#Three genders? Cases? Adjectives agreeing with nouns?

[salvadorbonaparte]

I couldn't find any German Croatian textbooks that I liked so I got the Teach Yourself one and it's quite good but the funniest thing is that I forgot that English people don't have cases or genders and need those things explained

[48lexr]

Introducing: Néndisfas

Consider this post a very brief introduction to my in-progress conlang, Néndisfas.

In summary, Néndisfsho is a fusional language with phonemic pitch-accent, personal agreement in verbs, and split-ergative based on animacy.

Phonology

Consonants

/p/, /b/, /m/, /t/, /d/, /n/, /k/, /g/, /ŋ/, /kʷ/, /gʷ/

/f/, /v/, /s/, /ʃ/, /z/, /xʷ/, /h/

/w/, /j/, /ɾ/, /l/, /ʎ/, /ʟ/

Not much to say here but for the three way /l/, /ʎ/, /ʟ/ distinction held-on from the protolanguage.

Vowels

Five-vowel system with length distinction, making 10 vowels. Not interesting at all here.

Phonotactics

Max syllable: CV(C)(C)(C) / CV(C)#

Indeed, this means that the maximum size of a consonant cluster could be 4-consonants long,

Morphology / Syntax: Grammar

Verbs

Verbs (and predicative adjectives) are simple, comparatively, to the syntactic nonsense going down with nouns.

Verbs take a prefix for perfective and passive, and a suffix for past or present and to agree with the subject in gender (animate, inanimate).

Due to sound changes, verbs fall into one of six categories, but classes II, III, and IV all have alternate forms.

Nouns

Néndisfsho nouns take on one of two genders: Common or Neuter. Common nouns were derived from old animate nouns, and neuter nouns were derived from old mass nouns. The nouns which didn't fit with either were grandfathered in.

Due to sound changes, nouns take on one of six endings depending on their class. Classes I, III, and V have alternate forms.

Nouns also inflect for one of 5 cases: Nominative, Genitive, Accusative, Allative, and Commitative. The Allative, though, is beginning to be used like an Ergative, marking an animate subject of an intransitive verb, and an animate object of a transitive verb.

Take, for instance, the following sentences:

Yés-e váw-i ve-kát-ur-o.

Yessei.C-NOM car.N-ACC PRV.drive.PST.ANIM

"Yessei had driven the car."

Since the car is not animate, Yessei is rendered in the nominative, and the car is rendered in the accusative. In the following sentence, however:

Yés-ivā búm-pe kéht-us

Yessei.C-ALL dark.N-NOM hate.PRES.INAN

"The dark hates Yessei."

Here, the nominative case is reanalyzed as an absolutive, and the allative as an ergative.

This structure could be rewritten with a passive, like

Yés-ivā (búp-ko) ver-kéht-o

Yessei.C-ALL (dark.N-GEN) PASS.hate.PRES.ANIM

"Yessei is hated (by the darkness)."

Here, the genitive marks the agent, and the allative (ergative) marks the subject. Yessei, in this context, is treated as the object of a transitive verb, rather than the subject of an intransitive verb.

The reason this is so messy right now is because the language is in the middle of evolving the ergativity.

Other Notes

Néndisfas has no "true" 2nd or 3rd person pronouns, because pronouns are a completely open class in Néndisfas. The general 1st person pronoun is "gémse, géra, gésho" (I, me, my).

This is probably a language I'll wind up using as a meme language throughout my writing. It originally started as a language used in the deserts of Southern Atepsi, but now it's Yessei's first language, so I decided it can be both. In the context of Meiste, though, this is a long-dead language.

Paging the usual suspects: @quillswriting @oldfashionedidiot @ominous-feychild

Also if y'all have translation suggestions don't hesitate to drop them in my asks or as a reply/reblog to this post lol.

[vanali-of-winterfell]

Rito Lesson 1: Number, Gender, and Case in Nouns

Aight I started working on this for the Zelda fic I'm writing but. Ritolang let's gooo. I'll post about it whenever I feel like it I suppose. For this lesson, we're going to be learning about nouns.

Number

Rito nouns can take on one of four grammatical numbers: singular [S] (zero or one of something), dual [D] (exactly two of something), plural [P] (three or more of something), or collective [C] (speaking either about a general concept or the totality of a thing, e.g. "the Rito" in "It is considered a masterpiece of aerial technique, even among the Rito," or as a group of things considered as one, e.g. a pack of wolves). Rito nouns have a noun stem with a vowel suffix used to denote number that may vary depending on gender.

Singular:

-o (masculine), -a (feminine), -u (neuter)

Examples: mekho (feather), hebāra (winter), gebru (dog)

Dual:

-ō (masculine), -ā (feminine), -ū (neuter); note that macrons denote long vowels.

Examples: mekhō (two feathers), hebārā (two winters), gebrū (two dogs)

Plural:

-ī (masculine/feminine), -ē (neuter)

Examples: mekhī (feathers), hebārī (winters), gebrē (dogs)

Collective:

-i (masculine/femineine), -e (neuter)

Examples: mekhi (the concept of feathers; every feather; all the feathers on a Rito), hebāri (the concept of winter; every winter; a group of related winters being discussed as one), gebre (the concept of a dog; every dog; a pack of dogs)

Gender

As alluded to above, Rito nouns are gendered. Adjectives and articles are expected to agree with the gender and number of the noun. The three genders are masculine, feminine, and neuter. Although there is little standardization and the gender of a noun must often be simply memorized (the reason that, in dictionaries, nouns are generally given in the singular), some trends do occur.

Rito and other sapient beings, alongside body parts, are generally referred to in the masculine (with the exception of Zora, who are grammatically feminine). Most plants, weather phenomena, and time words are feminine, alongside birds and certain other animals. Most non-avian animals, most loanwords, and certain abstract concepts are neuter. Individual sapient beings are referred to by their preferred gender (including the neuter gender for non-binary individuals); Gorons, not having a cultural concept of gender, are always referred to in the neuter. People of unknown gender are also referred to in the neuter.

Case

Rito nouns can take on one of five cases: nominative [NOM], accusative [ACC], dative [DAT], genitive [GEN], and locative [LOC].

The nominative case is used for the subject of a sentence. Certain verbs also trigger the nominative case for the object; these are tabes (to be), sakhes (to remain), and thantes (to become). Tabes and thantes are also used for certain grammatical constructions for nonpresent tenses; in these cases (which will be discussed later), they do not trigger the nominative.

The accusative case is used for the direct object of a sentence. For example, in the sentence "Teba gave Link twenty bomb arrows," the twenty bomb arrows were being given and are in the accusative case; Teba was not giving Link to anyone, and therefore he is not in the accusative case. The accusative case can also be triggered by certain prepositions.

The dative case is used for the indirect object of a sentence. In the sentence above, Link was not being given; he was instead the recipient or beneficiary of the action and would thus be in the dative case. The dative case can also be triggered by certain verbs (which, in a dictionary, would be marked as [+DAT]) and by certain prepositions.

The gentive case is used to indicate possession or attribution of a noun to another noun (equivalent to "of the" in English). For example, mekhi [NOM] les Rito [GEN] (the Rito's feathers). Genitive nouns generally come immediately after the noun they are modifying, though a few prepositions can trigger the genitive case. Pronouns are generally not used in the genitive case as possessive pronouns are used instead; in the event that a pronoun is used in genitive (likely due to a preposition), the associated dative pronoun is used.

The locative case is used to indicate the location in space or time in which the sentence occurred. It may be triggered by certain prepositions, which establish the relationship in space or time to the locative noun. Like with genitive, pronouns are rarely used in locative; when they are used, the associated accusative pronoun is used.

