The farmer praises the trumpet.
"The farmer praises the trumpet.""Agricola tubam laudat."
When I had first year Latin in high school, that was one of the sentences for translation in text exercises. It struck me as the silliest sentence imaginable. I could see myself transported back to the ancient Trajan marketplace in Rome as a farmer. I might be selling some of my frumentum while reciting Virgil's Georgics to kill time. In the stall next to me might have been a trumpet vendor who did business with the Prætorian Guard. I might have said to him, "Ave, Marce, tubas tuas amo! "Hail, Marcus! Wow, I love your trumpets!"
I used that same text, containing the same inane phrase, when I taught Latin to ninth graders. I had Latin thoughout my high school and college seminary years, where we read everything from Cæsar, Cicero, and Virgil to St. Augustine. We even had a class in rational psychology where the text was in Latin, the exams were in Latin, and the prof-priest conducted the class in Latin!
I am not a true Latin scholar. My niece Nina, on the other hand, has a Ph.D. in classical languages and has written for scholarly journals. I've always loved Latin, for its chess-like interconnections, for its linguistic importance as a foundation of vocabulary in the Romance languages and in English. It is one of the most useful subjects anyone interested in language (or science, medicine, and law) can study. But I don't think that in the history of Rome any vir or femina ever uttered those three "immortal" words: Agricola tubam laudat.
Declension of tuba (a first declension noun like agricola):
------------Singular:----Plural:
Nominative::tuba--------tubae
Genitive:::::tubae-------tubarum
Dative:::::::tubae-------tubis
Accusative::tubam------tubas
Ablative:::::tubā--------tubis
Present tense of laudo, laudare, laudavi, laudatus:
Singular:---Plural:
laudo -----laudamus
laudas-----laudatis
laudat-----laudant
When I had first year Latin in high school, that was one of the sentences for translation in text exercises. It struck me as the silliest sentence imaginable. I could see myself transported back to the ancient Trajan marketplace in Rome as a farmer. I might be selling some of my frumentum while reciting Virgil's Georgics to kill time. In the stall next to me might have been a trumpet vendor who did business with the Prætorian Guard. I might have said to him, "Ave, Marce, tubas tuas amo! "Hail, Marcus! Wow, I love your trumpets!"
I used that same text, containing the same inane phrase, when I taught Latin to ninth graders. I had Latin thoughout my high school and college seminary years, where we read everything from Cæsar, Cicero, and Virgil to St. Augustine. We even had a class in rational psychology where the text was in Latin, the exams were in Latin, and the prof-priest conducted the class in Latin!
I am not a true Latin scholar. My niece Nina, on the other hand, has a Ph.D. in classical languages and has written for scholarly journals. I've always loved Latin, for its chess-like interconnections, for its linguistic importance as a foundation of vocabulary in the Romance languages and in English. It is one of the most useful subjects anyone interested in language (or science, medicine, and law) can study. But I don't think that in the history of Rome any vir or femina ever uttered those three "immortal" words: Agricola tubam laudat.
Declension of tuba (a first declension noun like agricola):
------------Singular:----Plural:
Nominative::tuba--------tubae
Genitive:::::tubae-------tubarum
Dative:::::::tubae-------tubis
Accusative::tubam------tubas
Ablative:::::tubā--------tubis
Present tense of laudo, laudare, laudavi, laudatus:
Singular:---Plural:
laudo -----laudamus
laudas-----laudatis
laudat-----laudant