hi again
I am trying out wheelocks optional tutorial excercises at the end of the 6th revised ed’.It is the only text which gives both questions and answers with all macrons included that i have come across.My question is.Are the macrons necessary? and if so is there an easy way of learning them?I would also be interested in knowing if any other books(with answer keys) also include macrons.When one is speaking in latin is it immediately obvious that vowel length is long or short.?
As others will tell you better, macrons are vital for reading Latin in a restored classical pronounciation. Moreover, they may in some cases distinguish a word from a similar one from which it only differs in vowel length.
So it isn’t immediatly obvious whether the vowel is long or short. Again, I don’t know much, but I’d be tempted to say it’s impossible to know that for observation. You can know when a syllable is long or not, but the principle doesn’t apply to vowels.
I know for a fact Lingua Latina marks macrons, although I think the answer keys to the Pensa aren’t included in the books proper (I use the CDs which auto-correct, so wouldn’t know). I also believe Adler’s Practical Grammar of the Latin Language marks both macrons and microns, but on that one’s answer keys I know nothing.
I think that question is open for debate. The Romans did not have macrons, and when you ultimately move away from textbooks and into classical works you will find that most editions lack macrons (in fact, if you take a look at the Agora section of the textkit forums you will see that even when people here are conversing in Latin the macron is usually nowhere to be found). I would consider macrons to be a learning aid which will help you learn vowel lengths, but you should beware of becoming too dependent upon them.
I used Wheelock and Lingua Latina, and I found macrons helpful for distinguishing certain noun cases. However, almost no printed texts whatsoever print macrons, and I’ve pretty much forgot where they belong. If you’re not planning on reading out loud or speaking you don’t really need them.
I have bad memory for remembering where macrons were placed when switching from textbooks to unmarked latin, which I fear will hurt my overall learning. Unfortunately, we don’t have the benefit of living surrounded by Latin…
That’s true. I have two gramaticas in Portuguese that teach Latim, and both says that the mácrons and bráquias are only for educational pourposes, and that they never existed for the ancient romans. Of course, the young romans had someone to teach them how to speak correctly, and this is a benefit we do not have this days.
For educational pourposes this is great. It helps everyone to speak the same way.
I’ve read somewhere on the forum a post saying that the use of mácrons could slow down the speed of reading. I desagree with that.
My mother language is Portuguese, and it uses signs to modify word’s pronunciation. It helps to speak correctly, and sometimes, the way you pronounce the word can change it’s meaning.
We use a sort of ´ ` ¨ ~ ^ ç on all vowels and it’s so automated that you don’t have to think to know the modification it makes in a word.
I assume tha the same will happen with Latin (with the mácrons and bráquias) and within the time, without them.
Write macrons compulsively for the first year or so in all your Latin writings. If you, say, transcribe all of Lingua Latina, as I did, you will have them all quite memorized.
both says that the mácrons and bráquias are only for educational pourposes, and that they never existed for the ancient romans.
I agree with you. Just because the ancient romans didn’t use these marks doesn’t mean anything. The purest form any language is spoken. The written form exists to represent the spoken form. Latin could be written with a sanskrit alphabet and it would still be latin just as many traditional languages have opted to abandon their traditional alphabets in favor of the roman alphabet. The fact that the roman’s did not use macrons is not a valid argument becuase consistency would then require not using spaces or punctuation. Editors at some point decided to use spaces and punctuation. Why? Why, because it would make reading easier! I know I am fighting elemental forces that cannot be moved. Nevertheless, I assert that editors who don’t mark texts so everybody can easily pronounce them are guilty of the worst sort of obscurantism and pedantry.
Luce, you transcribed all of Lingua Latina! I won’t go that far but I do need to do something because when I first started learning latin I paid no attention to vowel quantity. Now I am having to go back and learn this pesky information. Your suggestion of writing things out seems excellent. My problem is that I work all day in an office and have very little time for pen and paper work. So what I am doing is going through some basic beginning vocabulary. Every word that has a long vowel I repeat aloud 4 or five times but as I say the word I extend the long vowels for a very long time.
