future perfect /  by Anthony Gibbins

In English we say ‘If you open the time portal, the raptors will escape!’ Which is fine, but not really. ‘If you open the time portal…’ sounds present tense, although it obviously isn't. Latin, which is far more exact(ing?) on this matter, has the future perfect tense. ‘If you will have opened the time portal, the raptors will escape!’  Which makes far more sense, because the raptors will not escape until a point in the future, in which the action of opening the portal has already been completed. The Future Perfect.

Marcellus noster is in a similar dilemma.  Unless he will have given (dederit) one hundred dollars to the bank soon, it will be necessary for him to leave behind his home.

Unless Marcellus gives $100 to the bank soon, he will have to leave his home. Augustus, however, knows that he does not have the money.

bank statements /  by Anthony Gibbins

So, this is why Marcellus seemed anxious. He owes a lot of money, and he knows it. And now Augustus knows it too. Moreover, the bank manager seems genuinely concerned by the news. This was achieved by removing his usual head and replacing it with that of a minifigure on crutches, with a broken leg, and, well, a concerned look on his face. So far, I like Augustus. He cleans his own clock and gets upset at his clients’ financial troubles.

‘Marcellus is painting.’ is a statement. It can also be called a direct statement, to differentiate it from ‘Augustus says that Marcellus is painting.’ ‘…that Marcellus is painting.’ is an indirect statement. Indirect statements can follow verbs of reporting (e.g. The message says that Marcellus is painting.), perceiving (e.g. Can’t you see that Marcellus is painting?) or thinking (e.g. I know that Marcellus is painting).

The way that Latin handles indirect statements is very interesting indeed. For a start, there is no one word that is used to mean ‘that’. Instead, the noun is treated as though it is an object rather than a subject (Marcellum instead of Marcellus) and the verb is written in the form that means ‘to paint’, called the infinitive (pingere). And so, ‘Marcellus is painting.’, Marcellus pingit. and ‘I know that Marcellus is painting.’, scio Marcellum pingere. A literal translation ‘I know Marcellus to be painting.’ sounds odd. But no more odd than ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’

Marcellus multam pecuniam debet. means ‘Marcellus owes a lot of money’. nuntius refert Marcellum multam pecuniam debere. means ‘The message reports Marcellus to owe much money.’ Neat, hey!

Augustus at last reads the message. The message reports that Marcellus, a client of the bank, owes much money.

Gilbo Legonium advenit /  by Anthony Gibbins

We interrupt our scheduled broadcast to bring you this special announcement. We will return to the office of Augustus, and our ongoing series, tomorrow.

Gilbo has arrived in Legonium.

What is a Gilbo?

Not what, but who. Gilbo is the star of his own series of short Latin stories. They are set is a fantasy world of evil orcs, powerful wizards, unfortunate slaves and a painter whose artwork predicts the future. There are around 16 in the series, and they will be released over the following two months.

Who can read Gilbo?

Anyone with just the tiniest amount of Latin. Gilbo stories are a good deal easier to read than Legonium stories. In fact, they have been specifically written to use only grammar and vocabulary as it is introduced in the first four chapters of the Cambridge Latin Course. The caption under the title page will tell you when you are ready for the next Gilbo story.

Haven’t I heard of Gilbo before?

Possibly. Gilbo stories have been available on the remarkable Tar Heel Reader website for around eight years now. They will, of course, remain available there. But the new Legonium editions will have all new pictures, true to the original but with a further layer of polish.

How do you make the characters?

The characters are created on the fantastic and entirely free to use South Park Studio website http://www.sp-studio.de.  If you or your students are illustrating stories, this website can be a very powerful tool.

sedes officii /  by Anthony Gibbins

Both my German dictionary of modern Latin and the Latin translation of Harry Potter - Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis - give sedes officii for office. And here we are, in the sedes officii of Augustus. sedes, from the verb sedeo (I sit), is variously translated as a seat, a throne, an abode, a base or – similar to English – a seat of power. officium as dutiful or respectful action, ceremonial attendance, official employment. So, here we are, with Augustus, in his ‘seat of power of official employment’. His office.

The office of Augustus is located on the second floor of the Brick Bank. I had to pull down a good part of the wall to get this shot. I take all of my photos with an iPhone 5, and while it is nice and thin, it can still be hard to get into small cramped places. There is a little nod here to Caecilius of the Cambridge Latin Course, who is of course a banker and loves counting money.

Meanwhile, Augustus is sitting in his office counting money. A message of great importance but not yet read lies on his desk.

