In linguistics , grammatical number is a feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other languages present number categories of singular or plural . Some languages also have a dual , trial and paucal number or other arrangements.
100-474: See text Erithacus ( Latin : erithacus ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : ἐρίθακος , translit. eríthakos , lit. "robin" (erithacos)) is a genus of passerine bird that contains a single extant species, the European robin ( Erithacus rubecula ). The Japanese robin and Ryukyu robin were also placed in this genus (as Erithacus akahige and E. komadori ), but were moved to
200-762: A facultative trial, like in Ngan'gi . Most languages with a trial are in the Austronesian family, and most non-Austronesian languages with a trial are nearby in Oceania. The latter category includes the Austronesian-influenced English creole languages of Tok Pisin , Bislama , and Pijin . In Australia, the trial can also be found in Aboriginal languages of many different language families. In Indonesia, trial pronouns are common in
300-743: A few in German , Dutch , Norwegian , Danish and Swedish . Latin is still spoken in Vatican City, a city-state situated in Rome that is the seat of the Catholic Church . The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part, in substantial works or in fragments to be analyzed in philology . They are in part the subject matter of the field of classics . Their works were published in manuscript form before
400-487: A group of 100,000 referred to in the plural. Much like the dual, it is crosslinguistically variable which words and parts of speech may be marked with the paucal. Baiso has the paucal only for nouns and not pronouns, whereas Yimas has the paucal only for pronouns and not nouns. In Meryam Mir , the paucal is mostly marked on the verbs. Avar has the paucal for only about 90 specific nouns, including brush, spade, snake, and daughter-in-law (the only kin term that can take
500-457: A large number of something, and has been called the plural of abundance. In other languages like Kaytetye , it can refer to all of something in existence, and has been called the global plural. Like some other grammatical numbers, languages also vary as to which cases the greater plural may be used in. The greater plural is more common in nouns than in pronouns. Accordingly, in Kaytetye,
600-562: A new Classical Latin arose, a conscious creation of the orators, poets, historians and other literate men, who wrote the great works of classical literature , which were taught in grammar and rhetoric schools. Today's instructional grammars trace their roots to such schools , which served as a sort of informal language academy dedicated to maintaining and perpetuating educated speech. Philological analysis of Archaic Latin works, such as those of Plautus , which contain fragments of everyday speech, gives evidence of an informal register of
700-619: A number distinction is pronouns. An example of a personal pronoun system distinguishing singular and plural is that of Wayoró : Like the singular denotes exactly one item, the dual number denotes exactly two items. For example, in Camsá : In languages with a singular/dual/plural paradigm, the exact meaning of plural depends on whether the dual is obligatory or facultative (optional). In contrast to English and other singular/plural languages where plural means two or more, in languages with an obligatory dual, plural strictly means three or more. This
800-567: A number larger than and beyond greater plural. It has also been called the "even greater plural". For example, in Warekena : A similar system is found in Banyun , where the greater plural represents unlimitedness, and the greatest plural represents "a higher degree of unlimitedness". Linguist Daniel Harbour has represented the paucal, greater paucal, plural, greater plural, and greatest plural as collectively definable by "cuts" that divide
900-533: A paucal. Similar things have been said about trial pronouns in Larike and Anejom̃ . Russian has what has variably been called paucal numerals, the count form, the adnumerative, or the genitive of quantification. When a noun in the nominative case has a numeral added to quantify it, the noun becomes genitive singular with 2, 3, or 4, but genitive plural with 5 or above. Many linguists have described these as paucal constructions. However, some have disagreed on
1000-477: A plural, leaving the former plural with a greater plural meaning. A different four-way distinction of singular, paucal, plural, and greater plural can be found in some verbs of Hualapai . A more complex system is found in Mele-Fila : pronouns distinguish singular, dual, plural, and greater plural, but articles attached to nouns distinguish singular, paucal, and plural. The result is that for full sentences, there
1100-481: A quadral or a quintal. Linguist Susan McBurney has contended that American Sign Language has a true dual, but that the trial, quadral, and quintal should instead be classified as numeral incorporation rather than grammatical number. This is motivated by the dual marker handshape being distinct from the handshape for the numeral two, in contrast to higher number markers; the ability to also incorporate these numerals into other words, including those for times and amounts; and
