This is a good post; thank you for giving the Latin in the mirror image!
ANIMA ÆTHERE FLVITAT;
CORPVS TERRA ERRAT
Anima aethere fluitat;
corpus terra errat
aethēr, aetheris
[3/m]: the ‘upper air’; the ether; the heavens
anima, -ae [1/f]: it
can mean ‘breath’ but here ‘soul’, ‘spirit’
corpus, corporis
[3/n]: body
terra, -ae [1/f]: land
errō, errāre [1]:
wander
fluō, fluere [3]: float
> fluitō,
fluitāre [1]: this was mentioned some time back; the ending -itō can be
used with some Latin verbs to suggest that the action happens frequently; a
good translation of it is ‘float about’
Anima aethere fluitat
│the soul / spirit floats in the heavens …
It’s the next part
that is particularly useful:
Unlike, for example,
French é or ç or German ü which use what are called diacritics,
i.e. symbols to indicate a particular pronunciation of the letter, Classical
Latin didn’t.
The existence of
the macron, the line above the vowels is used, for example, in
textbooks and certain edited works of literature to indicate difference in the
pronunciation of the vowels:
[1] a, e, i, o, u:
short vowels
[2] ā, ē, ī, ō, ū:
long vowels
Pronunciation was
discussed at a very early stage of the group.
There is no need to
write any Latin word with a macron but they’re useful to achieve accurate
pronunciation, and they are very useful when dealing with Latin poetry. As the
posts have gone along, I’ve sometimes said that, when learning, it’s a good
idea to include them.
I begin with an
example from German:
Bruder: brother
Brüder: brothers
Consider how unhelpful
English can be: I read [/reed/] a book (present tense) but I read [/red/] a
book (past simple).
So, sometimes, the
difference in pronunciation also indicates a change in meaning.
Nominative: terra;
land
Ablative: terrā;
(here) on the land or 'by land' e.g. when travelling
Anima aethere fluitat;
corpus terrā errat │ The spirit floats in the heavens; the body
wanders on the earth.
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