11.03.24: 3rd conjugation verbs: ways of learning

The use of a language is normally divided into two parts, namely active [speaking and writing] and passive [reading and listening] i.e. our passive vocabulary tends to be that which we immediately recognise or can work out.

There are many 3rd conjugation verbs ‘hiding’ in English. These words have had a long journey through the history of language. Take the word ‘scribe’, for instance i.e. somebody who writes for somebody else, or somebody who copies documents by hand. It is an example, one of thousands, of words in the English language that came from French primarily after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and those words are originally found in Latin since the French language itself evolved from Latin. Therefore, while it is true that Latin words did enter English directly from Latin, the majority of them came via the ‘middle man’ of French.

“scribe” entered the English language from Old French < Latin scrība (writer; clerk; secretary; scribe) < scrībere (to write) and other words such as manuscript and describe also have the same root.

In Law, there are many legal phrases that are imported from Latin e.g. caveat ēmptor: let the buyer beware, the word ēmptor (buyer) coming from the verb emere (to buy).

Rather like one’s grandfather recounting the history of his life, English words all have their own stories to tell!

While the English derivatives are not necessarily going to give you the ‘answer’ as to the meaning of an unknown Latin word, they can give you a clue! And bearing derivatives in mind when learning Latin vocabulary can help you in remembering them; it certainly helped me.