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#17327906779991200-479: A quadral; the final 2016 reference grammar of Marshallese by Byron W. Bender , a linguist with expertise in the language, still refers to it as having a quadral. Besides singular, dual, trial, and quadral or paucal, Marshallese additionally has two different plural forms, one for five or more and one for two or more (referred to as multiple and plural absolute respectively), creating a partially overlapping six-way number distinction. Kove has been recorded as having
1300-408: A rare pronoun form for exactly six people. Some American Sign Language speakers have incorporated numerals up to nine into inclusive pronouns upon solicitation. Israeli Sign Language theoretically has the grammatical ability to incorporate numerals up to ten into pronouns. Greater plural is a number larger than and beyond plural. In various forms across different languages, it has also been called
1400-476: A remarkable unity in phonological forms and developments, bolstered by the stabilising influence of their common Christian (Roman Catholic) culture. It was not until the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711, cutting off communications between the major Romance regions, that the languages began to diverge seriously. The spoken Latin that would later become Romanian diverged somewhat more from the other varieties, as it
1500-473: A similar pronoun system as Marshallese, with one addition: the plural (2+) is split between two categories, one for members of the same family and one for members of different families, creating a seven-way distinction. A few other languages have also been claimed to have quadral pronouns. Robert Blust and others have said they exist in some of the Austronesian Kenyah languages , specifically
1600-543: A simple two-way contrast between singular and plural number ( car / cars , child / children , etc.). Discussion of other more elaborate systems of number appears below. Grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. As an example, consider the English sentences below: The quantity of apples is marked on the noun—"apple" singular number (one item) vs. "apples" plural number (more than one item)—on
1700-709: A small number of Latin services held in the Anglican church. These include an annual service in Oxford, delivered with a Latin sermon; a relic from the period when Latin was the normal spoken language of the university. In the Western world, many organizations, governments and schools use Latin for their mottos due to its association with formality, tradition, and the roots of Western culture . Canada's motto A mari usque ad mare ("from sea to sea") and most provincial mottos are also in Latin. The Canadian Victoria Cross
1800-509: A spoken language with the trial (in both pronouns and verbs) outside of Oceania is Muklom Tangsa , spoken in northeast India. The paucal number represents 'a few', a small inexactly numbered group of items. For example, in Motuna : Almost all languages with a paucal also have a dual. However, this is not universal. Nouns in Mocoví only have singular, paucal, and plural. On the other hand,
1900-456: A system of paucal, greater paucal, plural. Other examples can be found in the related languages of Northern Gumuz and Daatsʼiin . Northern Gumuz is said to mark the plural and greater plural on verbs, and Daatsʼiin is said to mark "three degrees of plurality" (plural, greater plural, and greatest plural) on verbs. In both languages though, the "plural" is often actually a paucal, understood to mean about two to four. However, in neither language
2000-869: A true quadral did exist, but it has since morphed into a plural form. It has thus been hypothesized that the quadral existed in Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Southern Vanuatu. The quintal number denotes exactly five items. Apparent examples of its use can mostly only be found in pronouns of sign languages. Like the quadral, its existence has been contested, and only some classifications accept it. Like trial and quadral forms, rare quintal forms of pronouns have been said to be attested in Tok Pisin and Bislama. These languages insert numerals to represent exact numbers of referents. For example, in Bislama, the numerals tu (two) and tri (three) are contained within
2100-411: Is Veritas ("truth"). Veritas was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn, and the mother of Virtue. Switzerland has adopted the country's Latin short name Helvetia on coins and stamps, since there is no room to use all of the nation's four official languages . For a similar reason, it adopted the international vehicle and internet code CH , which stands for Confoederatio Helvetica ,
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#17327906779992200-514: Is Nukna , which has only a single trial pronoun, nanggula , which can be either 2nd or 3rd person. The trial may also be marked on verbs, such as in Lenakel . While the dual can be obligatory or facultative, according to Greville Corbett there are no known cases of an obligatory trial, so the trial might always be facultative. However, languages may have both a facultative dual and a facultative trial, like in Larike, or an obligatory dual and