The Reveal /  by Anthony Gibbins

I love that moment when you are reading a book or watching a television show, and you think that you have the story pinned down, know exactly where it is going, and then suddenly it takes you someplace you weren’t expecting. It may not be a major plot twist, just a small surprise detail that catches you off guard. I love that moment.

I wanted the reveal that Miranda was a police officer to be a surprise – despite the subtle pun to her name. What I didn’t expect, and only realised when I began to read the story with students, was how many readers would assume that Miranda was the woman from the rooftop in the first episode. One boy even accused me of ‘making the primary female character a criminal’.

Students in a classroom like to make their predictions out loud. ‘She’s the bank robber,’ they exclaimed as soon as it was announced that she had to work through the night. They seemed excited to have predicted where the story was going. But they always seem more satisfied when we get to this page, and they realise (or at least think) that they are wrong.

Soon, the door having opened, Miranda exits. She is a police officer (custos publica). That is the reason why she must work through the whole night.

domi /  by Anthony Gibbins

There is something special about home. The Latin word for home is domus and it gives us all sorts of English words like ‘domicile’, ‘dominate’ and ‘domestic’. Just like English, home is one of the few places that you can get to without a preposition. You go ‘to the park’, but you just ‘go home’. Latin is the same. domum means ‘to home’ and domi means ‘at home’. Other than the names of towns, cities and small islands, there are only two other Latin words that behave like that. They are humus, ‘the ground’ and rus 'the countryside'.  

Miranda is now putting on her uniform vestitum uniformem at home. Our Marcellus is still sitting on the balcony. In my opinion, he looks anxious.

So far, on Legonium /  by Anthony Gibbins

A Sunday morning seems a good time for a leisurely recap, especially for those who have only recently arrived in Legonium.

So far we know that there is a bank, a laundromat, a French restaurant (that sells a surprising amount of pizza) and a bar called the Montanus, or Highlander. There is an apartment above the restaurant and an attic apartment above that.

The attic apartment houses Marcellus, a painter, who enjoys painting and walking in the street. He dabbles is a range of styles, from modernism to abstract expressionism. He has a painting of a ship on display in the Montanus, which he hopes to sell for $100.

The larger apartment is inhabited by Miranda. She sleeps late into the day, because she has to work all night. We don’t know why, but I have a feeling we will find out. She has a friend called Claudia and they like to meet in the Montana, play pool and eat at the restaurant. Claudia likes to talk about ancient monuments, but that’s all we know about her for now.

Augustus is the manager of the bank. He wears a nice suit and has a pocket watch.  When we meet him he is cleaning the bank’s clock. And speaking of the bank, what about that woman, dressed all in black, who was looking down through the skylight one dark night?

And then there is Pico the cat who, and I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, is the star of Legonium pars tertia, which releases in October. He is pretty damn awesome.

After the game, Miranda and Claudia are hungry. They go to the restaurant to dine. Soon it is time for Miranda to prepare herself for duty.

'vendibilis' and some more on verbs /  by Anthony Gibbins

In yesterday’s post we met the four forms pingo, pingere, pinxi, pictum. I also teased that today’s post would reveal the meaning of vendibilis.

According to our narrator: pictura vendibilis emi potest.  That is, a vendibilis picture is able [insert here the meaning of emi].

The four forms of emi are emo ‘I buy’, emere ‘to buy’, emi ‘I bought’ and emptum, the supine. Reading from the page*, then, we might interpret emi in this sentence as ‘I bought’, but we would be wrong. The emi here is formed from emere (to buy), by swapping out the -ere for –i, giving us ‘to be bought’. A vendibilis picture is able ‘to be bought’, i.e. is for sale.

vendibilis comes from another Latin verb vendo, vendere, vendidi, venditum meaning ‘to sell’, the root of the modern vending machine. The future form of ‘to sell’ is, of course, ‘to be going to sell’. It is formed in Latin from the supine and is venditurum esse. Our Marcellus hopes that he is ‘going to sell’ this picture.

One last thing. We also saw yesterday how the supine pictum gave us pictor, a person who paints. In the same way venditum gave the Romans venditor, a person who sells, and emptum gave them emptor, a person who buys. I only mention this because you might be familiar with the saying caveat emptor, ‘Let the buyer beware’.

*Reading from the page, because we would not make this mistake in conversation. The letter e at the beginning of ‘to buy’ is pronounced short and sharp, whereas the e at the beginning of ‘I bought’ is pronounced long. Hence, no confusion.

Do you know what vendibilis means? A vendibilis picture is for sale. Marcellus hopes that he will sell this picture for one hundred dollars.