[deuterosapiens]

Might as well actually post something in my conlang. Taijrumur was originally intended as a fan-language for the Zonai race from The Legend of Zelda. Fairly quickly, however, I decided that the æsthetic wasn't quite right for that, but I still basically like what the language has going for it, so it's become its own thing (I might go back to the whole Zonai language thing later, but I'm having fun with this one for right now).

It's still young, with a fairly small vocabulary, so my examples are very basic, but this is a care for someone who is not me. I'll maybe talk about phonetics later, but this should give a fair example of the æsthetic.

Qanij damjuusur o'suja iimvojra.

The King of Darkness is my friend.

Double vowels are long, <j> has its IPA value, as does <q>.

The most notable thing this sentence shows off is that personal possession is marked on the verb. Technically speaking, verbs do not conjugate for tense. Instead, a verb conjugates for one of (so far) three modalities: infinitive (name subject to change, really, this is just a basic realis or indicative mood); hypothetical; and interrogative.

A set of dative prefixes on the verb show personal possession, though as one can probably guess from my example, there's also a possessive case. It's just not used for personal possessors (I haven't decided too much on the why, or if the possessive applied to personal pronouns has a slightly different interpretation that one force the use of these datives; that's later me's problem).

Nouns are gendered as either animate or inanimate with no significant marking for either. Adjectives however agree with their nouns in gender, as do in fact, verbs (which otherwise don't particularly care for person marking). What constitutes animate versus inanimate is largely cultural however, and some speakers might break the expected pattern by preferring one over the other, especially where abstractions are concerned.

Qanij jaaluq ojvojsaiva?

Is our king dying?

So the two suffixes marked in green (-uq and -a) agree with the subject in animacy, the oj- prefix marks the possessor (which can be ambiguous in transitive verbs, though it can be clarified if need be). The suffix -saiv marks the interrogative mood.

There's no particular reason that I chose to make the verb 'to die' an adjective, it just sort of happened.

I apologize for the color-coding. It was an easier way of illustrating the relationships between the two without me fighting with traditional glossing conventions.

My only goal with this language is to have a functional writing system designed before November ends. And maybe to translate some texts that don't sound like Dead Cells lore. Coined a word for 'cute' before I started typing (si'a, by the way, after one of my cats), so that's a step in a direction which appears to be vaguely right.

[vilikemorgenthal]

kaɣak /kaˈʁak/, noun animate, pl. kaɣakuor

tall person

diem /di̯em/, noun animate, pl. demuor

big animal

bezek /beˈzek/, noun inanimate, pl. bezeki

big thing

Why three words? Well, there's no distinct class of adjectives in Lamáya, you use descriptive nouns in apposition, agreeing in case, number and gender with the 'head'. Sometimes gender is suppletive, and in this particular case there is also a distinction in the animates between humans and animals.

[pizzaronipasta]

Old English is so weird. Like, it is genuinely nothing like Modern English.

Modern English: no grammatical gender; nouns are only inflected in the plural and in the genitive case (separately); adjectives are not inflected; verbs are only conjugated for the third-person present, the past tense, and participles (aside from specific irregular verbs)

Old English: three (3) grammatical genders; four (4) cases, for each of which every noun has a singular and plural form; by my count, nine (9) noun classes that all inflect differently; first- and second-person personal pronouns for referring to exactly two of something; the definite articles and demonstrative pronouns have to agree with nouns in gender, number, and case; adjectives are inflected for gender, number, and case in one of two possible ways for each combination; a secret fifth case for definite articles, demonstratives, and in certain situations adjectives; four (4) categories of verbs further divided into classes, all of which conjugate differently for person, number, mood, and tense

The only resemblance I can see between them is that some OE words vaguely resemble their modern descendants. What French influence does to a mf.

[maigamal]

Understanding the Essentials of Arabic Grammar

Arabic grammar is a fascinating and intricate system that forms the backbone of the Arabic language. It encompasses various rules and structures that govern how words are combined to convey meaning. Whether you're learning Arabic for personal enrichment, travel, or a deeper understanding of the Quran, grasping the basics of Arabic grammar can significantly enhance your language skills.

The Foundations of Arabic Grammar

At its core, Arabic grammar is based on three primary components: nouns, verbs, and particles. Understanding these elements is crucial for constructing sentences.

Nouns (Ism): Nouns in Arabic can be either definite or indefinite. A definite noun typically has a specific article, while an indefinite noun does not. For example, "the book" translates to "الكتاب" (al-kitab), while "a book" translates to "كتاب" (kitab). Nouns also have gender, either masculine or feminine, and can change form based on case and number.

Verbs (Fi'l): Arabic verbs are unique because they are conjugated based on tense, mood, and the subject's person and number. For instance, the verb "to write" is "كتب" (kataba) in its base form. When you conjugate it, it changes based on who is performing the action and when.

Particles (Harakat): Particles include prepositions, conjunctions, and other small words that help link phrases and clauses. They play a vital role in establishing relationships between different parts of a sentence. For example, the word "و" (wa) means "and," connecting two ideas or items.

Sentence Structure

Arabic sentences typically follow a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) structure, although variations do exist. For example, "The boy reads a book" would be structured in Arabic as "يقرأ الولد كتابًا" (yaqra' al-walad kitabaan). This shows the subject ("الولد"), followed by the verb ("يقرأ") and then the object ("كتابًا").

Gender and Number

Understanding gender and number is crucial in Arabic grammar. Every noun has a gender, and adjectives must agree with the noun they describe. Additionally, nouns can be singular, dual, or plural. In Arabic, the plural form often involves changing the word's structure significantly, rather than simply adding an "s" as in English.

Cases in Arabic Grammar

Arabic nouns can take on different cases, primarily nominative, accusative, and genitive. Each case has its own markers that indicate the role of the noun in a sentence. For example, a noun in the nominative case usually serves as the subject, while a noun in the accusative case may serve as the object of a verb.

The Importance of Vowel Markings

Vowel markings in Arabic, known as Tashkeel, are essential for understanding pronunciation and meaning. These markings indicate short vowels and help clarify how words should be read, especially in religious texts like the Quran. Learning to read with Tashkeel is beneficial for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of Arabic and its nuances.

Learning Resources

For those interested in learning Arabic and exploring its grammar in depth, various resources are available. Websites such as Shaykhi provide valuable tools for learners, offering lessons on grammar, vocabulary, and even Quranic studies. Engaging with these resources can help you develop a solid foundation in Arabic, making your learning journey more enjoyable and effective.

Conclusion

Arabic grammar is more than just a set of rules; it is the key to understanding a language that holds great cultural and historical significance. Whether your interest lies in conversational Arabic or studying the Quran, a strong grasp of grammar will undoubtedly enhance your skills. Embrace the challenge of learning Arabic grammar, and consider exploring resources like Shaykhi to guide you on this rewarding journey

[teaching-arabic-language]

MASTERING ARABIC SYNTAX: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE

Ever found yourself puzzled by the complexity of Arabic syntax? You’re not alone. Many learners find Arabic syntax challenging, but with the right guidance, it can become as straightforward as building a puzzle. Think of Arabic syntax as the framework of a house: once you understand the foundation, everything else falls into place. This guide aims to simplify the intricacies of Arabic syntax and make it accessible for everyone.

Understanding Arabic Syntax

Arabic syntax is the set of rules that governs the structure of sentences. It dictates how words are arranged and how they interact with each other. Just like in English, Arabic sentences are made up of subjects, verbs, and objects, but the order and form can vary significantly.

The Basics of Sentence Structure

In Arabic, the typical sentence structure can be either Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) or Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). For instance:

VSO: “قرأ الطالب الكتاب” (The student read the book).

SVO: “الطالب قرأ الكتاب” (The student read the book).

Understanding these patterns is crucial for constructing coherent sentences.

