Here are some Latin grammar present verb system endings and the verb to be. At the end I included some notes on the parts of a Roman house from my high school Latin class notebook. Just trying to post every week, and I am little late in posting this week as I try to post Monday night currently. Hopefully, it intrigues people to look into this part of history a little. It is very interesting, and can be worthwhile to read.

 

Present System (I love, I am loving, I do love)                            Verb To Be                                            Amar (to love)

o (I)                                 mus (We)                                                              sum              sumus                             amo     (I love)                 amamus (We love)

s (You)                           tis (You plural)                                                  es                  estis                                 amas   (You love)           amatis (You pl love)

t (He, She, It)              nt (They)                                                               est                sunt                                 amat    (She loves)          amant (They love)

 

Imperfect (I was loving, I used to love)                                         Verb To Be

bam                     bamus                                                                              eram             eramus

bas                       batis                                                                                 eras                eratis

bat                       bant                                                                                  erat                erant

 

Future (I will love, I shall love)                                                        Verb To Be

bo                      bimus                                                                                ero                 erimus

bis                     bitus                                                                                  eris                 eritis

bit                     bunt                                                                                   erit                 erunt

 

Perfect (I loved, I have love, I did love)                                      Verb To Be

i                        imus                                                                                    fui                   fuimus

isti                   istis                                                                                     fuisti              fuistis

it                      erunt                                                                                  fuit                  fuerunt

 

Pluperfect (I had loved)                                                                     Verb To Be

eram              eramus                                                                              fueram           fueramus

eras                eratis                                                                                  fueras             fueratis

erat                erant                                                                                   fuerat             fuerant

 

Future Perfect (I will have loved)                                                Verb To Be

ero                 erimus                                                                               fuero              fuerimus

eris                eritis                                                                                   fueris             fueritis

erit                erint                                                                                    fuerit             fuerint

 

Present Passive (They are being)

r (I, first person singular)                                                 mur (We, first person plural)

ris (You, second person singular)                                 mini (You plural, second person plural)

tur (He, She, It, third person singular)                       ntur (They, third person plural)

 

Four conjugations, infinitives

First conjugation        – āre – amo, amare (to love)

Second                            – ēre – habeo, habēre (to have)

Third                               – ere – rego, regere (to rule) facio, facere (to make)

Fourth                            – īre – venio, venire (to come)

 

 Three Classes in Roman Society

Patricians – upper class- lawyers, senators, merchants, etc.

Equistrians – middle class

Plebians – lower class, commoners, slaves

 

Roman Saying – Panem et circenses

translates as bread and circuses and basically meant that if you feed people well and provide entertainment it generally keeps them happy and makes them friends, hence the gladiator games provided bread and entertainment for all of the people throughout various locations in the Roman empire

 

Parts of a Roman House

ianua – door

tabernae – store/shops

cubicula – bedroom

atrium – dome, entrance

impluvium – pool, located in atrium probably had not ceiling above it

compluvium – area around pool located in atrium

tablinum – office/study

paristylim – courtyard

culina – kitchen

triclinium – eating area with three couches where servants fed them

hortus – garden

probably had some benches and waiting areas also, there were also bedrooms for slaves

 

Ancient Roman society was made up of about 70% slaves, and the gladiator games did involve killing people. Nowadays, most people would probably not approve and or at least see that as normal.

This is from a Latin course I took in high school. It really is not something that you would probably expect on this site, but is interesting and relates very marginally to the elementary education section that is here. Hopefully, it intrigues some to look into Latin as the history is interesting and can relate to modern times. Reading the stories of many of the Roman emperors would probably interest many and is worth the read.

Latin has five cases:

1. Nominative – Subject
2. Genitive – Possession (‘s or of)
3. Dative – Indirect Object
4. Accusative – Direct Object
5. Ablative – Object of Preposition

Present System

(I love, I am loving, I do love)

-0                  -mus                       amo (I love)                                                 amamus (We love)

-s                   -tis                           amas (You love)                                         amatis (You plural love)

-t                  -nt                            amat (He, She, It loves)                           amant (They love)

You can see in English it is ‘I love,’ in Latin, you take amar and drop the -ar and add an ‘-o’. It gets kind of complicated with different tenses, but in your native language you probably change tenses without even realizing it and don’t see it as complicated. It takes a while to get used to, but is possible and can become easy. The declension endings correlate to words that end in -a, -ē, -e, and -ī. The macrons are important. When the verb ends in -āre, -ēre, -ere, and -īre they are infinitives and are translated as to plus a verb (e.g. iuvāre means to help). Forgive me if this wrong as this high school Latin course was many years ago. This is more a taste of Latin, which is similar to modern romance languages such as Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian and 60% of English words have roots/meanings from Latin. I am certain the present tense and five cases and declension endings here are correct. English uses the Roman or Latin alphabet. Latin lives on in history and similarities and ties to modern languages. It is barely spoken, probably only the Vatican in Rome is the only place where it is spoken and maybe some small groups of Latin scholars. However, it lives on through similar languages such as Italian and has a remarkable history and civilization that has lived on and influenced modern times. Just an interesting side note is that the Romans stole the alphabet from the Greeks. For some time most the empire spoke Greek, but the ruling class spoke Latin. If you look at the Greek alphabet the first letter, alpha, is like a triangle and is similar to the Roman ‘a’ which is also like a triangle. Hebrew, also from the Mediterranean region, has an aleph for the first letter of the alphabet is more like a triangle than the other letters. However, the vowels for Hebrew are different and the aleph does not sound exactly like an ‘a.’ Below are the five Latin declension endings.

