Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Greetings, in Latin

One way to greet people in latin is with the phrase, Salve! Quid agis hodie?  Bear in mind, this is the singular.  It's appropriate in addressing only one person.  Translated, salve means hail.  Quid agis hodie in english means "how are you today?"  One can respond bene, for well.  Satis bene means "well enough."  Male means that you are not feeling well.  When greeting a group of people, it changes to Salvete!  Quid agitis hodie?


A few notes on pronunciation.  In latin, v w and u are the same letter.  They are often pronounced with a w sound.  Salve is pronounced sal-way.  The word seruus can also be written as servus, the first u has a w sound, the second is the same as a normal u in english.  Seruus is pronounced ser-wuss.  The accusative form is seruum, pronounced ser-wum.  Also, there is no soft c in latin.  The letter c has a hard sound, like our letter k.  Regarding the letter k, there are very few latin words that actually have this letter.  K comes from the greek letter kappa, and the only times we'll see it in a latin is word is when that word has been borrowed from greek.  Previously, I posted the word cibus.  In latin, the c has a hard sound.  So it's pronounced kibus, instead of sibus.  As an aside, cida in latin means 'cut'.  Sui cido means, literally, "I am cutting myself."  This is the root of the english word suicide.

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