Nouns and Their Roles

Nouns in Arabic can be subjects, objects, or complements. They come in different forms, including definite and indefinite. For example:

Definite Noun: “الكتاب” (the book)

Indefinite Noun: “كتاب” (a book)

Nouns also take different forms based on their grammatical case, which indicates their role in the sentence (subject, object, etc.).

Verbs and Verb Forms

Arabic verbs are rich and complex, with root-based structures that change based on tense, mood, and voice. The three main tenses are past, present, and future. For example:

Past: “كتب” (he wrote)

Present: “يكتب” (he writes)

Future: “سيكتب” (he will write)

Subject-Verb Agreement

In Arabic, the verb must agree with the subject in both gender and number. For instance:

Masculine Singular: “كتب الرجل” (The man wrote)

Feminine Singular: “كتبت المرأة” (The woman wrote)

Masculine Plural: “كتب الرجال” (The men wrote)

Feminine Plural: “كتبت النساء” (The women wrote)

Object Placement

Objects in Arabic can either follow the verb directly or be placed after the subject. Both forms are grammatically correct, but the meaning or emphasis can change. For example:

“قرأت الكتاب” (I read the book)

“الكتاب قرأته” (The book, I read it)

Adjectives and Their Agreement

Adjectives in Arabic must agree with the noun they describe in gender, number, and case. For example:

Masculine Singular: “كتاب كبير” (a big book)

Feminine Singular: “سيارة كبيرة” (a big car)

Masculine Plural: “كتب كبيرة” (big books)

Feminine Plural: “سيارات كبيرة” (big cars)

Prepositions in Arabic

Prepositions are used to indicate relationships between words in a sentence. Common prepositions include “في” (in), “على” (on), and “مع” (with). For example:

“الكتاب على الطاولة” (The book is on the table)

“ذهبت إلى المدرسة” (I went to school)

Conjunctions and Sentence Linking

Conjunctions like “و” (and), “أو” (or), and “لكن” (but) are essential for linking sentences and creating complex structures. For example:

“ذهبت إلى المدرسة وقرأت الكتاب” (I went to school and read the book)

“أريد القهوة أو الشاي” (I want coffee or tea)

Common Syntax Errors

Common errors in Arabic syntax often involve incorrect verb conjugation, noun-adjective agreement, or misuse of prepositions. Understanding these pitfalls can help you avoid them. For example:

Incorrect: “الكتاب كبير” (The book big)

Correct: “الكتاب الكبير” (The big book)

Practice Exercises

Practice is key to mastering Arabic syntax. Try constructing sentences using different structures and roles. Here are a few exercises to get you started:

Create sentences using VSO and SVO structures.

Conjugate verbs in different tenses and use them in sentences.

Practice noun-adjective agreement with various nouns and adjectives.

Tips for Mastering Arabic Syntax

Practice Regularly: Consistency is key.

Study Real-Life Examples: Reading Arabic texts can provide context and understanding.

Use Flashcards: They can help reinforce vocabulary and structures.

Get Feedback: Engage with native speakers or tutors for constructive feedback.

Resources for Further Learning

Books: “Arabic Grammar: A First Workbook” by Mohamed Fathy.

Online Courses: Coursera offers Arabic language courses.

Apps: Duolingo and Memrise have Arabic learning modules.

Conclusion

Mastering Arabic syntax is a journey that requires practice and patience. By understanding the fundamental rules and practicing regularly, you can build a strong foundation in Arabic. Remember, like any new skill, consistency and a positive attitude will take you far.

FAQs

What is the basic word order in Arabic sentences? Arabic sentences typically follow Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) or Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order.

How do verbs change in Arabic? Verbs in Arabic change based on tense, mood, and voice, with specific forms for past, present, and future tenses.

What are common errors in Arabic syntax? Common errors include incorrect verb conjugation, noun-adjective agreement, and misuse of prepositions.

How important is practice in learning Arabic syntax? Practice is crucial as it reinforces understanding and helps internalize rules through consistent application.

Where can I find resources to learn Arabic syntax? Books, online courses, and language learning apps are great resources. Engaging with native speakers also provides practical experience.

By following this guide, you’ll find that Arabic syntax is not as daunting as it seems. Happy learning!

Don’t forget to visit our youtube channel !

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[pooma-english]

English grammar

H. USES OF PRONOUNS

85. When a Pronoun is used as the complement of the Verb 'to be', it should be in the nominative case.

Incorrect- If I were him, I would not do it. Correct- If I were he, I would not do it.

86. When the Pronoun is used as the object of a Verb or of a Preposition, it should be in the objective case.

1. Incorrect- Let you and I do it.

Correct- Let you and me do it.

2. Incorrect- These presents are for you and I. Correct- These presents are for you and me.

87. Emphatic Pronouns cannot stand alone as Subjects

Incorrect- Himself did it.

Correct- He himself did it.

88. The Indefinite Pronoun 'one' should be used throughout if used at all.

Incorrect- One must not boast of his own success.

Correct- One must not boast of one's own success.

89. 'Either' or 'neither' is used only in speaking of two persons or things; 'any, 'no one' and 'none' is used in speaking of more than two.

1. Incorrect- Anyone of these two roads leads to the railway station.

Correct-Either of these two roads leads to the railway station.

2. Incorrect- Neither of these three boys did his homework.

Correct- No one of these three boys did his homework.

90. 'Each other' is used in speaking of two persons or things; 'one an-other' is used in speaking of more than two.

Incorrect- The two brothers loved one another.

Correct- The two brothers loved each other.

91. A Noun or Pronoun governing a Gerund should be put in the possessive case.

Incorrect- Please excuse me being late.

Correct- Please excuse my being late.

92. A Pronoun must agree with its antecedent in person, number and gender.

Incorrect- Each of these boys has done their homework.

Correct- Each of these boys has done his homework.

93. When two or more Singular Nouns are joined by 'and', the Pronoun used for them must be in Plural.

Incorrect- Both Raju and Ravi have done his homework.

Correct- Both Raju and Ravi have done their homework.

94. When two or more Singular Nouns are joined by 'and' refer to the same person or thing, a Pronoun used for them must be in the singular.

Incorrect- The collector and District Magistrate is not negligent in their duty.

Correct- The collector and District Magistrate is not negligent in his duty.

95. When two or more singular nouns are joined by 'or' or 'nor', 'either... or', 'neither.. nor, the Pronoun used for them should be in the singular.

Incorrect- Neither Ravi nor Raju has done their homework.

Correct- Neither Ravi nor Raju has done his homework.

96. When two or more singular Pronouns of different persons come together, the Pronoun of second per-son singular (you) comes first, the pronoun of the first person singular (1) comes last and the pronoun of the third person singular (he) comes in between.

Incorrect- I, You and he must work together..

Correct-You, he and I must work together.

97. When two or more plural Pro-nouns of different persons come together first person plural (we) comes first, then second person plural (you) and last of all third person plural (they).

Incorrect You, they and we must work together..

Correct-We, you and they must work together.

98. The Relative Pronoun who is in a subjective case, whereas whom is in objective case. Therefore, for who there must be a Finite Verb in the sentence. Or otherwise, when whom (Object) is used in the sentence and there is more Finite Verb's than the number of Subjects in the sentence, then whom should be changed into who (Subject).

For example,

Incorrect- The doctor whom came here was Ram's brother.

Correct-The doctor who came here was Ram's brother.

99. With Superlative Degree Adjective, only, none, all etc., as Relative Pronoun we use that and not which or who.

For example,

Incorrect- All which glitters is not gold.

Correct- All that glitters is not gold.

100. After let, if a Pronoun is used, that Pronoun must be in the Objective Case.

For example,

Incorrect- Let he go there.

