Ludi Novi Romani/MMDCCLXV/Certamen Latinum

Preface of the Certamen Latinum

We are the landless nation of the New Romans, the Res Publica Nova Romana, celebrating the 14th Birthday of Nova Roma , the Concordialia on 1st March, and the ludi Novi Romani in the upcoming 14 days, honoring our 14 years. Our common national language is the Latin. Our patriotic, Roman duty is to learn this language, or at least, to get familiar with some expressions and important facts regarding our wonderful and eternal Latin language. It doesn’t matter if you fail learning our language, it doesn’t matter if you can’t. The only thing that matters it’s that you try, that you give some time and effort to honor your Roman identity. Because national identity, first and foremost, lives in the language. We, the Nova Romans, created Nova Roma to restore the Roman national and cultural identity, and its living community: the Roman Res Publica. It’s a huge and important personal step forward to get informed about Latin. Maybe you will never have time or energy to learn it, but it’s your duty to make some efforts, if not learning it, but at least informing you about it in a small extent. If you do only that, you did well already.

By participating in this Latin Contest, Certamen Latinum, you will be guided through the basics of the Latin language. You will get a clue how Latin works, how it looks like “from inside”. We will start from the very bottom and we will arrive to understand some basic Latin sentences. At, the end, every participant will feel that Latin is not so hard as you thought, and maybe you will want to continue learning on your own.

Attention: this Certamen Latinum is designed for beginners, those who are advanced speakers of Latin are gently asked not to participate since it would not be fair competition.

You can follow the Certamen Latin on our ludus webpage, too:

http://novaroma.org/nr/Ludi_Novi_Romani/MMDCCLXV/Certamen_Latinum

Rules of the Certamen Latinum

One question a day will be posted, participants must send their answers to the e-mail address <cnaeus_cornelius AT yahoo DOT com> within 48 hours of posting. Please do *not* post answers to the list!

The correct answers of the previous days and interim results will be announced together with the posting of the next questions.

Questions and Answers for the Certamen Latinum

March 3rd - Day 3 of the Ludi Novi Romani – Question 1 of the Certamen Latinum

I. INTRODUCTION 1 - Dictionary Forms of Nouns

Latin is a heavily inflected language, which means that Latin indicates grammatical information by changing the ending of the words. Nouns are grouped into 5 declensions (noun inflection groups), verbs can be classified into 4 conjugations (verb inflection groups). If we change a noun’s ending to express its grammatical role, we say we “decline” it. If we change a verb’s ending to express the person or the time (tense), we say we “conjugate” it. To determine which declension or conjugation group a verb belongs to, you have to look into a Latin dictionary.

Today we will examine the dictionary forms of nouns only.

In the case of nouns, for example, “friend”, you will find:

amicus, -i, m.

This is 3 pieces of information:

(1) amicus;

(2) -i;

(3) m.

(1) This means that the word “friend” in nominative (subject) case is “amicus”. Learn more about what nominative case means here, on our website:

http://novaroma.org/nr/Nominative

(2) The abbreviated form “-i” means that the word “friend” in genitive (possessive) case is “amici” (something of friend, or friend’s something), thus the original ending “-us” changes to “-i”. Learn more about what nominative case means here, on our website:

http://novaroma.org/nr/Genitive

Well, this is the most important point. This ending “–i” determines that “amicus” belongs to the “second declension”, whose identifier is the genitive “–i”. As we have mentioned, there are 5 declensions, and each one of these has a unique, declension-specific genitive ending. It’s important because the genitive ending determines the other inflections as well. The five types of genitive ending and the five declensions determined by the different genitive endings are:

-ae = 1st declension, e.g.: Roma, -ae, f (Rome)

-i = 2nd declension, eg.: amicus, -i, m (friend)

-is = 3rd declension, e.g.: rex, regis, m (king)

-ús = 4th declension, eg.: senatus, -ús, m (senate)

-ei = 5th declension, eg. fides, -ei, f (loyalty)

(3) The “m.” means that it is a masculine noun. In Latin, all nouns have three genders, they are masculine, (abbreviated as “m”), feminine (abbreviated as “f”), and neuter (abbreviated as “n”). English has a similar phenomenon when we use “he”, “she” or “it”. The new thing in this is that Latin uses these genders for things or abstract concepts, too, like in the exemples above, “loyalty” (fides, -ei, f) is feminine in Latin, the “senate” (senatus, -ús, m) is masculine, “Rome” (Roma, -ae, f) is, again, feminine.

