Latin knowledge?

[Craft]

Latin has 5 cases... what a pitiful "lot" - Finnish has 15.

I don't think that's the problem. I'm actually trying to learn some Finnish, I think the number of 15 cases is just a way to scare people who are familiar to IE languages. In Latin, German, Russian and other languages you have lots of prepositions and for every preposition you have to know which one of 3,4,5 cases you have to use after the preposition. In Finnish I think most prepositions use genitive, correct me if I'm wrong.
Most of the 15 cases serve exactly one distinct purpose, most of them are the equivalent of prepositions like in, at, from, into. They are quite logical and you don't have to choose between which case to use after the preposition like in other languages.

Yes, I had a twinkle of humour in my eye when I wrote my message . Finnish really is more logical in the meaning of the cases than some other languages - in fact, the cases actually replace almost all the prepositions found in other languages. We don't really have such prepositions (there are some words that are used somewhat like prepositions, but they are not even called such in the Finnish grammar). There are some postpositions though, and genitive is often used with them, but not always.

Lately there's been some discussion about a need to renew the Finnish grammar. The terms and structures for the classical Finnish grammar have been derived from the Latin grammar, but modern research has made this questionable, because the Latin-based grammar cannot describe accurately many idiomatic Finnish structures, because Finnish is far from a Latin-based language.

I guess that might be true for many other languages whose grammar is derived from the Latin one even if the language is not at all Latin-based.

The only bigger problem could be when to use accusative, genitive and partitive.

Well, accusative is a somewhat artificial case, because the Finnish accusative is always similar to nominative or genitive (exception: personal pronous and the question word 'ken' have individual accusative forms). The term accusative is only used for describing the function of a word in a sentence.

What might really give you some headache is the inflection of words before the case endings (letters change, are added or omitted etc.), clustered suffixes (e.g. tarpeettomastiko 'tarp-ee-tto-ma-sti-ko', and you cannot change the order of those suffixes), the difference between short and long letters (e.g. kylä - kyylä - kyllä - kyyllä; they all mean totally different things) etc.

[Gauss]

I had 9 years of Latin at school (as much as English and French together). I don't regret it, and I remember quite a bit of it.

Latin has 5 cases...

Five and a half. Don't forget the vocative.

[Aaron]

In Finnish I think most prepositions use genitive, correct me if I'm wrong.

According to my non-Finnish friends it's true - they say it's easier to study the nominative, genitive and partitive cases and then inflect the rest of the cases by remembering the rules of vowel harmony and consonant change.

It's remarkably easier than studying every case of every word.

The only bigger problem could be when to use accusative, genitive and partitive.

Basically, it goes like this: countable objects are accusative case, uncountable ones are partitive.

When you say "ostin auton" (= I bought a car) it is in accusative because car is countable. But when you say "ostin maitoa" (= I bought milk) it is partitive because milk is uncountable. But what is confusing, people can also say "ostin maidon" when it is in accusative but it means "I bought (a pack of) milk".

One friend of mine said once that if you are not sure if a word is accusative, nominative or partitive you should put it into partitive because then you are probably right.

Maybe Craft can explain this better.

Back to the topic... I haven't really studied Latin but I tend to pick up words from everywhere and therefore many Latin words have stuck into my mind.

[Craft]

Basically, it goes like this: countable objects are accusative case, uncountable ones are partitive.

When you say "ostin auton" (= I bought a car) it is in accusative because car is countable. But when you say "ostin maitoa" (= I bought milk) it is partitive because milk is uncountable. But what is confusing, people can also say "ostin maidon" when it is in accusative but it means "I bought (a pack of) milk".

About this milk example: The "ostin maidon" form is actually used when speaking about an amount that was previously discussed. You can ask another person "Ostitko maidon?" when (s)he comes back from a shop and was supposed to buy milk as discussed before going to the shop. It's not necessarily just one pack of milk but a certain amount of milk, thus one countable "set" of it, an amount that both speakers know already.

There's a construction in English also to reflect the difference:
- Ostitko maitoa? = Did you buy (any) milk?
- Ostitko maidon? = Did you buy the milk?

One friend of mine said once that if you are not sure if a word is accusative, nominative or partitive you should put it into partitive because then you are probably right.