Correct- Let him go there.

[gemsofgreece]

Hello @voidismyhome , I found a page in Britannica which describes in a really concise way what differences to generally expect in Modern Greek syntax and vocabulary compared to Ancient Greek. For how short it is, I find it remarkably good. It might be useful to you.

Much of the inflectional apparatus of the ancient language is retained in Modern Greek. Nouns may be singular or plural—the dual is lost—and all dialects distinguish a nominative (subject) case and accusative (object) case. A noun modifying a second noun is expressed by the genitive case except in the north, where a prepositional phrase is usually preferred*. The indirect object is also expressed by the genitive case (or by the preposition se ‘to,’ which governs the accusative, as do all prepositions).

The ancient categorization of nouns into masculine, feminine, and neuter survives intact, and adjectives agree in gender, number, and case with their nouns, as do the articles (o ‘the,’ enas ‘a’). In general, pronouns exhibit the same categories as nouns, but the relative pronoun pu is invariant, its relation to its own clause being expressed when necessary by a personal pronoun in the appropriate case: i yinéka pu tin ídhe to korítsi ‘the woman pu her saw the girl’ (i.e., ‘the woman whom the girl saw’).

The verb is inflected for mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative), aspect (perfective, imperfective), voice (active, passive), tense (present, past), and person (first, second, and third, singular and plural). The future is expressed by a particle tha (from earlier thé[o] na ‘[I] want to’) followed by a finite verb—e.g., tha grápho ‘I will write.’ Formally, the finite forms of the verb (those with personal endings) consist of a stem + (optionally) the perfective aspect marker (-s- in active, -th- in passive) + personal ending (indicating person, tense, mood, voice). Past forms are prefixed by e- (the “augment”), usually lost in mainland dialects when unstressed. There are also two nonfinite forms, an indeclinable present active participle in -ondas (ghráfondas ‘writing’), and a past passive one in -ménos (kurazménos ‘tired’).

Aspectual differences play a crucial role. Roughly, the perfective marker indicates completed, momentary action; its absence signifies an action viewed as incomplete, continuous, or repeated. Thus the imperfective imperative ghráphe might mean ‘start writing!’ or ‘write regularly!’ while ghrápse means rather ‘write down! (on a particular occasion).’ Compare also tha ghrápho ‘I’ll be writing’ but tha ghrápso ‘I’ll write (once).’ The difference is sometimes represented lexically in English: ákuye ‘he listened’ and ákuse ‘he heard.’ The passive forms are largely confined to certain verbs active in meaning** like érkhome ‘I come,’ fováme ‘I am afraid,’ and reciprocal usages (filyóndusan ‘they were kissing’).

The most common form of derivation is by suffixation; derivation by prefixation is limited mainly to verbs. On the other hand, compound formation is rich. Three morphological types of compounds can be distinguished, as reflected also in their stressing—thus, stem + stem compounds—e.g., palyófilos ‘old friend’ (o is the compound vowel) or khortofághos ‘vegetarian’; stem + word compounds—e.g., palyofílos ‘lousy friend’ (compare fílos ‘friend’); and the newly borrowed formation, word + word compounds—e.g., pedhí thávma as English ‘boy wonder.’ There is no infinitive; ancient constructions involving it are usually replaced by na (from ancient hína ‘so that’) + subjunctive. Thus thélo na ghrápso ‘I want to write,’ borí na ghrápsi ‘he can write.’ Subordinate statement is introduced by óti or pos (léi óti févghi ‘he says that he is leaving’). Unlike English, Greek (because of its inflectional system) shows flexible word order even in the simplest sentences. Further, as in Italian, the subject of a sentence may be omitted.

The vast majority of Demotic words are inherited from Ancient Greek, although quite often with changed meaning***—e.g., filó ‘I kiss’ (originally ‘love’), trógho ‘I eat’ (from ‘nibble’), kóri ‘daughter’ (from ‘girl’). Many others represent unattested combinations of ancient roots and affixes; others enter Demotic via Katharevusa: musío ‘museum,’ stikhío ‘element’ (but inherited stikhyó ‘ghost’), ekteló ‘I execute.’ In addition, there are more than 2,000 words in common use drawn from Italian and Turkish (accounting for about a third each), and from Latin, French, and, increasingly, English. The Latin, Italian, and Turkish elements (mostly nouns) acquire Greek inflections (from Italian síghuros ‘sure,’ servitóros ‘servant,’ from Turkish zóri ‘force,’ khasápis ‘butcher’), while more recent loans from French and English remain unintegrated (spor ‘sport,’ bar ‘bar,’ asansér ‘elevator,’ futból ‘football,’ kompyúter ‘computer,’ ténis ‘tennis’).

A couple of notes:

* I could be wrong but I am a little sceptical about this claim that in the north the second noun being in genitive is replaced with a prepositional phrase. Both ways exist and are used in either northern or southern Greek. Or I had never noticed it? Idk

** It’s not passive form used for active meanings, this in Greek is mediopassive, for instance, erkhome “come” essentially means “bring myself to some place” so it is an act done to oneself, fovame (I fear) and most emotions are also (medio)passive as the self is the receptor of the emotion.

***The meaning has shifted in several occasions however it is an additional meaning usually and not a fully changed one. For example, stikhio is both element AND ghost, ektelo is both execute a person AND perform, complete a process etc

So some tips I can give, with the help of the above:

Infinitive means ancient and its replacement with subjunctive means modern.

If you use tha before a future verb, that’s modern.

Dative means ancient and its replacement by either accusative or genitive means modern.

A lot of use of compound words indicates it’s modern.

A very liberal placement of words (flexible syntax) and a use of a lot of figurative speech indicates it’s likely modern.

If it’s modern the word ends in a vowel or n or s or rarely r. If it’s Ancient it can additionally end in x and ps. Obviously, I mean the equivalent Greek letters!

Generally pronouns follow the verb in Ancient Greek but usually precede it in Standard Modern Greek (not in some dialects though).

If you drop definite articles unless you want to emphasise the precision, that indicates Ancient. If you do the opposite, meaning if you always use definite articles except when you really want to stress the vagueness, that’s Modern.

Hope that helped any! Creating your own language is fascinating, I had done that too in the past but more like a code language and not with a proper design of grammar and syntax.

Feels like a lot of work to ask this

but next time you refer to some etymology or word used as Ancient Greek, please kindly consider to check out whether this word is extant and used in Modern Greek. If you refer to all words as Ancient Greek, you spread the usually false impression that these words are dead, only revived thanks to English and other western scientific terminology (while they might as well be everyday words for the Greek speakers), you obstruct a chance of exposure to Modern Greek which is viewed as totally disconnected and irrelevant, and you strip it from its lingual legacy.

So, if a word has indeed fallen out of use, by all means, call it what it is, Ancient Greek. If it’s only used in Modern Greek, which is a possibility you will likely never stumble on as Modern Greek roots barely exist at all and they are just colloquial epithets (which is also why it doesn’t make much sense to emphatically distinct a root as Ancient because there’s little else it can be anyway), call it Modern Greek. (Always talking about Greek roots, this is not about loanwords or foreign roots.)

If however it exists both in Ancient and survives in Modern Greek, which is 90% of the time, just call it what it really is. Greek.

Another reason it is very unlikely for you to be referring to exclusively Ancient Greek words that are dead in Modern Greek is because the Greek words you usually refer to are words that passed from Latin and Medieval Greek to the western languages. If a Greek word survived well into Medieval Greek and / or passed to Latin, then it has 99% of the time survived into Modern Greek. Exclusively Ancient Greek words that have fallen out of use are usually Homeric and Archaic words from non-Ionic dialects that were already fading in Classical and early Hellenistic times. So the odds of you referring to such words, unless you are a linguist of archaic non-Ionic Greek, are very very slim.

