04.04.26: Level 1; Comenius (1658); Eurōpa [1]

A 17^th century geography lesson

Image #1: The illustrations in the work of Comenius are generally good given that they’re targeted at schoolkids. I suspect, however, that his illustrator must have had a day off when the map was drawn and he got one of his pupils to do it! The Iberian Peninsula has gone a very funny shape – and Scandinavia looks as if it’s about to break apart. It’s surprising, since in the mid-17th century there are very accurate maps, and so maybe Comenius couldn’t get his hands on one. I couldn’t resist publishing it together with [image #2] a 1667 map by Marchetti.

Ubi habitās? │ Where do you live?

Ubi nātus [m] es / ubi nāta [f] es? │ Where were you born?

Unde oriundus [m] / oriunda [f] es? │ Where are you from?

First things first: Latin deals differently when referring either to countries or to towns / cities. Step-by-step: focus only on the countries because that is easy to do and introduces you to an important part of Latin grammar.

[1] Almost all the countries end in -a including the continent itself:

Britannia

Hispānia

Germānia

Ītalia

Eurōpa

[2] All of these belong to the same declension: the first declension

[3] When you say ‘in’ a country or ‘from’ a country you need prepositions:

in: in / on

ē (before a consonant) / ex (before a vowel or a consonant or /h/): literally ‘out of’

[4] The difference – in this situation – is slight:

Britannia: Britain

In Britanniā habitō │ I live in Britain

Hispānia > In Hispāniā nātus [masculine] sum │ I was born in Spain

Germānia > In Germāniā nāta [feminine] sum │ I was born in Germany

Graecia > Ex Graeciā oriundus [masculine] sum │ I’m (originally) from Greece

Ītalia > Ex Ītaliā oriunda [feminine] sum │ I’m (originally) from Italy

The ending -ā is the ablative case. It has many different functions but one of them is with certain prepositions. All that is happening is that short /a/ becomes long /ā/. In most original Latin texts that is not indicated, but it is in the textbooks and edited works, and the difference is noted in speech.

[4] Latin verbs – unless clarity is needed – do not use pronouns; the ending makes it clear who is performing the action.

Ubi habitās? │ Where do you (talking to one person) live?

In Galliā habitō │ I live in France.

[5]

sum: I am

es: you (singular)

Unde oriundus / oriunda es? │ Literally: Where are you descended from? = Where are you (originally) from?

Ex Ītaliā oriundus / oriunda sum │ I am (originally) from Italy.

[6]

Note that Latin uses sum and es to express where you were born even though the verb is present tense:

Ubi nātus es? │ Where were you born?

In Polōniā nātus / nāta sum. │ I was born in Poland.

[7] Comenius lists the Netherlands as Belgium (more on that in the next post) with the equivalent English spelling, but that is an alternative. Latin also has Belgica. However, to show the difference, Latin Belgium is not 1^st declension, but 2^nd (ending in -um) and it has a diffferent ending:

Belgium > In Belgiō habitō. / Ex Belgiō oriundus (-a) sum.

Belgica > In Belgicā habitō. / Ex Belgicā oriundus (-a) sum.

This is why it’s important to become familiar with the declensions since the nouns take different endings depending on the declension to which they belong.