That’s so true! My brother spreaks sanskrit. He is a Yôga teacher, and the dêvanágari can be used to write any spoken language.
To practice the alphabet he usually write Portuguese with the Dêvanágari alphabet.
When I was expaining to him how Latin works he got very surprised. It’s so close to sanskrit. The old language of the Yôga Pádpriká and Yôga Sútra has more desinences then Latin, but in general lines, their are so similar.
I actually mark out all the texts I am going to read aloud for recording - I have the following system:
Acute accent for a short accented vowel.
A greater-than sign < for a long accented vowel.
A circumflex for a long by nature penultimate vowel followed by a short vowel.
A breve u for a short vowel.
With the Latinum episodes, I make a point of making the long vowels slightly too long. I find now that when I speak Latin, I recall the sound of the word without problems.
My main bugbear are getting it right with verbs that that take a penultimate circumflex in the infinitive, and those that take the acute on the penultimate.
Bennett’s list of words with hidden quantity is also very useful.
Thanks a lot folks.I’m not sure that i understand everything ye said though.Basically what i want to know is : is it necessary to know where the macrons go using the dowling -orberg method or can one proceed to lingua latina with just the basics (i.e nouns, verbs,adjectives etc)?Wheelock seems to be suggesting (eg page xl1)that macrons are essential.Maybe i’ll wait till i get onto latin verse before i study macrons and microns.
It is essential that you learn when the vowels are long and when they are short, because there will be many times when vowel length will indicate an important difference in the meaning and/or function of a word – it’s not a verse thing. Macrons will help you learn vowel length. If you do not use them, then you will initially have much more trouble understanding Latin sentences because of the ambiguity of many cases. For composing in Latin you could probably get away without bothering to write them, but it is essential that you understand when you are using a long vowel and when a short.
Hi ed, thanks for your help.
By the way i was just practising on yor web site (verbs of the 4th conjug’).When i tried to enter ‘dormiris’ for the pres ind’ pass’ 2ng pers sing’ it wont accept it.The hint says it should be ‘dormieris’ but l&s says this is the fut ind pass not the present.So what is the correct form ?Nice web site by the way.Give my regards to the family.
Hmmm, I’ll have to investigate that. The extra ‘e’ doesn’t belong there. Let’s just give me the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up as a typo. [If it weren’t so much against my nature I would even put one of those incessant emoticons here] Thanks for checking out the site. It was pretty fun (and educational) to write, though I think it’s all too tedious to be very helpful for others. I do like it that every couple of months some Latin or Greek studier will drop me a note saying they checked it out.
I am a great fan of Latin but at most am still only a barely intermediate student. Out of necessity I have had to learn a distant and highly inflected language, albeit a modern, spoken one (Finnish). I say so merely to qualify my unprofessional yet genuine opinions which follow.
Not to know the vowel lengths would be like forever to walk in Latin with a clubfoot.
Often the correct stress position (if one uses a stressed pronunciation which, I believe, most do) is apparent only by knowing the vowel lengths. Beyond that, to know long and short syllables in Latin poetry it is often necessary to know the vowel length. Quite apart from pronouncing it correctly!
I should recommend strictly using only texts which consistently mark long vowels for the first year or two or, depending on your rate, until you have successfully internalized at least 2000 words, which should require, at the least, reading carefully some tens of thousands of words in Latin.
I recommend that you read aloud like the Romans themselves did - or even better converse in Latin with fellow students (okay, not available to most!). Researchers say that the very vocalization of words is an important and neurologically essential component of really learning a foreign language. I think this might well still be true even if you only ever read the language.
Plus you might be able to speak Latin also!
Oh, a little question for the veterans: do you use “magnus” with a long or a short “a” (maybe this is a point of contention , but the books differ).
, but the books differ).