And if it’s too much work to ask (how much time do you spend mentioning Greek etymology though?!), then again just call it Greek because you can’t go wrong with this and you save yourself from an extra word. It’s that easy and is the safest choice.

[gwendolynlerman]

Languages of the world

Michif (michif)

Basic facts

Number of native speakers: 730

Spoken in: Canada, United States

Script: Latin, 24 letters

Grammatical cases: 0

Linguistic typology: agglutinative, SVO/SOV

Language family: Algic, Algonquian-Blackfoot, Algonquian, Cree-Montagnais-Naslapi, Cree, Plains Creeic

Number of dialects: 3

History

19th century - Michif develops as a combination of Plains Cree and Métis French

2004 - a writing system is proposed

Writing system and pronunciation

These are the letters that make up the script: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p r s t u v w y z.

-Q- and -x- are only used in loanwords. Vowels are doubled to show that they are long and followed by -ñ- to mark their nasality.

Grammar

Nouns have two genders (masculine and feminine). They are almost always accompanied by a French-origin determiner or a possessive.

Adjectives are of French origin and work in a similar way to how they do in French. Only pre-nominal ones agree in gender.

On the other hand, verbs are mostly of Cree origin. They are conjugated for tense, mood, voice, person, and number.

Dialects

There are three dialects: Northern Michif, Southern Michif, and Michif French. Northern Michif is heavily Cree, while the latter is very influenced by French.

[agermanadventurer]

The Nature of the German Adjective

In this part of the series, we’ll take a look at the german adjective! The grammar behind adjectives are very, well... a bit complex. But I’ll try my best to explain it. 

Three Types 

First off, there are three different types of adjectives: predicative (prädikative), adverbs (adverbiale), and attributive.

Predicative adjectives and adverbs maintain the same and do not change and are both placed behind the verb. The difference between the two has to do with which verb is present. When they are placed behind the verbs: “sein”, “bleiben”, “werden” — they are predicative adjectives. And when they are placed behind any other verb they are predicative adverbs. 

Ex. predicative adjective Der Baum ist grün.

Ex. predicative adverb Der Baum wächst grün.

The last type of adjective is attributive adjectives. These are the ones you’re gonna have to worry about. The attributive adjectives are placed between the article and the noun. Depending on the noun’s gender, number, and case we have to decline them differently, which is also called “adjective agreement”. This gives us over a hundred different possibilities (many of whom look alike but still- it’s a lot). Let’s look at the declension of the attributive adjectives.

Adjective Agreement 

If you have seen my post on nouns (or if you’ve already become familiar with the concept) you are aware of cases. Adjective agreement is when the adjective conjugates, or declines, according to the noun’s gender, number, and case. 

Remember the table above? Well this is gonna get a lot more complicated. When declining an adjective it is essential to know what type of article you’re using. What do I mean by this? There are definite articles and indefinite articles as well as the option of not using an article. Depending on which of these are present, the adjective will decline differently. Not only that but like the table above, the declension depends on the gender, case, and number. Let’s look at the table in all it’s glory:

As we see; it’s something. But if you look closely it’s actually not as hard as it seems since many of them actually look alike (which gives us less to remember). I made the tables down bellow to give you an example of how the adjective “nett” would agree in different scenarios. I imagine it’ll be a lot easier after seeing it in action.

Exceptions to these rules are:

- Adjectives that end with “e” already, do not add a second “e”. Ex. leise: leiser Baum (not: leiseer Baum)

- When adjectives end in “el” we take away the “e”, leaving the “l” alone before adding the corresponding ending. Ex. dunkel: dunkler Baum (not: dunkeler Baum)

- And when adjectives end in “[any vowel] + er” we, again, take away the “e” before adding the corresponding ending.  Ex. teuer: teurer Baum (not: teuerer Baum)

Comparative Forms

In German, we can decline adjectives (just like in English) to change their impact. An example in English would be: good, better, best. Or: nice, nicer, nicest. These different forms are called the comparative forms. 

There are three comparative forms: positive, comparative, and superlative.

The positive form is the regular form of the noun: ex. grün. (green) 

The comparative form is the form we compare something with, in this form we add “-er” at the end: ex. grüner. (greener)

The superlative form is the ultimate form an adjective can take. Depending on whether it is behind a verb or before a noun it looks different. If it is behind a verb it takes the ending “-sten” or “-esten” (depending on what fits best) and we also have either the definite article or “am” before: ex. am grünsten (greenest) If the adjective is before the noun it is a bit more complicated. Whether the noun in question is feminine or masculine/neuter the adjective will agree accordingly. “-st” is added when the noun is masculine/neuter and “-ste” is added when it’s feminine. On top of that, the adjective also agrees with the noun’s case and whether the article is definite, indefinite or if there is any article. So you also add the ending according to the table listed above ↑.

~ Summary ~

— There are three types of verbs: predicative (prädikative), adverbs (adverbiale), and attributive. — Attributive adjectives are the ones declining, also known as adjective agreement, depending on the noun’s gender, case, and number as well as which type of article is present: 

— Comparative forms change the impact of the adjective. — There are three comparative forms in German: positive (normal) form, comparative (compare) form, and superlative (ultimate) form. — Comparative form adds “-er“ at the end of the adjective. — Behind a verb; superlative adds “-sten” or “-esten” at the end and “am“ is placed before it. — Before a noun; superlative adds “-st” (m/n) or “-ste” (f), on top of that it also agrees with the noun’s gender, case, and number as well as which type of article is present so you add the corresponding ending on top of that. 

[learnlanguageswithani]

Parole interrogative

In this post, I will cover the two uses of Italian interrogative words.

DISCLAIMER—My native language is English and the point of this blog is that I document my own learning process with the added bonus of maybe helping someone else start learning Italian as well.  I have never been to Italy or any other Italian-speaking country before.  I do not claim to be an expert on any of this material.  Please feel free to correct me if I make any mistakes!  Thank you.

La lezione!

First, it’s important to note that there are two types of questions.  There are questions that are expected to be answered with a “yes”, a “no”, or an “I don’t know”, which are considered binary response questions.  Then, there are open ended questions, which cannot be answered with a “yes”, “no”, or “I don’t know”.

Binary response questions do not require an interrogative word, which also means that the intonation of a phrase may be necessary to determine whether or not it is a question.  Binary response questions are structurally the same as a phrase written the same way, but with different punctuation.

Example: Vai al cinema oggi. (You are going to the cinema today) vs. Vai al cinema oggi? (Are you going to the cinema today?)

Open ended questions do require the use of interrogative words, and intonation isn’t as important because the structure of the question explicitly states that the phrase is a question.  Questions usually begin with the interrogative word.

The interrogative words are as follows:

How to ask “what?”

Che cosa?

Che?

Cosa?

Example: Che cosa vuoi mangiare? (What do you want to eat?)

NOTE!: What’s the difference between che, cosa, and che cosa?  While che cosa is the literally correct and more formal way of saying “what?”, che and cosa on their own are informal ways of asking the question.  Cosa is used more often in Northern Italy, while che is used more often in Southern Italy.  From what I read, these three phrases seem to be interchangeable.

NOTE!: Che is also used to indicate “what kind” and is an invariable adjective.

Example: Che musica suoni? (What kind of music do you play?)

How to ask “who?” or “whom?”

Chi?

Example: Chi è Marcello? (Who is Marcello?)

Variation: Con chi? means “with whom?”

How to ask “How?” or “Like what?”

Come?

Example: Come stai? (How are you?)

How to ask “why?”

Perché?

Example: Perché sorridi così? (Why do you smile that way?)

How to ask “where?”

Dove?

Example: Dove abiti? (Where do you live?)

