Keller and Russel Latin 1 Introduction

indo-european languages all descended from

a common ancestor that is called either Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European

probably spoken some time in the 5th millennium BCE

the early speakers of the Latin language are known as

Latīnī

Latin borrowed many words from the Etruscan language

which is not related to PIE

the first written evidence of Latin appears in the form of inscriptions dated to

the late seventh and early sixth centuries bce

come from many towns in central italy and not just rome

early prominent authors of latin lit of early latin

comic poets plautus and terence

epic poet ennius

orator historian and essayist cato

literary language

a written language with increasingly strict rules of vocabulary and syntax

ennius may be said to be the first to have established a literary language

classical latin

the language written and spoken by the educated roman populace during the period of the late republic and early empire

100 bce-100 ce

golden age latin writers

first century bce

caesar

cicero

vergil

horace

silver age latin

first century ce

seneca

quintilian

authors who wrote classical latin

prose-

caesar

cicero

livy

poetry-

catullus

vergil

horace

the latin alphabet is the same as english but lacks a

j

w

k is used only in a few words

mostly of foreign origin

y and z occur in transcriptions of

names and other words borrowed from Greek

i can be either a consonant or a vowel

in some latin texts j is used as the sign of consonantal i

i can also be used for both

u can also be either a consonant or a vowel

in classical period and several centuries after, romans used the letter v to represent both consonant and vowel and u was simply a rounded version of this letter

capital letter c was originally a form of the Greek letter gamma and originally was used by the etruscans who did not distinguish between hard g and hard c

even after latin developed a separate new letter to represent hard g, capital c continued to represent hard g in abbreviations for certain first names

bs

ps of taps

bt

pt of apt

c

hard c

g

hard g

h represents

the apiration

i as a consonant

y of yawn

qu

qu in quit

r

rolled r

su and gu

su in persuade

gu in anguish

v

w of wet

x

x of axe

z

dz of gadzooks

ch

ch of character

ph

p of people

th

t of tea

vowels have both

quantity and quality

a vowel is either long or short

by nature

diphthong

a single vocalic sound made from pronouncing two vowels as one

latin diphthongs

ae ‘high’

oe ‘boy’

ei ‘day’

ui ‘twin’

au ‘how’

eu

latin word has as many syllables as it has

vowels or diphthongs

a single consonant goes with the following vowel

if there are two or more consonants in a row, the last consonant goes with the following syllable

if the combination of two consonants is a mute or the fricative f followed by a liquid the two consonants are kept together

qu always counts

as a single consonant

mutes

c

k

t

p

ch

th

ph

g

d

b

liquid

l

r

ultima

penult

antepenult

last syllable

second to last syllable

third to last syllable

only the penult or antepenult of a latin word may be stressed

if a word has only 2 syllables the penult is stressed

if a word has more than two syllables the stress is determined according to a rule called the law of the penult

if the penult is long it is stressed

if the penult is short the antepenult is stressed

a syllable is long if it contains

a long vowel or diphthong

a short vowel followed by two or more consonants not necessarily in the same syllable