Languages with Case Systems

[Glaurung]

In English, the grammatical relations of nouns are determined almost entirely by syntax and prepositions. Only pronouns retain case distinctions while nouns retain only a singular/plural distinction. This means that a learner of English needs only to learn two forms of each noun and even then only a handful of nouns have irregular plurals.

This is in stark contrast to Latin, which I have been studying on and off for some time now. Unlike English, Latin nouns display up to six cases (seven if you count the locative) spread among five declensions and two numbers. This means that in contrast to English where most nouns will have only two forms, a typical Latin noun will have about ten forms. Not twelve or fourteen as the locative is limited only to a handful of nouns and the vocative is mostly the same as the nominative

Languages with case systems have a reputation for being 'harder' to learn than languages without them. I would agree but I nonetheless do not think a case system is something to be intimidated by. If you can get the distinction between a subject and an object clear in your mind then you already understand the distinction between the nominative and the accusative. Once you understand the subject/object distinction it is then not a stretch to understand indirect objects which are marked by the dative case. English speakers should not have too much difficulty understanding the genitive as we also have something of a pseudo-genitive in English marked by the 's. E.g. John's book, Ashley's car etc. The ablative is the hardest to explain but its most simple function is to express what we would express with certain prepositions particularly but not exclusively with 'with' and 'from'.

What I am trying to say is that the basic idea of grammatical case is not actually that complicated. It seems complicated to English and Romance speakers because we are not accustomed to explicitly marking our nouns for their grammatical relations. But once you understand what a grammatical relation is then case declension becomes mostly a question of memorization. Heck for German (where most English speakers will first encounter case) it is mostly a question of which article to use when. Latin is a fair bit more involved than German but again, once you know the declension of a noun (which any useable dictionary will tell you) it then becomes a matter of applying the correct ending which is memorized by exposure. (Or you can be like me and cheat by keeping a declension chart handy).

What motivated this thread was that as I was studying Latin earlier today, I recalled a conversation I had with another user on these forums. It was about Latin and lingua francas and how an inflected language like Latin is just too complicated to serve as a lingua franca in the modern world. And yet, throughout history even the illiterate spoke languages with morphologies as complex as Latin. Old English was heavily inflected compared to the modern language. Most Slavic languages retain fully functional case systems to this day. I question the notion that inflection is an impossible hurdle. After all, we English speakers have little problem with case distinctions in our pronouns. Although many fail to grasp the who/whom/whose distinction much to my dismay. (When I see 'who's' being used for 'whose' it causes me genuine emotional pain).

Although I grant, a return to Classical Latin as the lingua franca of the west is an impossible prospect. But I can dream nonetheless.

 

[Stevicus]

In English, the grammatical relations of nouns are determined almost entirely by syntax and prepositions. Only pronouns retain case distinctions while nouns retain only a singular/plural distinction. This means that a learner of English needs only to learn two forms of each noun and even then only a handful of nouns have irregular plurals.

This is in stark contrast to Latin, which I have been studying on and off for some time now. Unlike English, Latin nouns display up to six cases (seven if you count the locative) spread among five declensions and two numbers. This means that in contrast to English where most nouns will have only two forms, a typical Latin noun will have about ten forms. Not twelve or fourteen as the locative is limited only to a handful of nouns and the vocative is mostly the same as the nominative

Languages with case systems have a reputation for being 'harder' to learn than languages without them. I would agree but I nonetheless do not think a case system is something to be intimidated by. If you can get the distinction between a subject and an object clear in your mind then you already understand the distinction between the nominative and the accusative. Once you understand the subject/object distinction it is then not a stretch to understand indirect objects which are marked by the dative case. English speakers should not have too much difficulty understanding the genitive as we also have something of a pseudo-genitive in English marked by the 's. E.g. John's book, Ashley's car etc. The ablative is the hardest to explain but its most simple function is to express what we would express with certain prepositions particularly but not exclusively with 'with' and 'from'.

What I am trying to say is that the basic idea of grammatical case is not actually that complicated. It seems complicated to English and Romance speakers because we are not accustomed to explicitly marking our nouns for their grammatical relations. But once you understand what a grammatical relation is then case declension becomes mostly a question of memorization. Heck for German (where most English speakers will first encounter case) it is mostly a question of which article to use when. Latin is a fair bit more involved than German but again, once you know the declension of a noun (which any useable dictionary will tell you) it then becomes a matter of applying the correct ending which is memorized by exposure. (Or you can be like me and cheat by keeping a declension chart handy).