Variation: Di dove? means “from where?”

How to ask “when?”

Quando?

Example: Quando sei a casa? (When are you at home?)

How to ask “how much?” and “how many?”

Quanto?

Example: Quanto tempo hai? (How much time do you have?)

NOTE!: Quanto has to agree in gender and number of the noun it modifies.  Quanto is the singular masculine form, while the singular feminine is quanta, the plural masculine is quanti, and the plural feminine is quante.*

Example: Quanta acqua? (How much water?)

Example: Quanti anni ha Pietro? (How old is Pietro?)**

Example: Quante lezioni hai oggi? (How many classes do you have today?)

NOTE!: Quanto is invariable when it is followed by a verb, in which case it is used as an indefinite interrogative expression.

Example: Quanto costa la torta? (How much is the cake?)

Another way to ask the same thing: Quant’è la torta?

How to ask “which one?”

Quale?

Example: Quale libro? (Which book?)

NOTE!: Quale has to agree with the number of the noun in question.  When the noun is plural, the -e ending changes to an -i.

Example: Quali appunti? (Which notes?)

NOTE!: While in English, we often use “what?” and “which?” interchangeably in certain contexts, Italian does not.  In English, I might say, “What’s your favourite book?” but in Italian, I would say, “Qual é tuo libro preferito?”, which translates to “Which is your favourite book?”

NOTE!: As demonstrated above, quale drops the -e before è.

NOTE!: Cosa, come, and dove are elided before è.

Cos’è? — What is it/he/she?

Com’è? — How is it/he/she? or What is it/he/she like?

Dov’è? — Where is it/he/she?

As in English, interrogative words are also used in non-question statements.

Some of these interrogative words can be used in non-question statements as well, but their meanings and context can change a little.

Che — That

Example: È vero che vi sposate? (Is it true that you are getting married?)

NOTE!: Che can also be used in exclamations, in which case it means “What…!” or “What a…!”

Example: Che bravo studente! (What a good student!)

Cosa — Thing

Example: Ci sono parecchie cose di cui vorrei discutere con te. (There are a lot of things I would like to discuss with you.)

Chi — Who

Example: Vince chi risponde a più domande correttamente. (Whoever answers the most questions correctly wins.)

Come — How

Example: Hai visto come mi ha guardato? (Did you see how he looked at me?)

Perché — Because

Example: Non sono andato a lavorare perché ero ammalato. (I didn't go to work because I was sick.)

Perché — So that

Example: Apri la finestra perché possa entrare un po' di aria. (Open the window so that some air can come in.)

Perché as a noun means why, reason, or reason why

Example: Non capisco il perché delle sue azioni. (I don't understand the reason why he does those things.)

Dove — Where

Example: Quello è il bar dove ci siamo incontrati la prima volta. (That bar is where we first met.)

Dove as a noun means the noun “where”.

Example: Il dove e il come dell'operazione non sono ancora noti. (The where and the when still need to be determined.)

Quando — When

Example: Quando piove si ferma tutto il traffico. (When it rains, all traffic stops.)

Quanto — How much

Example: Non riesco neanche a descrivere quanto io ami nuotare in mare. (I can’t even describe how much I love swimming in the sea.)

* Notes

* Quanto follows the same plurals rules as most nouns and adjectives, which I plan on discussing in another post.

** The expressions for stating or asking age literally translate to “having x number of years”.  This is the same as in Spanish and French.  Again, I plan on discussing this in a future post.

Resources:

HOW TO FORM DIRECT QUESTIONS IN ITALIAN | Learn Italian with Lucrezia (audio ITA)(subtitled)—Learn Italian with Lucrezia on YouTube

I also take notes based on the sixth edition of the Ciao! Textbook by Carla Larese Riga and Chiara Maria Dal Martello.

Word Reference—Italian–English and English–Italian online dictionary

Cosa? Che cosa? Quale? - How to say WHAT in Italian—Italian Pills blog

What is the difference between "cosa...?" and "che cosa...? " ? "cosa...?" vs "che cosa...? " ?—Hi Native

che, cosa or che cosa—Word Reference forum

Cosa vs Che Cosa - Duolingo—Duolingo forum

Is there any difference between "che", "cosa", or "que cosa"?—Dante Learning blog

[peirates]

Photo taken from [Baalbek Roman Temple]

Latin was originally spoken by an eponymous group of ancient Italians. One of these Latin cities, the Romans, spread the language by conquering all of Italy, later the Mediterranean, then much of Europe and the Middle East. Although rarely spoken now, it is the mother of all Romance languages and contributes to about a third of English vocabulary. Its influence has since spread across the world through European imperialism; there are few places left that are completely unaffected by the Romans’ language and culture.

This particular post serves as both a beginner’s guide and a taster to what Latin is, with some common vocabulary along the way. Especially since many people are currently stuck at home due to Covid-19, and may like to stay occupied by learning a new language. Hope you enjoy!

N.B. Anything beginning with an asterisk (*) means that you may hear differently elsewhere, for example on Duolingo.

General

Latin is fundamentally a very difficult language, even for academics, and even if your native tongue is Romance. But I am not saying not to try, I am saying it is normal to struggle! 

All ‘U’s were then written as ‘V’s, and all ‘J’s as ‘I’s. Modern Latin-learning tends to replace some ‘V’s with ‘U’s in order to facilitate reading. We have lost the exact pronunciations of classical Latin, not to mention differences between dialects, but the following explanations are some of the strongest estimates.

*‘V’ should be normally pronounced as /ʍ/, when between consonants as /u/. 

*A standalone ‘I’ before another vowel becomes /j/ or /dʒ/.

Iuppiter servum in exilium pepulit. 

[ Ivppiter servvm in exilivm pepvlit. ]

[ Yoo-pi-ter ser-woom in e-xi-li-oom pe-poo-lit. ]

Jupiter drove the slave into exile.

Iuppiter, Iovis (3, m.) - Jupiter, king of the gods servus, servi (2, m.) - slave  in + acc. - into, to  exilium, exilii (2, n.) - exile  pello, pellere, pepuli, pulsum (3) - drive out, push, repel 

Latin generally follows a SOV (subject, object, verb) sentence structure:

rex regnum amat.

The king loves his kingdom.

rex, regis (3, m.) - king regnum, regni (2, n.) - kingdom; power  amo, amare, amavi, amatum (1) - love, like

There are no definite or indefinite articles (a/the) - normally, you must add them to your translation yourself depending on the context. There are relative pronouns (e.g. qui/quae/quod - who, which), demonstrative pronouns (e.g. hic/haec/hoc - this; he/she/it) and many other pronouns/determiners, but they are not required for every sentence.

*Unlike English, you do not capitalise the sentence’s first letter UNLESS that first letter is part of a name.

Most meanings are conveyed via changes in word endings (i.e. it relies on conjugating and declining) rather than word order. This makes Latin an inflected language.

Nouns

While English uses word order to show how nouns and adjectives relate to a situation, Latin uses endings and cases from different declensions to do the same. Latin uses 7 cases, but 2 of them (vocative and locative) are rarer.

nominative (nom.) - subject

vocative (voc.) - addressee: often follows ‘o’

accusative (acc.) - object

genitive (gen.) - possessor (of/‘s)

dative (dat.) - recipient (to/for)

ablative (abl.) - movement away (from) / instrumental (by/with) / location (at/in)

locative (loc.) - location (at/in)

Here’s an example with all 7 in action:

pater, o Attice, donum Iovis matri cum comite Romae dedit.

