Est mortālis. (Lucretius)
Is this a case of distinctly feminine using quae?
I was taught (by Otto Skutsch, no less) that the interrogative pronoun (quis) has no feminine form. The OLD agrees. I see no good cause for confusion.
Wheelock’s “Quae est nātūra animī?” looks barbaric to me. The attribution to Lucretius presumably derives from the famous nil mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum,/ quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur (3.381).
The reason I asked is that in Spanish, everything that’s not 100% “certain” is subjunctive. Normally; conditions, anything in the future, desires, hopes, negations (this can be got around - “creo que no está” vs “no creo que esté”, etc.). The same forms are used for the formal imperative (and the informal negative imperative). Ergo, even in informal, low register conversation, the language is peppered with subjunctives (and the imperative lookalikes). I think you have confirmed for me that this is not the case in Latin.
Thankyou.
Paul.
Every time I open Wheelocks’s now (I use it for reference) I just wonder if anyone ever actually learned Latin from that book. I tried and gave up. Quite enjoying LLPSI now, even though my poor 60 y/o brain is struggling a tad.
BTW, the companion book makes LLPSI much easier (for me). I now read a chapter, get frustrated, then read the relevant chapter in the companion and then re-read the chapter in LLPSI. It all “comes together”.
I think that’s an excellent strategy. Originally Oberg wrote a companion but the revised and much expanded version is much more helpful.
See the OLD article under qui for its usage as a feminine “what?” or “what woman?”
Hi all, a quick question: has anyone actually reviewed the grammar and idiom of LLPSI? I can’t find any reviews (i.e. of the grammar and idiom) online, only encomia. Questions in my first minute of reading the first few sentences include (I haven’t looked deeply into these):
(1) Italia et Graecia in Europa sunt: how the verb concord here interacts with the rule for a compound subject of inanimates in e.g. Oxford latin syntax sec. 13.7: When a compound subject consists of two or more members that refer to inanimate (abstract or concrete) entities or when the members belong to different categories (animate/inanimate), the verb usually agrees with the nearest member. For examples of compound subjects involving collectives where the verb agrees with the closest member in Cicero, see e.g. Lebreton 1901 p. 10: https://archive.org/details/tudessurlalang00lebruoft/page/11/mode/1up?view=theater
(2) Roma in Italia est: why this relatively unusual word ordering was chosen: cf. e.g. Spevak 2010 sec. 7.3.2 on locatival sentences involving est.
I haven’t followed these up and so these are just initial queries (rather than comments): if this work has already been reviewed for grammar and idiom, I’d be grateful for a link or reference, many thanks. In the meantime, I’ll continue using other courses (I’m currently exploring using a combination of the new courses De Romanis and Suburani for young learners).
Thanks, Chad
An e.g. of (1) worth looking at is cum in eorum insula noster imperator exercitusque esset (Cic. Man. 46) (not essent).
There are other points in the initial sentences too (e.g. I would have expected negatived est at clause end, in line with Latin word order studies in D&S 2006, Spevak 2010 etc.), but will leave it there.
Basically, I could be wrong (as always!) but when I read the first few sentences of LLPSI, I get the feeling that it may not be model Latin (and this seems more important to a reading-only course like LLPSI, compared with the other courses which also use grammatical explanation channels for learning, and so may be less dependent on the quality of their “made-up” Latin to be effective). I would appreciate hearing of any deeper analysis of this LLPSI series from a grammar/idiom perspective, as these notes above are just based on reading the first few sentences this evening (I haven’t really engaged with it before), having flags raised, and looking up a few points in the usual sources—nothing thorough or determinative.
Cheers, Chad
So quis (the interrogative pronoun) does not have a feminine form, as Michael made clear.
But quae (the interrogative adjective) may function pronominally in certain cases, presumably when the gender is a priori known to be feminine.
This leads to a quis - quae pairing such as the example in LLPSI, Quis est Mārcus? Quae est Iūlia?
Is this a reasonable analysis?
The quis quae pairing is the actively misleading part. But quae questions themselves seem to have a foundation in usage, and OLD is right to classify it on the qui side, not the quis, imo. (But my Latin is far worse than my Greek even, fair warning.)
