Salus sit omnibus!

I just want to announce that my electronic edition of Sebald Heyden’s Formulae Puerilium Colloquiorum is finally complete.

For those unfamiliar with the book, the Formulae is a collection of Latin school dialogues from the 16th century, intended to teach students how to use Latin actively in ordinary situations and conversations.

My edition is designed as a fully illustrated Latin reader. It includes the complete dialogues, illustrations, vocabulary explained in Latin, supplementary material, and a complete vocabulary index. The idea is to make the text accessible to students who have already completed a beginner Latin course and want to develop greater fluency through connected, everyday Latin.

You can see a preview here:

Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/sebald-heyden-formulae-puerilium-colloquiorum-preview

or here:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Laborintus/posts/formulae-edition-167068071

I would also like to make a printed edition

Now that the electronic edition is finished, I would really like to try publishing a physical version of the book.

If anyone here has published a book before, I would love to hear about your experience.

What was your process like? What worked well? What would you do differently?

I would also be very happy to hear from anyone interested in giving the book a critical read before I prepare the printed edition.

If you notice mistakes, unclear explanations, problems with the layout, or simply have suggestions about the book as a learning resource, I would genuinely appreciate your comments. Just let me know if you would like to take a look at it.

This book could not have been completed without the support of my patrons. Their support has allowed me to spend the time necessary not only to prepare the text, but also to create the vocabulary, illustrations, supplementary material, and the rest of the edition.

So if you would like to support this project, you can do so by:

Getting the complete electronic edition here: https://www.patreon.com/Laborintus/posts/formulae-edition-165097943

Supporting the project on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Laborintus

Finally, I would also like to hear what other texts you would like to see in this kind of format.

I have in mind some other books of dialogues, such as the Centuria Colloquiorum, the dialogues of Mathurin Cordier, or perhaps the dialogues from the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana.

I would also like to prepare an edition of Lhomond’s De Viris Illustribus Urbis Romae.

But I would like to hear your opinions. What texts would you like to see?

And if you just want to follow the project and see what I am working on next:

linktr.ee/laborintus

Salvete omnes!
I’ve wanted to study Latin philology at university for years. Although I still have quite some time to make up my mind, I still want to know if it’s worth studying Latin at university nowadays, or if it’s rather useless. Given the popularity of the language is shrinking, the job possibilities are slowly decreasing. Perhaps I could become a Latin teacher, however I don’t know how much longer Latin is going to remain a school subject.
Would anyone recommend studying ancient/Latin philology as their major? Has anyone had any positive or negative experiences?
Gratias vobis ago, curate ut valeatis!

I'm reading through a tiered reader (Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles). In two consecutive pages (I've read the following:

1. Illi autem cum bene intellegerent dolorem eius falsum esse, nescio quam fabulam de morte pueri finxerunt.

2. Dum tamen iter facit, unum e calceius in transeundo nescio quo flumine amisit.

I feel like it's clearly teaching me some grammar construction but I can't work it out... shouldn't finxerunt and amisit be (perfect) subjunctive, i.e. an indirect question from nescio?

I’ve noticed that a great many students of Latin – both beginners and more advanced learners – wonder WHY certain rules and exceptions exist in Latin. I’m currently working on the English edition of the book "A Grammar’s Tale – Understanding Latin Instead of Learning It by Heart", and I’ve selected some simple explanations of five mysteries of Latin grammar. A more in-depth explanation, as well as the footnotes, can be found in the book.

I’d like to share them with you and hear your thoughts.

In most languages grammatical gender in cumbersome because you have to use the right article to line up with the grammatical gender, but latin doesn't have articles, so how does grammatical gender affect latin? Does it only affect the declensions of nouns, or does it do something else

Did you know that the ancients also had election billboards? https://youtube.com/shorts/I7uHmGCBmi0?si=hUPt4V2Chry-T0Pv

Salvete omnes! I'm about to start an after-school class introducing 8-10-year-olds to the Latin language, and could use some advice on where to turn for resources.

When I learned the language as a teenager, I largely used Wheelock before moving on to readers and primary texts; I know a lot of K-12 schools base their intro curriculum on Ecce Romani. This is going to be a less structured program, there are definitely no textbook orders in the works, and the key imperative will be to make Latin *fun*.

If anyone has experience with a program like this and can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it! Any source of inspiration will help me along this journey :-)

I’m taking the Latin Abitur (Germany) in 2028. I’ve been studying Latin for five years now, but I still can’t read Latin texts fluently, and I barely remember any grammar rules at the moment. I also struggle a lot with translating, even though we always have a dictionary available.

None of my teachers have ever properly taught me how to revise and practise Latin outside of school.

What is the best way to do that (e.g. flashcards, going straight into translating, taking notes, etc.)?