Atticus, my father gave Jupiter’s gift to my mother with his comrade in Rome.

pater, patris (3, m.) - father donum, doni (2, n.) - gift, present  mater, matris (3, f.) - mother  cum + abl. (only used for people) - with  comes, comitis (3, m/f.) - companion, comrade, partner Roma, Romae (1, f.) - Rome do, dare, dedi, datum (1) - give; surrender, hand over

Noun endings change in case, gender and number. There are three genders: masculine (m.), feminine (f.), and neuter (n.). The two grammatical numbers are singular (sg.) and plural (pl.). A noun will abide by the endings of one of five possible declensions.

In dictionaries, like above, you will see a noun given as ‘nominative, genitive (declension, gender) - English meaning’. The genitive is always featured because it is the only case whose ending is specific to its own declension (other endings may be seen across declensions but have different cases each time). Therefore, if you know what a noun’s genitive is, you know what declension it is, and vice versa. 

Adjectives

An adjective agrees with its related noun in case, gender and number. However, they do not always have the same endings; all adjectives decline as either 2nd m. / 1st / 2nd n. (also seen as 2-1-2) or 3rd. 

Here, every adjective agrees with the adjacent noun in case, gender and number, but none has the same ending:

omnis puella, mulier pulchra, homo sapiens, puer stultus

every girl, the beautiful woman, the wise man, a foolish boy

omnis, omne (3) - every, all; whole puella, puellae (1, f.) - girl mulier, mulieris (3, f.) - woman pulcher, pulchra, pulchrum (2-1-2) - beautiful, handsome homo, hominis (3, m.) - man; human being sapiens, sapientis (3) - wise, knowing puer, pueri (2, m.) - boy stultus, stulta, stultum (2-1-2) - stupid, foolish

N.B. With exceptions, most Latin adjectives follow the noun.

However, that is not to say that nouns and adjectives can never have the same endings. They often do: Roman writers used this frequently as a literary device known as homoioteleuton.

equus magnus, feminae parvae, homines sapientes, dona laeta

a big horse, little women, wise men, the happy gifts

equus, equi (2, m.) - horse magnus, magna, magnum (2-1-2) - big, great, large femina, feminae (1, f.) - woman parvus, parva, parvum (2-1-2) - little, small laetus, laeta, laetum (2-1-2) - happy, cheerful, blessed

Sometimes you see an adjective without a noun. When this happens, translate the adjective as an adjective AND a noun:

fortis horrenda diu passus est.

The brave man suffered horrible things for a long time.

fortis, forte (3) - brave, strong, bold horrendus, horrenda, horrendum (2-1-2) - horrible, terrible, horrendous diu (adv.) - for a long time patior, pati, passus sum (3, deponent) - suffer, endure; allow, permit

N.B. horrenda is in the accusative neuter plural, hence ‘things’. 

Verbs

The doers of verbs are shown by verb endings, unlike English which requires personal pronouns. Nominative personal pronouns can support a verb in Latin, but they are not required. They are best used to show contrast, unity or general emphasis - as if someone were pointing a finger at you - and this is why they are not seen often. Both sentences below are grammatically correct, but the second flows better:

ego dormire amo, tu dormire amas, nos amici apti sumus.

dormire amo, dormire amas, amici apti sumus.

I like to sleep, you like to sleep, we are suitable friends.

dormio, dormire, dormivi, dormitum (4) - sleep ego, me, mei (pers. pron.) - I, me, my tu, te, tui (pers. pron.) - you, you, your nos, nos, nostri (pers. pron.) - we, we, our amicus, amici; amica, amicae (2/1, m./f.) - friend aptus, apta, aptum (2-1-2) - suitable, apt, appropriate sum, esse, fui, futurum (irreg.) - be; be alive, exist, live

Latin uses the following tenses: present, future, future perfect, perfect, imperfect and pluperfect - and each comes with its own set of endings. There are also participles, supines, infinitives, imperatives, gerunds, gerundives, actives, passives, deponents and other structures to show contemporary, previous, subordinate or hypothetical events - these also come with their own stems and endings, but they often work like adjectives and so are not entirely unrecognisable.

Dictionaries present verbs as ‘present active, present active infinitive, perfect active, supine (conjugation)’. There are 4 conjugations, which are different sets of verb endings.

All Latin verbs come as either 1. active (I kill), 2. passive (I am killed) or 3. deponent (passive in form, active in meaning). Each comes with its own set of endings.

1. hic homo me interficit!

This man is killing me!

2. hic homo interficitur!

This man is being killed!

3. hic homo me interficere conatur!

This man is trying to kill me!

hic, haec, hoc (pron.) - this; he/she/it interficio, interficere, interfeci, interfectum (3) - kill, destroy conor, conari, conatus sum (1, deponent) - try, attempt

N.B. While most verbs can be active or passive interchangeably, deponents never switch. They are never seen with active endings or passive meanings.

The indicative (1) and subjunctive (2) moods distinguish expectations from reality. The indicative presents facts, while the subjunctive anything hypothetical from questions to wishes to fears. Each mood comes with its own set of endings.

1. vir dives me cupit.

The rich man wants me.

2. vir dives me cupiat.

May the rich man want me.

vir, viri (2, m.) - man; husband dives, divitis (gen.) (3) - rich, wealthy; wealthy man cupio, cupere, cupivi, cupitum (3) - desire, want, long for

Learning ancient versus modern languages

I’ve seen language-learners new to Latin comment on the difference in tone and content, sometimes even being discouraged by it.

Learning an ancient language which is no longer spoken today, i.e. ‘dead’, is very different from learning a modern foreign language. Some basic techniques don’t change, such as how to memorise vocab. However, the overall approaches are different because the overall goals are different - unless the goal is simple pure enjoyment, which is in fairness the best reason to learn!

Modern language studies are to encourage international communication and many other reasons.

Ancient language studies are almost entirely to study the ancient world, how it led to the modern world, and this is mostly done through analysing ancient sources in their original languages.

When studying Latin, you therefore are more likely to learn heavy vocabulary such as ‘die’ or ‘sacrifice’ before you learn ‘take a bath’ - some of the examples I use in this post aren’t cheerful. Classicists learn how to translate heavier content first because it is more commonly mentioned in the ancient sources which the entire subject relies upon - death comes up much more frequently in Caesar’s Gallic Wars than greetings. 

Recommended resources

- Duolingo Latin course - if you want to learn Latin as you would a modern language.

- Memrise Latin courses - almost infinite number of vocabulary and idiom lists.

- Massolit Classics ($) - online lectures covering Greek and Roman history, culture and literature.

- Amazon page for John Taylor ($) - esteemed author of Latin textbooks from beginner level up.

- William Whitaker’s Words - reliable vocabulary translator in both directions.

- Perseus Digital Library - public archive of ancient texts in their original languages and many different English translations.

- Logeion - online dictionary for Latin and Classical Greek.

Final Word

Absolutely do not fret if anything confuses you; like all things worth doing, understanding and applying it will take time. I am making more in-depth posts on various aspects of Latin grammar and vocab, with exercises, in the very near future, so hold on tight. Thank you for reading!

[brothersgrim]

.unearthed.

SO I’M READING WAY TOO DEEP INTO THINGS AGAIN, BUT.

This book. THIS BOOK. (For those who can’t make it out, it says in shiny metal letters “Ministerium Ex Acerbus” over ‘Taker’s sigil.) I caught it in a gif and something about it struck me as weird. 

I will preface this by saying I took Latin in university. I will amend that by saying I took one course, and it was such a ridiculous learning experience that none of us could actually translate a sentence by the end of it. But I think I know a bit of it. 