Learn more about understanding dictionary forms of Latin nouns here, on our website:

http://novaroma.org/nr/Declension

II. QUESTION 1

Find a Latin dictionary. Attention! If you use an online dictionary, be aware that most of the online dictionaries are incomplete and do not give the full, correct dictionary forms of the Latin words. If you can use only online resources, please use the following Google Books digitalized Latin dictionary:

http://books.google.com/books?id=k1ZFAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

Look into the dictionary and determine which declensions the following 10 nouns belong to (10 x 1 pts).

Solve the abbreviations and spell out, write out the full forms of their possessive form (genitive) (10 x 0.5 pts) and their gender (10 x 0.1 pts).

imperium

dictator

victoria

auctoritas

spes

virtus

cognomen

senatus

centurio

domus

III. AN EXAMPLE HOW TO DO IT:

praetor;

- after looking into a dictionary, you will find its dictionary form is “praetor, -oris, m”, so you will give the following data:

praetor, 3rd declension (1pt); praetoris (0.5pt), masculine (0.1pt)

• Comments: It’s 3rd declension, because in the abbreviated genitive form given as “–oris” for "praetoris", the genitive ending “-is” determines that it must belong to the 3rd declension.

Answers 1

March 4th - Day 4 of the Ludi Novi Romani – Question 2 of the Certamen Latinum

I. INTRODUCTION 2 - Dictionary Forms of Verbs

Previously we discussed the dictionary form of the Latin nouns. We have learned that the dictionary forms of the nouns include the genitive (possessive) form of the noun, and its ending determines the entire inflection of the noun, the declension of the noun.

Today we study the dictionary forms of the verbs. How can we decide what conjugation (verb inflection group) a verb belongs to?

In the case of the verb “have”, you will find:

habeo –ére, -bui, -bitum

This is 4 pieces of information:

(1) habeo; it is the first person singular of the verb “have”. It means “I have”.

(2) –ere; it’s an abbreviation of “habere”, the infinite of the verb. It means “to have”.

(3) –bui; it’s an abbreviation of “habui”, the perfect tense of the verb. It means “I have had” or “I had”.

(4) –bitum; abbreviation of “habitum”, it’s the supine (or the past participle).

This verb’s infinitive, “habére” (to have), indicated in the dictionary form as “–ére” shows that this verb belongs to the 2nd conjugations, as all verbs that have the infinitive ending “-ére” belong to the 2nd conjugation. The second dictionary element, the infinitive, determines which conjugation the verb belongs to. The four types of infinitive endings and the four conjugations determined by the different genitive endings are:

-are = 1st conjugation; e.g.: amo, -are, -avi, -atum (I love)

-ére = 2nd conjugation; e.g.: habeo, -ere, -bui, -bitum (I have)

-ere = 3rd conjugation; e.g.: dico, -ere, dixi, dictum (I say)

-ire = 4th conjugation; e.g.: audio, -ire, -ivi, -itum (I hear)

Note that “–ere”, which is short vowel, is different from “–ére”, which is long vowel.

You will find more information about the dictionary forms of verbs here, on our website: http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Conjugation

II. QUESTION 2

Use the Latin dictionary that we used last time, or, if you have to use an online Latin dictionary, use this one:

http://books.google.com/books?id=k1ZFAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

Look into the dictionary and determine which conjugations the following 10 verbs belong to (10 x 1 pts).

Solve the abbreviations and spell out, write out the full forms of their infinitive form (10 x 0.5 pts) and their perfect tense form (10 x 0.5 pts), and their supine/past participle (10 x 0.5 pts).

deleo

creo

sentio

video

mitto

scio

rogo

cupio

III. AN EXAMPLE HOW TO DO IT:

ago;

- after looking into a dictionary, you will find its dictionary form is “ago, -ere, egi, actum”, so you will give the following data:

ago, 3rd conjugation (1pt); agere (0.5pt), egi (0.5pt), actum (0.5pt)

• Comments: it’s 3rd conjugation because the infinitive (second dictionary form) “–ere” ending shows it. If it were “–ére” with long vowel “é”, it would have been 2nd conjugation.