Maybe Craft can explain this better.

Hmm, I might, quoting some grammar books, but it's a long story, and I won't start it now. Let's just say that in most cases you won't be (fatally) misunderstood even if you don't choose the correct form of these three.

But about the topic: I regret that I didn't take Latin at school when I had the possibility to choose.

[peter_at]

I have always liked Latin because most of the information is stored in the endings, so no need for all these tiny words like articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs that just blow up the sentences.
So it seems that I must learn Finnish.

[Craft]

I have always liked Latin because most of the information is stored in the endings, so no need for all these tiny words like articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs that just blow up the sentences.
So it seems that I must learn Finnish.

Actually you might like it. When I studied the basics of Latin, I noticed that the structures and inflection seemed more close to Finnish than in most of the other languages I have learned.

[groentje]

I studied Latin for 6 years in SE (untill I was 18 ), after that I started for two (one and a half) year Classical languages. I didn't succeed, however, so I changed to teacher's formation, with Latin as one of my courses.
So in three years, I hope to be a teacher of Latin, history and Dutch.

I also studied ancient Greek. I must say, I prefered Greek to Latin, since Greek has some more logical grammatical forms. E.g. an irrealis, something that is sure not to be, shouldn't be in a tense that expresses uncertainty (conjunctive). Plus, I'm a fan of the Greek tragedy writers, a genre that never was so popular in Latin. So, I have a love-hatred relation with Latin.

I was very happy with Latin. Not every course is valuable for its 'usefulness'. Latin isn't perhaps very 'useful', except for an ability to learn languages, but it can be very valuable, given by a good teacher .

[Viperazzi]

Actually you might like it. When I studied the basics of Latin, I noticed that the structures and inflection seemed more close to Finnish than in most of the other languages I have learned.

Yup! I've studied English, Swedish, German, French and Latin and out of all those I've felt that Latin has the most familiarity with Finnish, at least in grammar.

It's really easy to learn a new language after studying even the basics of Latin. Many words have the same Latin origin.

[noogie]

I studied both Latin and Greek. To my experience it is an enormous back up for studying any foreign language. You are really getting inside the grammar of both languages, making it easier to study your own language better. I found out more about my own language (=Dutch) when studying Greek and Latin.

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi!!!

[Lucaz]

I studied both Latin and Greek. To my experience it is an enormous back up for studying any foreign language. You are really getting inside the grammar of both languages, making it easier to study your own language better. I found out more about my own language (=Dutch) when studying Greek and Latin.

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi!!!

My story is like yours. I'm studying Latin and Greek for 2,5 years now,
and I don't hate it . It's just nice to know.

[Djeeuw2]

That guy above was me. I haven't been on these forums for weeks/months. That's why my log in wasn't attached to cookies anymore, I guess.

Anyway, what I actually meant was that people shouldn't think that school is the only place to learn new things. Just look around while being interested and you find what you're looking for.

[Djeeuw2]

I had 9 years of Latin at school (as much as English and French together). I don't regret it, and I remember quite a bit of it.

Latin has 5 cases...

Five and a half. Don't forget the vocative.

Don't forget the instrumental and locative cases. Now my Latin knowledge goes three years back and for as far that I know was the use of "domi" meaning "at home" the locative form of "domus" meaning "house". It are grammatical fossils of Old Latin. Cases that only existed in some expressions in the written language.

As far as mankind's knowledge of Latin reaches, Latin has known eight cases once.

As for the use of classical languages. I guess it's the insight it offers to people. It is in no way important. It's comparable as the way Mathemathics are to sciences. The extra pillar that helps at studying them, though to be taken seriously and hard to learn.

[avij]

meaning "at home" the locative form of "domus" meaning "house".

Oh yes, the locative.. Sorry for an offtopic message.

[lmviterbo]

Oh yes, the locative.. Sorry for an offtopic message.

Oh good old Monty Python!

[groentje]

meaning "at home" the locative form of "domus" meaning "house".

Oh yes, the locative.. Sorry for an offtopic message.

What? Off topic? Of course it's not!

By the way, we'll see how well I know my Latin in a couple of days, January 20th I have my exam Latin linguistics.

And now, I go to bed, I want to be awake when I have my exam history of the Middle Ages in 5 hours