Some rl examples of ‘quae est’ (I saved that post from an old Oerberg listserv):
From: luigimiraglia at vivariumnovum.it (Luigi Miraglia)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 00:10:21 +0200
Subject: [Oerberg] Re: Oerberg Digest, Vol 4, Issue 5Please see the following examples: some are taken from classical authors,
some from later writers. But all demonstrate that the use of “quae” instead
of “quis” for the feminine gender is really possible.
Luigi Miragliafemina circumdabit virum.
Quae est > haec femina? Quis vero iste vir?
(Bernardus Claravallensis, In laudibus Virginis Mariae, p. 144)clamante Gaal filio Obed quis est Abimelech et > quae est > Sychem ut serviamus ei?
(Liber Iudicum, 9, 28)quae est > ista quae ascendit per desertum sicut virgula fumi ex aromatibus murrae et turis et universi pulveris pigmentarii?
(Canticum canticorum, 3, 6)quae est > ista quae progreditur quasi aurora consurgens pulchra ut luna electa ut sol terribilis ut acies ordinata?
(Ibidem, 6, 9)Quae est > enim civitas? omnisne conventus etiam ferorum et immanium? omnisne etiam fugitivorum ac latronum congregata unum in locum multitudo? Certe negabis.
(Cicero, Paradoxa Stoicorum, 4, 27)Et > quae illa est> , quam Ioannes dicit a Patre non esse? “Luxuria”, inquies.
(S. Aug. Adversus Iulianum, 4, 13, 64)dixit autem ei quidam ecce mater tua et fratres tui foris stant quaerentes te. At ipse respondens dicenti sibi ait: “> quae est > mater mea et qui sunt fratres mei?” et extendens manum in discipulos suos dixit: “ecce mater mea et fratres mei”.
(Evang. Matth. 12, 47-49)Joc. > Quae est > illa camera tam eleganter fornicata?
Vitr. Lararium, seu sacellum, ibi agitur res divina.
(L. Vives, Exercitatio linguae Latinae: Domus)Dic mihi, quaeso, > quae est > illa mulier quae innumeris filiis ubera porrigit, quae quantum sueta fuerit, tantum inundat.
(Anonymus Hibernus, exeunte VII saec. p. Chr. n.)quae est > haec vox gregum quae resonat in auribus meis et armentorum quam ego audio?
(1 Samuelis, 15, 14)Plan. Pietas mea, serva me, quando ego te servavi sedulo. frater mi, salve.
Ther. Qui credam ego istuc? cedo, si vera memoras, > quae fuit > mater tua?
Plan. Cleobula.
Ther. Nutrix > quae fuit> ?
Plan. Archestrata.
(Plaut. Curculio, 639-643)
Thanks, Jandar! Good on you saving that post.
This is an excellent question which I decided to investigate.
I found the following articles:
Dales, J. (1985). [Review of Lingua Latina per se illustrata, by H. H. Ørberg]. Latomus, 44(1), 251–252. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41543604
Monat, P. (1993). [Review of Lingua Latina per se illustrata. Pars I. Familia Romana et Pars II. Roma aeterna, by H. H. Ørberg]. Latomus, 52(1), 239–240. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41536583
Martha A. Davis. (1998). [Review of Lingua Latina: Per Se Illustrata, by Hans H. Oerberg]. The Classical World, 91(4), 298–299. https://doi.org/10.2307/4352082
and this review of the Companion to Familia Romana by Jeanne Marie Neumann:
WHITE, C., & Neumann, J. M. (2018). [Review of Lingua Latina. A Companion to Familia Romana]. The Classical Outlook, 93(1), 47–49. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26506539
The reviews are positive and there are no list of errors which the reviewers found egregious. But on the other hand they are not detailed reviews.
I think, Chad, that you need to remember that this is a book to get people started learning Latin, its not a reference grammar.
So in the first lesson one has to bear in mind the audience. It is difficult enough to teach students who had not suspected the existence of a highly inflected language that the ending of every word in a sentence counts and that nothing can be necessarily assumed form the order of words. One has to aim for some clear rules at the outset and then perhaps modify them later.
I note that your quote from Oxford Latin syntax says that “the verb usually agrees with the nearest member”. I take it that this qualification does not rule out Ørberg’s formulation. I think that teaching that est can take a several subjects or just one is a little too complicated in the first lesson. My reading of Gildersleeve is that Livy introduced the formulation of a plural predicate with multiple subjects
and that this “becomes the rule in Tacitus”.(Gildersleeve 285.3) Ørberg elsewhere uses forms found in Livy so perhaps this is his model.