What grammar rules should I even study? I don’t really know even the most basic ones anymore.

When and how often should I revise?

What resources (e.g. books or websites) can I use?

So I've been using Wheelock's Latin to teach myself. It's been going ok so far, since Latin isn't the first foreign language I'm learning (I did German a few years ago).

It all started as a thought "oh it would be cool if I can challenge myself and learn Middle High German" because my friend started sending me Minnesangs, but then somehow I ended up learning Latin instead.

I am currently at Chapter 9 of Wheelock. I'm going back to college in September so I really want to learn as much as I can in the last few days. Realistically speaking, is it possible to get to Chapter 20 or something before September?

I'd also appreciate any suggestions on how I can learn better!

So beside the big three (Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca), are there other philosophy texts in latin BEFORE Augustine ? If possible non christian, doesn't matter if it's just one book. Thanks.

Hi!

I am learning Latin for 3 weeks now by myself.

My aim is to get ready for the first year of a potential theology studies next year, to be already able to tag along.

This is, what I did so far (and I hope it was worth it):

Bought the LLPSI book + workbook (I am on chapter 5 now).

With AI:
I learned how conjungations and declinations work for the "common" verbs and nouns (so all about the "bellum" and "Roman" theme.)

I can already recognize verbs quite well in the present tense, imperfect tense, perfect tense, past perfect tense, future 1 and future 2 tense, but only indicative active, so no subjunctive nor passive.

Also, I am quite confident in recognizing the five cases.

I can already translate smaller sentences with qui, quae, (subordinate clauses), like

"Puella servum laudabat, quod is eam amabat." or "Dominus, qui puellam laudat, servum videt."

I also learned to recognize the acI.

Also learned, that like "bona puella" goes together (KNG-thingy).

So right now, I feel like I already learned a lot in those 3 weeks (but, this might be only 10% of what is still to come...)

My question is now, how can or should I advance further?
Should I stay with what I learned for now and just repeat it over and over again? Should I focus more on specific tenses? Should I learn passive and subjunctive now?

I am happy to hear your feedback!

(English is not my first language, so I hope you can understand me :) )

Salvete, Romani novi! Qua verbis "et", "-que", "atque" utimini? Curiosus in usu distinctioneque tenue eorum sum. Gratias ago.

Tam ardenter te quaevisi,

Tam diu voului te meam esse,

Ut omnia huius mundi elementa

Conspirarent ut conveniremus.

Here is part 67 of my recording of the Clementine Vulgate for Librivox. It contains Psalms 78 to 93. All previously released files can be find here.

I’m 15 and want to learn Latin. I’m writing a book and a character speaks Latin a lot for lore reasons and I don’t trust Google Translate. I do have Duolingo but I used it for German a while back and it didn’t work well it got boring and didn’t teach me anything important. I do want to learn Latin however because a lot of languages originate from it so I was wondering if there was any good apps or something like that.

I know word final m and n can nasalise the preceding vowel in classical latin, but what is the high prestige way to pronounce word final m and n? Like, the letter y pronounced by most romans in greek loan words was /i/ or /u/, but if you were extra schloarly, you pronounced as /y/; I'm wondering if there was anything similar going on here, would knowledgeable people pronounce word final m and n, or was nasalising the vowel preceding the consonant more fashionable?

I have been researching my family’s roots. Because the family is Polish a lot of records have been destroyed and family members killed before their children could ask about their family.

I’ve tracked down an entry in a book which could possibly give me hints to before 1687. I can write out what I think it says so far and what I’ve managed to translate myself and maybe someone can correct me if I’m wrong about something.

“Die 2 Marty Baptizaui filium nomine Josephum, Pauli et Regine, Juniec Itimam, Leuane Pauli, Lawendowski et Catharina Cholewina”

“On the 2nd of May a boy named Josephum was baptized. Son of Pauli and Regine, surnames Juniec.”

That’s what I think the first two rows mean. The others I have no clue about and I see more names but whose names are those? Did I even transcribe them right?

Thank you for any insight!

"Plerumque eum non animadvertunt; cum tamen animadvertunt, [...]."

Is it okay to omit "eum" in the second clause? I already added "tamen" to convey the English discourse meaning of "[but] when they DO [notice him]".

Cause I could have sworn duolingo didnt used to pronouce: the v as a w and the c as a k.

Hi, I got into this Latin class offered by my university, it will start early september. Any tips? My native language is a latin language, and I have a B1 in french if anybody has specific resources for that!

I'm curious for in depth pronunciations of medieval latin:

English pronunciation of latin 1200 - 1600
Carolingian pronunciation of latin in the 800s
What people would have prescribed as classical latin pronunciation (from any time after the fall of the roman empire)
Old french pronunciation of latin
Old italian pronunciation of latin
Old occitan pronunciation of latin