I think, however, that the subject that elicited the most interest this week was Latin. I had mentioned in an earlier blog that we are supplementing our first year Latin with a primer published in 1933 called Cornelia. Like most first year language readers, Cornelia tends to be a bit insipid. As in the study of most new languages, students are introduced to new vocabulary, gender-ed words, and irregular verb tenses. In the case of Latin, nouns also require different suffixes depending on their role in the sentence. A complete Latin noun declension consists of seven grammatical cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative and locative.
The nominative case marks the subject of a statement and performs the action of the verb. The vocative case is used to address someone or something in direct speech. The accusative case marks the direct object of a verb. The genitive case expresses possession, measurement, or source. The dative case marks the recipient of an action, the indirect object of a verb. The ablative case expresses separation, indirection, or the means by which an action is performed. Lastly, the locative case expresses the place where an action is performed. Dull, right? Well, multiply that by five (as there are five different forms of declension) and add your irregulars, your pronouns, and your peculiarities (yes, these are the technical terms), and you'll understand why Latin is a dead language. Why study it? I go into detail on that argument in the sidebar to the right, but the short version is that Latin is a great brain workout. It helps to strengthen grammatical understanding, it requires strict logic for successful translation, and it is the source language for all of the Romance languages.
In any case, Latin can be excruciatingly dull to learn, and most Latin primers worth their salt are fairly tedious. The primer Cornelia, in its original, is about a young girl who lives with her mother and siblings on a farm during the very beginning of what we now call the Dust Bowl. I can only surmise that the lack of explanation regarding the absent father, female cousin who lives with the family, and the jingoistic (one of this week's vocabulary words) tone of the narrative is due to the era in which this primer was written. Also, there are no pictures. That being said, the students at Pownal Independent and I are rewriting our Cornelia primer. I can't give too many details for fear of spoiling the ending, however I will state that Cornelia's squatting cousin is not to be trusted. And that absent father? Well, he might turn up, literally, in the back field like some nightmare Mildenhall treasure. Here's a teaser:
Puella pulchra est Cornelia. Estne haec alta puella soror Corneliae?
Haec puella est discipula. Haec puella non est soror Corneliae sed hic puer est frater Corneliae...Fama Americae est magna. Vitae Americae sunt longae. America est patria Corneliae. Corneliae vita erit longa. Cornelia Americam amat. Mater Corneliae Americam amat. Frater quoque Corneliae Americam amat. Haec femina est Corneliaem matruelem. Sed haec femina Americam non amat.
Haec femina nihil amat. Eritne haec feminae vita longa? Non ita.
[Translation: The small girl is Cornelia. Is this tall girl Cornelia's sister? This girl is a student. This girl is not Cornelia's sister, but this boy is Cornelia's brother...The wealth in America is great. American lives are long. America is Cornelia's country. Cornelia will have a long life. Cornelia loves America. Cornelia's mother loves America. Cornelia's brother also loves America. This woman is Cornelia's cousin. But this woman does not love America. This woman loves nothing. Will this woman have a long life? It is not so.] Riveting, right? Well the kids thought so. And they can't wait to see what happens next which I guess is the best I could hope for when studying Latin.
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