Enough to know that ‘Acerbus’ isn’t ‘Darkness’, and ‘ex’ doesn’t mean ‘of’ in the sense you’d think. Hell, ‘Ministry of Darkness’ could be a two-word phrase: Ministerium Tenebrae. You just use what is called the ‘genetive’ case - ‘cause in Latin, they hate you enough to make you essentially conjugate nouns AND verbs AND adjectives too - to make it ‘of’ or ‘belonging to’ the noun. ‘Ex’ is more like ‘from’, ‘out from’, or ‘out of’. Calling it ‘The Ministry Out From Darkness’ doesn’t particularly make a lot of sense, since they spent most of their time in darkness.  

The thing about conjugating nouns is that means word order almost doesn’t matter in Latin. There are also a lot of different words for ‘darkness’. So, if they didn’t want ‘Ministerium Tenebrae’, they could’ve gone with ‘Noctis Ministerium’, which sounds cool as hell IMO. What I’m getting at here is they had a lot of options to write out ‘Ministry of Darkness’. They took none of them. Acerbus does not mean ‘darkness’. It doesn’t mean anything close to darkness. Now, you might think, ‘Jay, shut up, it’s for a prop, it doesn’t have to be accurate’. ‘You must be new here,’ I say, taking your hand and leading you to the refreshments. 

In all seriousness, if it wasn’t meant to be understood, why go to the trouble in the first place, and why have Paul carry it like that, where it’s on full display? And you would think that if I, a 23-year-old yokel who studied Latin once like five years go, can look at it and go ‘hey, that doesn’t say darkness’, WWF/E should’ve been able to figure it out, too. So I think it’s intentional. That’s been squared away, so let’s move on to ‘Acerbus’.

One of the interesting things about Acerbus is that it’s an adjective. More importantly, it’s an adjective that doesn’t agree with its noun. Some of you may speak languages like French, where words have genders and such, and adjectives have to match so you know what’s being applied to what. ‘Cette femme est beau’ doesn’t sound right, both because my French is rusty as hell and because ‘beau’ is a masculine word. 

Ministerium is a singular gender-neutral word. It can be translated as ‘ministry’, but is also often read as ‘service’. When it ends in -um, it can either be nominative (the subject of a sentence), accusative (the direct object of a verb), or vocative (a direct address, eg ‘O Death’ or something of the sort). 

Acerbus is singular, but it’s not neutral. It’s singular and masculine, and it only ends in -us if it’s nominative/the subject. (Or Vocative, to be fair.) So it’s not “Acerbus from the Ministry”, it’s “The Ministry from Acerbus”.

Another important note to consider is that adjectives often take the place of nouns in Latin. Sounds weird until you realize we do the same thing in English. “Hey there, beautiful”, “feed the hungry”, or, for western fans, “the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. In these cases, the unspoken noun is ‘person’ or ‘people’ or something of the sort. This also explains the use of ‘ex’. Wouldn’t make much sense if ‘Acerbus’ applied to ‘Ministerium’. It’s its own noun, and it’s referring to a single man. 

Some of you might know the word ‘acerbic’ in English. If you don’t, it basically describes a bitter taste, like eating a lemon. “Ministry from (the/a) Bitter Man” is kinda weird, but kinda sad in a way. But I thought, hey, Latin’s weird, let’s double-check the meaning. There are three usually applied to ‘acerbus’. The first is bitter, usually in terms of a taste, but hey, metaphors are metaphors. So that checked. It can also mean violent or brutal if used to describe a person. And the third meaning, less common than the others, is ‘oppressive’. 

Miriam-Webster defines ‘oppression’ as follows:

oppression

noun

op·​pres·​sion | \ ə-ˈpre-shən

1a: unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power

So we have ‘The Ministry from the Oppressive Man”. A Ministry pulled from one man’s cruel authority and power. And the word meaning ‘cruel power’ is right over Taker’s sigil. There are two ways you could take this:

1. The Undertaker is the man in the title. The one exercising his authority. On the surface, this makes sense. He is the most outwardly powerful member of the Ministry, and he is the one we see calling the shots pretty often. But I don’t buy this. I buy option two: 

2. It’s real fuckin’ symbolic that ‘[the man who is] oppressive’ is over the Undertaker. The Ministry out of the man exerting his power over the Undertaker.

This might seem like a bit of a stretch, granted, but I’ve written thinkpieces on why I subscribe to the theory that Taker was brainwashed to hell and back leading up to the Ministry. But let’s look at this bit in particular. Undertaker is not leading the Ministry out, Paul is. You can actually see Taker behind Paul’s shoulder there. Paul’s in front, Paul’s in charge. 

But okay. You want more. Here’s why I really think it symbolizes power over Taker:

That’s not his book. 

It’s Paul’s book. 

Here’s the thing: ‘Taker doesn’t use spellbooks. We’ve seen him do everything from control the house lights and make microphones explode to teleport, summon lightning, come back from the dead, and open up portals to Hell all without a book. We’ve even seen him do chants without a book, run rituals without it. He doesn’t use one.

And speaking of chants: His chants are, as we discussed earlier, ancient Gaelic. Not Latin. Ancient. Gaelic. The chants in the Ministry theme are Gaelic, and the ones in sketches either are Gaelic or are made to sound Gaelic. (For the record: I don’t speak Ancient Gaelic. I don’t speak modern Gaelic. But the accent and pronunciation sounded similar enough to my ears.) Whether or not he speaks Latin, I can’t say. But he definitely doesn’t use it in his personal craft. His language of choice for magic is Gaelic.

He doesn’t use Latin. He doesn’t use a book. 

That’s not his. 

I, personally, think it’s Paul’s. He’s carrying it, he’s got it on display, and, by his own admission, he lived in the Spook House for years. It’s not a stretch to think he picked up a thing or two, especially since he was gonna help ‘Taker with the rituals regarding Steve Austin and Mideon. And you know what else? Given the title, and how close he keeps it to himself, I wouldn’t doubt for a second if that’s the grimoire he used to mindwipe good ol’ Taker. It really is a ministry born from Paul’s cruelty. Servitude from a man’s brutality.

Ministerium ex Acerbus.

[dungeonkommander]

Mini Showcase: Classical Eñer

Aichen shón! Welcome to the first mini-showcase. This is Classical Eñer, spoken by the Kumos people of Tilabór. This language has been seen as the language of prestige, to where even modern kings continue to speak it after its usage among the common people has died off.

Sound-wise, it’s fairly standard with a few odd phonemes, namely /ɲ/ /θ/ and /x/. There’s six vowels, /i/ /u/ /e/ /o/ /ɔ/ and /a/

NOUNS

Oh this is the fun part

SO

Each noun falls into one of three genders, Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter. These can be marked with a suffix, but are not required. However, due to sound changes, the vowel of the suffix is quite random.

Hum(ikh) - fish

Til(akh) - river

Chel(ukh) - animal

Nouns are also highly inflected, changing for gender, number, and case. While there is a singular and plural numbers, there’s also a dual number

Suth(óth) - candle

Suth(ótan) - candles

Suth(ótach) - two candles

As for niun case, there are 6 total

Nominative: aist(is) - lightning

Accusative: aist(isin) - lightning (object of sentence)

Genetive: aist(isir) - lightning’s

Dative: aist(isch) - to/for (the) lightning

Instrumental: aist(isuth) - with/by lightning

Locatice: aist(isig) - by lightning

Adjectives agree with gender, number, and case

Articles agree with gender, and number

Pronouns all are marked with case (except instrumental)

VERBS

Verbs are.. somewhat boring with one exception. They conjugate for both the subject and object of a sentence. As a result, you can drop a few pronouns when able

Eñer(na-sh) - I speak to you

Eñer(ñe-th) - we speak to him/her/them

Ñen eñershan - you speak to us

The conjugations, however, do not agree to the number of the object, so if using a plural pronoun, it must be the accusative form.

And now, a few glosses

So, with that, I hope you enjoyed this little showcase

chen hur auñerir jershan!

Thank you for reading!