On “Roma in Italia est” I am sure this word order was chosen to aid comprehension, especially for a reader without a teacher. Perhaps wrongly in the early stages I emphasise to students the variability of Latin word order to make a distinction between latin and English where word order dictates grammatical sense. (Of course I also teach that word order is not random but has to reflect some sense of emphasis of the words used). In time students may be able to take on a more nuanced approach but in the early stages one is just trying to get them in the air however ungainly they flap their wings.
but when I read the first few sentences of LLPSI, I get the feeling that it may not be model Latin (and this seems more important to a reading-only course like LLPSI, compared with the other courses which also use grammatical explanation channels for learning, and so may be less dependent on the quality of their “made-up” Latin to be effective)
This is a fair point. But the textbook is not meant to stand on its own. Ørberg wrote “Latine Disco” to accompany the text and now we have the J. M. Neumann “A Companion to Familia Romana” reviewed above. So the grammar and everything else is not expected to be derived inductively from the text. There are of course a whole set of exercises too which give practice in the grammar. I find that I spend almost as much time discussing these with my students as I do discussing the text.
Ørberg’s text is deliberately repetitive so that students can gain confidence in their reading. Although this is hardly “model” Latin it is highly effective.
I have to say that I would never have imagined I would be able to “read” chapter 19 so “soon” after starting this book. I’m struggling a bit with the colloquium as it starts with stuff I’d forgotten about (nothing complex).
I appreciate that the texts have to be written a certain way to get us started. I know that et and ac cannot mean exactly the same thing, but I’ll pick up the nuances later.
I’m just pleased that I was advised to go in this direction by people here.
Paul.
Paul
I am glad you are enjoying it. It is good to hear that you have had a positive experience. You will soon be reading Latin texts and looking back on LLPSI with fond memories. 
Thanks, Seneca, that all makes sense. I didn’t know that Lingua Latina had accompanying grammar guidance (I haven’t used the course), which definitely takes away many of my concerns.
I’m still reading through the various courses to work out the right mix for young learners: reading Suburani at the moment which really is excellent, although it probably needs a rating “parental guidance recommended”, given its references in the chapters I’ve read so far to druids burning Roman captives alive, a slave being tortured, etc. I expect that Suburani might become a standard course in formal education settings before too long. Check out e.g.:
https://hands-up-education.org/suburani_book/index.html
I’ve also bought the De Romanis books which look promising and which I’ll read next, and I’ll then have a proper look at Lingua Latina after those.
Still waiting to see who will be the first to introduce a video-first course for the current generation…
Cheers, Chad
Here’s hoping. That said, I just read the colloquium for chapter 19 and I’m afraid the dialogue just whooshed past me. So much to and fro and so many conjugations and tenses, actives and passives. I’ll have to have another go at that later.
Yes, same! So I bought this and have been reading through it, I’ll reiterate that I had taken Latin nearly 30 years ago and thought I was too busy with living languages to bother with it further, so my Latin faded away as it tends to do with nonuse.
In school we used Ecce Romani which had illustrations and my teacher was a lovely fellow who was very good about teaching us conversational Latin and making it fun for us. But I still think, after having studied other languages in high school and university, and working as a translator for the past decade or so, that LLPSI is a great introductory book, I’ve heard so many people whine and scream about all the reasons they hated learning Latin and this is the opposite of that! Helpful!
I was talking to an old friend of my grandpa’s about how he had forgotten Latin the other day! Talking about Latin masses, and I imagine so many of the people in the congregation hearing something like the noise the adults make in the Peanuts cartoons when the priest speaks. But on that note, was also listening to the YouTube Latin Vatican news. I don’t yet have my vocabulary and grammar back, I used to write and speak well! But German and French and Spanish and bits of other languages put me on a detour for a while there.
Anyway, good book! It uses repetition and words with cognates in other languages to explain Latin in Latin which is useful, and makes me think more of the way children learn their first language. Not exactly, as we do not have many people around us helping us out with the names of things and the grammar all the time like a child might, but thinking the language is useful and I think this is why a lot of the people I went to uni with who majored in German weren’t all that good with German, they weren’t even thinking much in German yet.