Latin for Learners: 14.08.25: topic; the elements [1]; Comenius (1658); the Earth

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

14.08.25: topic; the elements [1]; Comenius (1658); the Earth

In the Earth are high mountains, │ in Terrā sunt altī montēs

deep vallies, │ profundæ vallēs

hills rising, │ ēlevātī collēs

hollow caves, │ cavæ spēluncæ

plain fields, │ plānī campī,

shady woods. │ opācæ sylvæ.

A list of vocaabulary is of course an immediate source of reference which you can memorise, write down or stick as post-it notes on a fridge. However, I’ve found that “talking about” words, their origins, the derivatives and the changes in meaning over centuries i.e. spending a bit of time with the “biographies” of individual words, seeing them illustrated and in some form of even basic context (as here in the Comenius text) help to reinforce them.

altus, -a, -um: [i] high, [ii] deep; Engl. deriv. altitude

campus, -ī [2/m]: any flat, level ground; plain; natural field; Engl. campus refers to the grounds / property of, for example, a university or hospital

Campus Mārtius: the Field of Mars, publicly owned area in ancient Rome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_Martius

cavus, -a, -um: hollow; cavus, -ī [2/m] or cavum, -ī [2/n]: cave

collis, -is [3/m]: hill; Engl. deriv. intercolline (geological term): situated between two hills

ēlevātus, -a, -um: raised; elevated i.e. a derivative from Latin with a Germanic grammatical ending –(e)d, a common practice in English; elevator

mōns, montis [3/m]: mountain; Engl. mountain is an example of displacement where an original Old English word is effectively ‘kicked out’ in preference for a word of Latin / French origin in this case Old English: beorg, and dūn; Modern German: Berg

opācus, -a, -um: shady; dark(ened); opaque

plānus, -a, -um: flat; even; the English term plain, derived from the Latin, now rarely has that meaning of ‘flat’ as an adjective, but still means the same as a noun

profundus, -a, -um: deep; Engl. deriv. profound

silva, -ae [1/f]: wood; forest; Engl. deriv. sylvan: pertaining to the forest

terra, -ae [1/f]: (dary) land; earth; the Earth; country; territory

Trānsylvānia / Trānssilvānia < trāns: across + silvānus, -a, -um: (adj.) forest, wooded; Pennsylvania

spēlunca, -ae [1/f]: cave; also: [i] specus, -ūs [4/m], and [ii] antrum, -ī [2/n]

English has the (now obsolete) noun: spelunk (spelunc) from Middle English spelunke: cave, derived either indirectly from French or directly from Latin spēlunca. In the 1930s a US cave explorer coined the word spelunker to describe somebody who explored caves, and from this the term spelunking was created i.e. the act of exploring caves.

vallis, -is [3/f]: valley; vale; again, an example of displacement (OE: dene), but some displaced words live on in English, especially in place-names, even if they are no longer in common usage.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, English derivatives may have one, or more ‘middle men’ e.g. Old French words that were derived from Latin:

Engl: terrain

< Fr: terrain

< La: terrēnum (neuter adjective from terrēnus, -a, -um: earthly)

< La: terra

How these words ended up in English, the ‘routes’ they followed, while it is interesting, is not crucial in seeing the links between the original Latin and the final English derivative.

The massive contribution to the English language is well illustrated in this short text. Apart from all the words in bold that I’m writing here, every noun and adjective listed by Comenius still exists in some shape or form in modern English – and we have a cave explorer in the 1930s to thank for one of them.