Words: Latin for today…

The Romans are coming... the Ermine Street Guard are a society dedicated to the accurate reconstruction of Roman armour and drill

Discipuli Picturam Spectate – pupils look at the picture…

Every chapter in that old schoolbook Latin For Today started with those words. I almost feel a thrill when I remember Mr Trafford reading out the very first Latin lesson we had at Larkfield Grammar School in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, back in the late 1960s.

I’m sure I could feel myself being lifted by the ruling class’s Latin out of my very common working-class roots.

And now in 2010 there is controversy as Mayor of London Boris Johnson is lobbying Conservative colleagues to take “class out of the classics” and put Latin on the state-school curriculum.

One of the lovely illustrations by Cathy Morley from the book Gardener's Latin by Richard Bird

I think that maybe learning Latin was the foundation of my later, reasonably successful education and my journalism career. It was useful in my science studies and even today in understanding the Latin names of plants in the garden.

It has also given me a love for the etymology of words generally.

Latin helps so much with spelling, as many words in “English” come from Latin. Knowing Latin I never have any doubt about the spelling of separate and desperate, as in there somewhere I can see the Latin words pars, meaning part or sperare meaning to hope.

Similarly it helps you work out meanings of words you have never come across before, once you know the various building blocks of Latin, root words, prefixes and suffixes. Take vocal, from vox, vocis, Latin for VOICE. Related words include invoke (to call ON), evoke (to call FROM), convoke (to call TOGETHER), advocate (someone you call TO yourself to be your voice) and even equivocal, in which you can hear two EQUAL VOICES arguing in your ears, as equivocal means ambiguous, capable of two meanings.

Latin also taught that other languages work differently from English and bizarrely assign gender to inanimate objects. And then there are those Latin declensions and conjugations of nouns and verbs. English speakers might say for goodness’s sake, WHY? Maybe it just teaches discipline…

I’m sure some people will point to the already overcrowded curriculum and object, but even in my day sacrifices had to be made. Only the top stream of the grammar school was taught Latin (by the excellent Mr Trafford) – in fact the three streams were called Latin, North and South. In North and South the pupils were taught German instead of Latin, which may seem a bit bizarre today.

The English Language by Professor Meiklejohn

A few of us who were learning Latin decided to take German as an extra subject, being taught in our lunch-hours by the lovely blond German student Dieter (who drove a silver VW Beetle) and occasionally the head of German, Herr Putz, who I think was Austrian. He seemed a very severe man but when he smiled at me in my O-level oral exam I realised he was actually a very nice and gentle person.

But back to the Latin and how important it is in English. Here I return to that favourite book of mine, The English Language – Grammar, History, Literature by Professor Meiklejohn, printed in 1905.

In those days at least, he could say that Latin made the biggest contribution to the vocabulary of English. This may be true, but the sometimes small, older English words, although fewer, were used more often. English grammar is also very different from the strict forms of Latin.

Latin has contributed to our language on several occasions…

First contribution of Latin, AD 43 to AD 410

The Roman forum and basilica at Caerwent, South Wales, pictured by John Banbury

This contribution was made to the Britons, rather than the English, who hadn’t reached Britain yet. It can be noted that the Welsh language, a pre-Anglo-Saxon British language still flourishing today, is full of originally Latin words, such as ffenestr, window, from Latin fenestra.

The Romans held the British Isles from AD 43 to AD 410 and left behind them a few important words, still found with variations, in the names of places:

Castra: a camp (as in Lancaster, Leicester, Manchester)
Strata: a paved road or street (as in Stratford, Stretton)
Colonia: a settlement, generally of soldiers (as in Lincoln)
Fossa: a trench (as in Fossway, Fosbridge)
Portus: a harbour (as in Portsmouth, Bridport)
Vallum: a rampart (as in the words wall, bailey and bailiff)

Second contribution of Latin, AD 597

St Augustine of Canterbury - an icon painted by Aidan Hart - click on the image to go to his website

This was an ecclesiastical contribution by Augustine and his 40 missionary monks from Rome in AD 597. They were sent over to Kent by Pope Gregory, who had once seen some angelic blond Angle boys at a slave market and decided to save their people from the darkness of heathendom.

During this period we gained many Latin words that accompanied Christianity: Apostle, bishop, clerk, monk, priest, alms (although originally Greek words, they came to us through Latin)

The arrival of Christianity also brought greater trade contacts with the Continent of Europe and we needed words for new things and products: Butter, cheese, cedar, fig, pear, peach, lettuce, lily, pepper, peas, camel, lion, elephant, oyster, trout, pound, ounce, candle, table, marble, mint

Third contribution of Latin, 1066

The Normans are coming... the Bayeux Tapestry

This contribution came through the medium of Norman French, a dialect of spoken Latin, after the conquest in 1066. Norman French became the language of the upper and ruling classes, although the English people picked up some of the words at market and wherever they met their conquerors, for example in law courts.

These are some of the words we gained from Norman French at this time:
Words connected with war, such as armour (the English word for armour was harness, but the Normans downgraded this to armour for a horse), battle, captain, chivalry, joust, lance, standard, trumpet, mail, visor

Words connected with feudalism, such as homage, fealty, esquire, vassal

Words connected with hunting such as brace, couple, chase, course, covert, copse, forest, leveret, mews, quarry, venison

Words to do with the law such as assize, attorney, chancellor, court, judge, justice, plaintiff, sue, summons, trespass

Words to do with the church such as altar, Bible, baptism, ceremony, friar, tonsure, penance, relic

Words to do with rank such as duke, marquis, count, viscount, peer, mayor

Fourth contribution of Latin, the Revival of Learning

English diplomat and scholar Sir Thomas Elyot (1490-1546) was a great fan of inkhorn words - this drawing is by Holbein

In the 16th and 17th centuries the Renaissance saw an enormous influx of Latin words into the written language of scholars. Many of these erudite words were never spoken, only written for effect and read, and many didn’t catch on and disappeared again. These were sometimes contemptuously called “inkhorn words”, to be written and not spoken.

Just some of the hundreds of words that came into the language at the time are: Opinion, faction, oration, pungent, pauper, separate

Some of the words that didn’t make it are discerptibility, supervacaneousness, septentrionality, lubibundness, intenerate and deturpate.

Well, that’s quite enough for now. But I still love Latin so much that I will no doubt pass this way again.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a Roman village, Caerwent, or Venta Silurum, the market town of the Silure tribe – but that’s another blog post…

Advertisement