Today I have found the books Latin by the Natural Method by William G. Most (Volumes 1 to 3) in the Internet Archive website and I have started to read the first chapter and immediately I ran into a problem regarding the verb to be:
For instance:
Agnus fuit albus.
America non fuit parva.
Columbus non fuit puella. Maria fuit puella.
Sed India non fuit rotunda.
I can understand these sentences but as I am Portuguese and the verb to be in Portuguese is naturally similar to the Latin one I find the use of ‘fuit’ very strange here, in Portuguese we would never use ‘foi’(fuit)here - it doesn’t make sense, we would use “era”. The use of ‘fuit’ here to me implies that the lamb at one point ceased to be white and America ceased to be big, etc.
I think that Spanish speakers might find the same issue, can someone help me understand this? Does the verb to be in Latin really work as the book presents it in these examples? Is this correct Latin? Or is this a symptom/presenting a problem due to fact that the author is English speaking and in his mother tongue he don’t have this distinction fuit/era?
The book is right. The perfect in Latin has two meanings, either a complete action in the present (he has written) or a mere action in the past (he wrote). For esse you would use the perfect only to express mere actions in the past.
Agnus fuit albus means that the lamb was white at that time. It might have been changed color later. We do not know.
The imperfect (erat) is used to indicate an incomplete or continued action. Sometimes also indicates repetition or habit or an attempted action.
erat would mean it used to be white (whether or not it still is).
fuit could mean it has been white (but is not longer), or it could mean it was white at some point in the past (whether or not it still is).
When Cicero proclaims vixerunt (“they have lived” or “they lived”) of the Catilinarian conspirators, he means they have been executed.
The romance languages have narrowed the use of “fu” etc. and expanded the use of “era” etc.