Nouns

First Declension                                    Second Declension                                               Third Declension

a                      ae                                      us/er/um                       ī/a                                   -/-                        ēs/a                                                Nominative

ae                    ārum                                ī                                        orum                              is                          um                                                 Genitive

ae                    īs                                        ō                                       īs                                       ī                           ibus                                               Dative

am                  ās                                      um/um                           ō/a                                   em/-                    ēs/a                                              Accusative

ā                       īs                                      ō                                        īs                                       e                           ibus                                              Ablative

Fourth Declension                               Fifth Declension

us/u               ūs/ua                               ēs                                      ēs

ūs                    uum                                 ēī                                      ērum

uī                    ibus                                   ēī                                      ēbus

um/u             ūs/ua                               em                                    ēs

u                      ibus                                  ē                                        ēbus

This is coming back to me. When you read a Latin historical document the declension endings help clarify what case the noun is and there is something whether the word ends in -ar, -er, and -ir. First declension is only used with words that end in -ar. There are irregular verbs and probably nouns too. Later this week I plan to update and revise this and add some verb endings for the future, imperfect, and present. I had to find something to post as I am trying to write every week. This may not be the best, but is interesting and I have some plans and ideas for posts that are hopefully better or at least more relevant.

This is completely unrelated and off topic, but interesting nevertheless. Sometimes I see mention of some of the old Greek and Roman gods and goddesses and have completely forgotten their names and a great deal about their story. This is from a beginning Latin I high school class.

12 Major Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses

• all live in Mount Olympus, close to the heavens, originally Greek
• below Greek names are listed with Roman names in parenthesis
• Romans stole the mythology from the Greeks

1. Zeus (Jupiter)

•  Zeus and Hera were/are husband and wife and brother and sister, the stories can be entertaining/interesting

2. Hera (Juno)

• queen of the goddesses, often got mad at Zeus for cheating and or flirting with other goddesses and mortals and half-mortals

3. Aphrodite (Venus)

• goddess of love, Venus is the only planet you can see with the naked eye, Mars and Venus are aligned and in mythology had an affair

4. Athena (Minerva)

• goddess of war, born from Zeus’ head and reportedly has no mother, more focused on the strategy of war

5. Ares (Mars)

• god of war, focused on the gore and blood of fighting in war, the planet Mars is red like blood

6. Apollo (Apollo)

• music, sun, prophecy, twin to Artemis

7. Hephastus (Vulcan)

• god of fire, in the mythology Vulcan lives in a volcano and made weapons

8. Hermes (Mercury)

• god of messengers, quick, swift, Mercury is the fastest planet

9. Demeter (Ceres)

• goddess of grain, harvest, rain, responsible for the seasons as explained by the story where she was kidnapped by Zeus and was eating pomegranate seeds and how she missed her mom that was also a goddess or something like that, would have to look this up, can’t remember the story =(

10. Poseidon (Neptune)

• God of the sea, Neptune is a blue planet

11. Hestia (Vesta)

• goddess of the hearth, fire, home, cooking

12. Artemis (Diana)

• goddess of the hunt, associated with the moon

There are more Greek and Roman gods and goddesses such as Eris, the goddess of discord, which I am pretty sure got Zeus in a troubling situation in which he had to answer which goddess was the most beautiful. It is the golden apple story in which the apple said to the fairest and Athena and Aphrodite were fighting over it. There is Romulus and Remus (twin brothers) and the legend in which Romulus founded Rome as a monarchy surviving with a wild wolf for a mother.

This information comes from a Latin I course I took in high school. I have in my high school notebook:

• 753 BC to 509 BC Rome was a monarchy beginning with King Romulus
• 509 BC to 27 AD was a republic and
• 27   BC or BCE (before common era – to be more politically correct) to 476 AD or ACE (after common era) Rome was an empire

There are lots of great stories, some myth, some legend, and some true such as the crossing of the Rubicon, which signified there was no turning back. So when someone uses that expression that is what it means. I cannot remember it well, but when you read the accounts they are almost always intriguing. There were quite a few Caesars and below is a famous quote by either the first Caesar or one of his successors:

•  “Veni, vidi, vici” – Julius Caesar (“I came, I saw, I conquered.”)

I put that under the quotes section of this site under the website heading. The history and story behind the quote will probably intrigue most. Honestly, I don’t remember it accurately or have forgotten like 90% of it. Something probably with militarily taking over an area and expanding the empire. Rome had pretty much all of the known ancient world.  A lot of this happened like 2,000 years ago, but I am pretty impressed with the ancients. When I see the pictures of things that have been uncovered or statues that remain, they are very beautiful and rival the best artists even today. However, it is probably better to live now the the advanced medicine and technology we have. There was a lot of luxury, art, and even advanced academics back then though.