What motivated this thread was that as I was studying Latin earlier today, I recalled a conversation I had with another user on these forums. It was about Latin and lingua francas and how an inflected language like Latin is just too complicated to serve as a lingua franca in the modern world. And yet, throughout history even the illiterate spoke languages with morphologies as complex as Latin. Old English was heavily inflected compared to the modern language. Most Slavic languages retain fully functional case systems to this day. I question the notion that inflection is an impossible hurdle. After all, we English speakers have little problem with case distinctions in our pronouns. Although many fail to grasp the who/whom/whose distinction much to my dismay. (When I see 'who's' being used for 'whose' it causes me genuine emotional pain).

Although I grant, a return to Classical Latin as the lingua franca of the west is an impossible prospect. But I can dream nonetheless.

I've studied Russian, which has six cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, and Prepositional (sometimes called Locative). They also had gender - masculine, feminine, and neuter. But they had no articles, such as "the," "a," or "an." It was also rare to use the present tense form of "to be" in most utterances. So, instead of saying "the book is on the table" they might say "book on table."

Verbs can also be difficult, since they have the concept of "perfective" and "imperfective," meaning that every single verb in the language has two forms. In English, we get around this by using auxiliary verbs. Word order is also more important in English.

 

[Estro Felino]

Although many fail to grasp the who/whom/whose distinction much to my dismay. (When I see 'who's' being used for 'whose' it causes me genuine emotional pain).

Or "you're" instead of "your".
That hurts me too.

By the way Latin will never be conceived as spoken language because nobody exactly knows how it was pronounced. Scholars have tried to reconstruct the ancient pronunciation throughout the centuries, but I guess it deals with nothing but conjectures. So, I guess it is good that each nation pronounces Latin however they like, because there is nothing that can attest the right pronunciation.

I exclusively like the Latin of the IV-V centuries CE, though. Light years away from the contrived and abnormally redundant Ciceronian style.
I love the Vulgate, Augustine...and so on..

 

[Estro Felino]

I've studied Russian, which has six cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, and Prepositional (sometimes called Locative). They also had gender - masculine, feminine, and neuter. But they had no articles, such as "the," "a," or "an." It was also rare to use the present tense form of "to be" in most utterances. So, instead of saying "the book is on the table" they might say "book on table."

Verbs can also be difficult, since they have the concept of "perfective" and "imperfective," meaning that every single verb in the language has two forms. In English, we get around this by using auxiliary verbs. Word order is also more important in English.

I like studying Russian grammar but I have been realizing that only by memorizing texts, dialogues by heart, I can become a Russian speaker, someday.

 

[Glaurung]

e studied Russian, which has six cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, and Prepositional (sometimes called Locative). They also had gender - masculine, feminine, and neuter. But they had no articles, such as "the," "a," or "an." It was also rare to use the present tense form of "to be" in most utterances. So, instead of saying "the book is on the table" they might say "book on table."

I have little experience with the Slavic languages but Latin is similar in that there are three genders and no articles. 'To be' is usually not omitted in the present or any tense.

Or "you're" instead of "your".
That hurts me too.

I can forgive it as an occasional typo. I've undoubtedly done it myself and not noticed. But it triggers me when I see a person make that mistake consistently. The who/whom distinction has long collapsed for a lot of speakers so I would not criticize someone for failing to make it in their writing. Although confusing who's and whose (outside the occasional typo) is inexcusable in my books.

By the way Latin will never be conceived as spoken language because nobody exactly knows how it was pronounced. Scholars have tried to reconstruct the ancient pronunciation throughout the centuries, but I guess it deals with nothing but conjectures. So, I guess it is good that each nation pronounces Latin however they like, because there is nothing that can attest the right pronunciation.

Scholars have a solid understanding of the classical pronunciation. There is more than sufficient evidence to reconstruct the pronunciation of the standard language. Failing that I would be happy to accept the ecclesiastical pronunciation as the standard. (I personally prefer it). In any case it doesn't matter as Latin functions well enough as a written language.

In my ideal world French would be used as the international travel/diplomatic language and Latin would be used as the written scholarly language.

I like studying Russian grammar but I have been realizing that only by memorizing texts, dialogues by heart, I can become a Russian speaker, someday.

I find exposure and comprehensible input to be the key to learning a language. The study of grammar while important should not be the main focus. Understanding vocabulary in context should be the main goal.

 

[Stevicus]

Or "you're" instead of "your".
That hurts me too.

Occasionally, I've made similar mistakes where I end up catching myself and correcting it. It's because I'm thinking about my writing a few words ahead of my hands typing it.

I consider those to be more performance errors, usually by people who know the correct form but occasionally slip. It happens.

I also notice that errors can be of a different type, depending on whether they're made by non-native speakers who are learning English as opposed to native speakers who may not be very literate or grammatically inclined.

 

[Estro Felino]

Occasionally, I've made similar mistakes where I end up catching myself and correcting it. It's because I'm thinking about my writing a few words ahead of my hands typing it.
.

