Learning a Little Latin

From Learn Latin Fb page:

Nōlī esse incrēdulus, sed fidēlis — “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

 

From Learn Latin page:

Can you read what the book held by the Lion of Saint Mark in Venice says?

Pax tibi Marce, evangelista meus —
“Peace be with you, Mark, my evangelist.”

 

Quis dixit Angelum Custodem
Alas habere debere?

"Who said a Guardian Angel
Needs to have wings?"

 

Hoc Est Crudelitas.
"This Is Cruelty."

Minime, Tantum Ludus Est.
"Not At All, It's Only A Game."

 

Salve Dies Iouis. Diem Felicem Habeas.

"Hello Thursday. Have a Happy Day."

 

Victrīx fortūnæ sapientia —
“Wisdom is the conqueror of fortune.”

 

From the Learn Latin Fb page:

"This week, the new beginner Latin course kicked off.

A resounding success.

But here’s the wild part:

A young student showed up—not because school or parents told him to.

He came because he wants to understand the Traditional Latin Mass.

Yes—the rumors are true.

We’re back."

 

A Deō lūx nostra —
“Our light comes from God.”

 

Quot homines, tot sententiæ —
“As many people, so many opinions.”

 

In Croatia, Latin is a compulsory subject for two years in secondary school and you cannot enroll in a medical program without it. I don't know how your system works, but in Croatia students are already divided into different types of secondary schools after elementary school. There are Gymnasium (gimnazije), which are attended by the highest-achieving students with excellent grades, and various vocational schools such as medical, economics, commerce, and trade schools....

Latin is taught in both Gymnasium schools and medical schools. I studied it for two years in Gymnasium and had what was probably the best Latin teacher in the country a true genius in every sense of the word. He was incredibly intelligent, perhaps one of the leading Latin experts in Southeastern Europe. He's now retired and writing a 900-page book.

In practice, however, our Latin classes focused almost entirely on grammar: declensions, cases, converting verbs from the perfect tense to the future tense, and similar exercises. Most of us could hardly wait for the subject to end. Vocabulary and actual translation were barely taught at all.

 

Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis — “Whatever advice you give, be brief.”

 

Thanks Orangina, we had Latin for the first three years of Secondary School, which is over fifty years ago now, so I don't recall a lot of what we learned then. The thread here was a result of trying to understand a little more of the language and discovering some good pages online dedicated to using interesting ways to teach the basics.

 

Sodales! Nolite ridiculi esse! Nimis ingentes sumus ut pereamus!

"Members! Don't be ridiculous! We're too huge to perish!"

 

Except that's not the way I remember it, the sentence construction I mean. What I learned was:
"Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est." Why does the other version grate on my sensibilities? Because I learned that the verb always comes last in Latin. And the verb here is "is" - est. Also, because "all" is qualifying or conjugating Gaul or Gallia, I expect it to have a similar conjugation, i.e., Omnia Gallia. Not sure where the version in the image comes from but it certainly abounds on the internet. Have the grammatical rules of Latin been relaxed by modern scholars?

 

I remember it as you've written it too.
I wondered about the construction in the image but reckoned it was correct also. I think there is some flexibility but i'm not sure what the determining factor is in conveying the intended meaning of a sentence.

 

Thanks Dave. I think conveying the meaning is a translation issue. But I presume that there is an original manuscript written by Caesar and that is the correct one. I can't imagine Caesar not sticking to the rules of grammar. I think it was Groucho Marx who said that the German language sentence construction (which is similar to Latin in this respect) was like diving into the sea swimming under water for a long distance before coming to the surface with a fish in your mouth! I always liked that about Latin - it seemed to bring the sentence to a resounding crescendo.

 

I've always seen it as "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres", which is the first part of the sentence. The whole sentence is "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur." There's nothing grammatically off about this, I think what you guys are remembering might be an altered form used in pedagogy, but it's not really correct because if omnia is plural the verb should be too (and would change the meaning from Gaul is a whole to all the Gauls (as in referring to the tribes)).

Edit - actually would have to be "omnia galliae in tres partes divisae sunt" if I were to make any sense out of "Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est", which is sort of nonsense. Maybe "omnis Gallia in tres partes divisa est" is what you're all remembering, but that's still altered.

 

Link to the entire thing:

https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/caesar/gall1.shtml

 

Not necessarily. "All Gaul" could be being used in the sense of "entire Gaul", so that the genitive would not be required. However, I agree, omnis seem more correct for the nominative. Again however, "Omnia Gallia" is also found. See

https://community.cadence.com/caden...s/omnia-simulation-in-tres-partes-divises-est

 

That's just someone's blog - they're also quoting it wrong. Omnia is nominative or accusative neuter plural (and an adjective), it can't agree with Gallia.