undeseptuagesimus

Theme for this week: Interjections. Yay!

This week's words are interjections--the words like "oh" ("o" in Latin), "haha" ("ha," "hahae," or "hahae" in Latin! see http://cawallin.googlepages.com/tricesimussecundus for this word in use), etc. It's just fun to be able to say these exclamations as the Romans did, and they also are really useful for finishing up games of Latin scrabble, as they are rather short words (and I seriously recommend Latin scrabble! link == http://thepixiepit.co.uk/scrabble/latin.htm . You could be the first person to start a four person game, provided you got 3 other people to do it with you!).

en

Definition: behold! see! lo! here! hey! look at this! (excited question) really, indeed; (command) come over!

Sententia(e): [a juxtaposition of the past and the future! This is an excerpt from a hypothetical conversation between two Martians landing on Earth--consider the surface of Mars shown to us by the Mars lander]

Primus: En! Terra est mollis! Et est viridis--haud credere id possum!

Secundus: Et ecce, caelum est caerulus! Et videre illam animaliam possumus, quae procul herbas est! In Marte, tam nonnumquam caelum pulvere impletur ut non conspicere etiam proximum collem possis!

Primus: Heus, quid est illum, in tua bracchia?

* culex mordet Secundum *

Secundus: Au! Linquamus hanc terram, in qua fauna est inimica! Pulchritudo nos fefellit!

* Discedunt omnes in sideribus *

First one: Behold! The ground is soft! And it is green--I am hardly able to believe it!

Second one: And look, the sky is blue! And we are able to see that animal, which far off is eating grasses (and yes, that IS "is eating"! From edo, esse. Cave!)! On Mars, the sky is sometimes so filled with dust that you are not able to catch sight of even the next hill!

First one: Hey, what is that, on your arm?

* a mosquito bites Second one *

Second one: Ow! Let us leave this land, in which the fauna is hostile! The beauty deceived us!

* All go away into the constellations (or stars if you prefer) *

Think back to the very first word you ever learned in Latin.... If you used Ecce Romani, chances are that you remember that opening phrase, "Ecce! In pictura est puella, nomine Cornelia...." As it happens, the writers of that book could have also used today's word, "en," in place of "ecce!" They mean almost exactly the same thing. So perhaps, if the authors had wanted to use a one syllable word like "en," a whole generation of students would know that word, and it would be ecce which was the word for today! Though that probably wouldn't happen, for ecce is FAR more common, and it just sounds better (indeed, it sounds nice enough to be a cheer [if you didn't know, it is one =D]!). Oh-and if you were wondering, this word is used sometimes by Vergil. It is also used by Ovid and Catullus, though not in any of the poems which we read for AP.