I dare not imagine how many mistakes I make on a daily basis.
What drives me nuts is the position of adverbs.
I really hate that, because in Italian you can put the adverb literally anywhere, in a sentence.

 

[Estro Felino]

Scholars have a solid understanding of the classical pronunciation. There is more than sufficient evidence to reconstruct the pronunciation of the standard language. .

From an etymological point of view, English is much more faithful to Latin than Italian is.

Because English has evolved naturally, whereas Italian has been artificially "invented" and then perfected by writers like Dante.

An example: luxuries is a Latin word that means "luxury". But in Italian lussuria means "lust". So Italian have changed the meaning of that Latin word.
But there are countless examples.

 

[Stevicus]

I have little experience with the Slavic languages but Latin is similar in that there are three genders and no articles. 'To be' is usually not omitted in the present or any tense.

Another aspect of Russian which was difficult to acculturate myself to was two different forms of the pronoun "you." We used to have "thee" and "thou" in English, but those forms have become archaic. The singular form was also the familiar form, used with close friends, peers, family, and children, while the plural form was used as the more polite and respectful form.

I never formally studied Latin, although it's hard to avoid learning some of it when studying the etymologies of most words in our language, which can be traced back to Latin or Greek origins in many cases. Latin also comes up in medicine, science, law, and other fields.

 

[Glaurung]

Because English has evolved naturally, whereas Italian has been artificially "invented" and then perfected by writers like Dante.

I have read that standard Italian is based on Florentine Tuscan. Personally, I would hardly resent being a native speaker of the language of Dante.

The singular form was also the familiar form, used with close friends, peers, family, and children, while the plural form was used as the more polite and respectful form.

This is the case in French. Tu is the singular and also functions as the familiar form. Vous is the plural and also functions as the polite form.

I never formally studied Latin, although it's hard to avoid learning some of it when studying the etymologies of most words in our language, which can be traced back to Latin or Greek origins in many cases. Latin also comes up in medicine, science, law, and other fields.

Yes, one nice thing about studying Latin is that you begin to see fingerprints of the Romans all over the place.

 

[Stevicus]

I dare not imagine how many mistakes I make on a daily basis.
What drives me nuts is the position of adverbs.
I really hate that, because in Italian you can put the adverb literally anywhere, in a sentence.

Yeah, word order in English can affect the meaning if one or two words are out of place. I remember in Russian, it didn't matter that much since they had the concept of case, as well as perfective and imperfective verbs which didn't really need any auxiliary verbs.

 

[Stevicus]

Yes, one nice thing about studying Latin is that you begin to see fingerprints of the Romans all over the place.

Yes. It just goes to show that the Roman Empire never really "fell," it merely transformed itself. What they lost in military might was regained in religious authority and cultural/political influence that lasted far longer than the ancient Roman Empire ever did.

 

[Glaurung]

Yes. It just goes to show that the Roman Empire never really "fell," it merely transformed itself. What they lost in military might was regained in religious authority and cultural/political influence that lasted far longer than the ancient Roman Empire ever did.

You could go further and argue that Latin never really died. Oh sure, the classical language of Augustus and Cicero may be dead but Latin lives on in its dialects which we today call the Romance languages.

 

[Revoltingest]

English best.
Simple.
Precise.
Concise.
But must make spelling phonetic.

The doughy ploughman coughed thoughtfully though roughly.

 

[Estro Felino]

Yeah, word order in English can affect the meaning if one or two words are out of place. I remember in Russian, it didn't matter that much since they had the concept of case, as well as perfective and imperfective verbs which didn't really need any auxiliary verbs.

Yes, it is really harsh that in Russian you need to learn two forms for each verb.
The perfective and the imperfective forms look alike, so it is not that difficult, though.

 

[Stevicus]

English best.
Simple.
Precise.
Concise.
But must make spelling phonetic.

The doughy ploughman coughed thoughtfully though roughly.

Well, they're trying, such as giving us the option to use "plowman" instead of "ploughman." I guess nowadays it would be "plowperson" actually.

 

[Estro Felino]

English best.
Simple.
Precise.
Concise.
But must make spelling phonetic.
.

Most Italians struggle to understand the phonetic difference between bad and bed.
Or between man and men.
Or between son and sun.

 

[Alien826]

Romani ite domum?

That brought all the torture of the Latin classroom back to me.

Oh about pronunciation, our teacher told us that the letter V was pronounced as W. This caused some giggling when we got to viperas, the accusative plural of vipera (snake), which was pronounced somewhat like "wipe her arse".

 

[Revoltingest]

Most Italians struggle to understand the phonetic difference between bad and bed.
Or between man and men.
Or between son and sun.

"Son" & "sun" are the same sound.

 

[Estro Felino]

"Son" & "sun" are the same sound.

Really? Even in British English?