ChristyB in TN Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 My older kids learned Latin in the 3rd grade through the 8th grade, but I wasn't the one teaching them most of that. I outsourced. :D Well, those outsourcing days are over and I've brought my youngest home (office, actually) to home school and he is starting Latin for the first time. We are going through Henle Latin together and it is just so much fun. Today we learned that Deus (God, duh) is only declined in the singular form, not the plural. Is this because there is one god? What about Christ? Can you continue declining in the plural with Christ? Thanks for your help! Christy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 My older kids learned Latin in the 3rd grade through the 8th grade, but I wasn't the one teaching them most of that. I outsourced. :D Well, those outsourcing days are over and I've brought my youngest home (office, actually) to home school and he is starting Latin for the first time. We are going through Henle Latin together and it is just so much fun. Today we learned that Deus (God, duh) is only declined in the singular form, not the plural. Is this because there is one god? What about Christ? Can you continue declining in the plural with Christ? Thanks for your help! Christy This is a theological question, not a grammatical one. The Romans certainly talked about their gods in the plural as a group, and in the singular when need be. Generally Christians talk about the trinity in the singular. An interesting note (to me at least), is that while Christians use the vocative case for addressing God frequently, the Romans never did, it just wasn't the way they interacted with their gods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristyB in TN Posted June 20, 2012 Author Share Posted June 20, 2012 This is a theological question, not a grammatical one. The Romans certainly talked about their gods in the plural as a group, and in the singular when need be. Generally Christians talk about the trinity in the singular. An interesting note (to me at least), is that while Christians use the vocative case for addressing God frequently, the Romans never did, it just wasn't the way they interacted with their gods. That is the explanation I needed. Thank you so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momacacia Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Ooh, this is a cool discussion. What is the vocative voice? What's its function? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyforlatin Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Ooh, this is a cool discussion. What is the vocative voice? What's its function? When you are addressing the person directly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Ooh, this is a cool discussion. What is the vocative voice? What's its function? Vocative is a case, not a voice. In Latin, we tack different endings on to nouns to indicate their grammatical role. This may seem a little odd, because English doesn't really do this too much, except in limited way. Take the noun "Brutus". Let's say Brutus possesses something, perhaps a dog. In English, we indicate this by sticking an apostrophe at the end of the word "Brutus". i.e. "Brutus' dog". Latin, having a lack of all kinds of punctuation, instead of using an apostrophe, changes the ending of the word "Brutus" to mean exactly the same thing. So, in Latin, we say "Bruti canis", and say that Bruti is in the genitive case. Latin has five major cases and two minor ones. The vocative is one of the minor ones which is used for directly addressing people. So, when Caesar is dying, he speaks to Brutus (or Shakespeare would have us believe), he says "et tu, Brute", as he is addressing Brutus directly, and using the vocative case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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