Introduction into Latin

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Latin (lingua Latīna, pronounced [laˈtiːna]) is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean
and a large part of Europe. Such languages as French, Italian,
Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese inherited a large part of the Latin
vocabulary and grammar. It was also the international language of
science and scholarship in central and Western Europe until the 17th
century. There are two varieties of Latin: Classical Latin, the literary dialect used in poetry and prose, and Vulgar Latin,
the form of the language spoken by ordinary people. Vulgar Latin was
preserved as a spoken language in much of Europe after the decline of
the Roman Empire, and by the 9th century diverged into the various Romance languages. Although Latin is no longer spoken in everyday speech it is by no means and should not be considered an endangered language or an extinct language.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Latin survived as the lingua franca
of educated classes in the West, and this survival was reinforced by
the adoption of Latin by the Catholic Church. In this milieu, it
survived as a mother tongue at least into the second millennium A.D.
and is referred to as Medieval Latin.
The Renaissance had the paradoxical effect of briefly reinforcing the
position of Latin as a spoken language, through its (re?)adoption by
the Renaissance Humanists. After the 16th century, the popularity of
Medieval Latin began to decline.
Latin lives on in the form of Ecclesiastical Latin used for edicts and papal bulls issued by the Catholic Church. Much Latin vocabulary is used in science, academia, and law. Classical Latin, the literary language of the late Republic and early Empire, is still taught in many primary, grammar, and secondary schools, often combined with Greek in the study of Classics, though its role has diminished since the early 20th century. The Latin alphabet, together with its modern variants such as the English, Spanish and French alphabets, is the most widely used alphabet in the world.

Grammar


Main article: Latin grammar


Latin is a synthetic, fusional language: affixes (often suffixes, which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed stems to express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns—a process called declension. Affixes are attached to fixed stems of verbs, as well, to denote person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect—a process called conjugation.

[edit] Nouns


Main article: Latin declension


There are six main Latin noun cases. These play a major part in
determining a noun's syntactic role in the sentence, so word order is
not as important in Latin as it is in some other languages, such as
English. Because of noun cases, words can often be moved around in a
sentence without significantly altering its meaning, though the
emphasis will have been altered. The cases, with their most important
uses, are these:

1. Nominative: used when the noun is the subject of the sentence or phrase, or when functioning as a predicative of the subject. The thing or person acting (e.g., Puer currit. The boy runs.)
   
2. Genitive:
   used when the noun is the possessor of an object (example: "the horse
   of the man", or "the man's horse"—in both of these cases, the word man
   would be in the genitive case when translated into Latin). Also
   indicates material of which something greater is made (example: "a
   group of people"; "a number of gifts"—people and gifts would be in the genitive case). Some nouns are genitive with special verbs and adjectives too. (e.g., The cup is full of wine. Poculum plenum vini est. The master of the slave had beaten him. Dominus servi eum verberat.)
   
3. Dative:
   used when the noun is the indirect object of the sentence, with special
   verbs, with certain prepositions, and if used as agent, reference, or
   even possessor. (e.g., The merchant hands over the toga to the woman. Mercator feminae togam tradit.)
   
4. Accusative:
   used when the noun is the direct object of the sentence/phrase, with
   certain prepositions, or as the subject of an infinitive. The thing or
   person having something done to them. (e.g., Ancilla vinum portat. The slave girl carries the wine.)
   
5. Ablative: used when the noun demonstrates separation or movement from a source, cause, agent, or instrument, or when the noun is used as the object of certain prepositions; adverbial.
   
6. Vocative:
   used when the noun is used in a direct address. The vocative form of a
   noun is the same as the nominative except for second declension nouns
   ending in -us. The -us becomes an -e or if it ends in -ius (such as
   filius) then the ending is just -i (fili) (as opposed to the plural
   nominative (filii). (e.g., "Master!" shouted the slave. "Domine!" servus clamavit.)
   

There is also a seventh case, called the Locative case,
used to indicate a location (corresponding to the English "in" or
"at"). This is far less common than the other six cases of Latin nouns
and usually applies to place names, especially of cities. In the first
and second declension singular, its form coincides with the genitive (Roma becomes Romae, "in Rome"). In the plural, and in the other declensions, it coincides with the dative and ablative (Athenae becomes Athenis, "at Athens").
Latin lacks definite and indefinite articles; thus puer currit can mean either "the boy runs" or "a boy runs".

[edit] Verbs


Main article: Latin conjugation


Verbs in Latin are usually identified by four main conjugations, groups of verbs with similarly inflected forms. The first conjugation is typified by active infinitive forms ending in -āre, the second by active infinitives ending in -ēre, the third by infinitives ending in -ere, and the fourth by active infinitives ending in -īre. However, there are exceptions to these rules. Further, there is a subset of the 3rd conjugation, the -iō verbs, which behave somewhat like the 4th conjugation. There are six general tenses in Latin (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect), three grammatical moods (indicative, imperative and subjunctive), three persons (first, second, and third) two numbers (singular and plural) , two voices (active and passive), and a few aspects. Verbs are described by four principal parts:

1. The first principal part is the first person, singular, present tense, and it is the indicative mood form of the verb.
   
2. The second principal part is the active, present tense, infinitive form of the verb.
   
3. The third principal part is the first person, singular, perfect tense, active indicative mood form of the verb.
   
4. The fourth principal part is the supine form, or alternatively, the
   participial form, nominative case, singular, perfect tense, passive
   voice participle form of the verb. The fourth principal part can show
   either one gender of the participle, or all three genders (-us for masculine, -a for feminine, and -um for neuter). It can also be the future participle when that verb cannot be made passive.(1)
   

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(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin#Pronunciation