2300-452: Is a combined five-way distinction of singular, dual, paucal, plural, and greater plural. Singular and plural have straightforward number agreements, whereas dual has dual pronouns but paucal articles, paucal has plural pronouns but paucal articles, and greater plural has greater plural pronouns but plural articles. The exact meaning of and terminology for the greater plural differs between languages. In some languages like Miya , it represents
2400-420: Is a kind of written Latin used in the 3rd to 6th centuries. This began to diverge from Classical forms at a faster pace. It is characterised by greater use of prepositions, and word order that is closer to modern Romance languages, for example, while grammatically retaining more or less the same formal rules as Classical Latin. Ultimately, Latin diverged into a distinct written form, where the commonly spoken form
2500-435: Is a larger paucal category, for an inexactly numbered group that is larger in size than a smaller paucal. It can be found in the pronouns of the Austronesian language of Sursurunga , which exhibit a five-way distinction described as singular, dual, paucal, greater paucal, and plural. The Sursurunga paucal is used for smaller groups, usually of about three or four, or for nuclear families of any size. The Sursurunga greater paucal
2600-640: Is a reversal of the original phrase Non terrae plus ultra ("No land further beyond", "No further!"). According to legend , this phrase was inscribed as a warning on the Pillars of Hercules , the rocks on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar and the western end of the known, Mediterranean world. Charles adopted the motto following the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and it also has metaphorical suggestions of taking risks and striving for excellence. In
2700-420: Is also used in linguistics to describe the distinction between certain grammatical aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs, such as the semelfactive aspect, the iterative aspect, etc. For that use of the term, see " Grammatical aspect ". Most languages of the world have formal means to express differences of number. One widespread distinction, found in English and many other languages, involves
2800-521: Is found particularly in the isolating languages of West Africa. One of the simplest number distinctions a language can make is singular and plural. Singular denotes exactly one referent, while plural denotes more than one referent. For example, in English: To mark number, English has different singular and plural forms for nouns and verbs (in the third person): "my dog watch es television" (singular) and "my dog s watch television" (plural). This
2900-660: Is highly fusional , with classes of inflections for case , number , person , gender , tense , mood , voice , and aspect . The Latin alphabet is directly derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets . Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church at the Vatican City . The church continues to adapt concepts from modern languages to Ecclesiastical Latin of
3000-634: Is modelled after the British Victoria Cross which has the inscription "For Valour". Because Canada is officially bilingual, the Canadian medal has replaced the English inscription with the Latin Pro Valore . Spain's motto Plus ultra , meaning "even further", or figuratively "Further!", is also Latin in origin. It is taken from the personal motto of Charles V , Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain (as Charles I), and
3100-422: Is not universal: Wambaya marks number on nouns but not verbs, and Onondaga marks number on verbs but not nouns. Latin has different singular and plural forms for nouns, verbs, and adjectives, in contrast to English where adjectives do not change for number. Tundra Nenets can mark singular and plural on nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and postpositions . However, the most common part of speech to show
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3200-447: Is obligatory for pronouns but facultative for nouns. In Comanche , it is obligatory when referring to humans, facultative for other animate nouns, and rarely used for inanimate nouns. There are also languages where use of the dual number is more restricted than singular and plural. In the possessive noun forms of Northern Sámi , the possessor can be in the dual number, but the noun possessed can only be singular or plural. Pronouns are
3300-419: Is rare for a language to mark the trial on nouns, and some sources even claim that trial marking on nouns does not exist. However, it has been recorded for a few languages; besides Awa, Arabana , Urama , and Angaataha have trial number. It is much more common for a language to have trial pronouns, the case for the Austronesian languages of Larike , Tolai , Raga , and Wamesa . A minimal example
3400-1011: Is taught at many high schools, especially in Europe and the Americas. It is most common in British public schools and grammar schools, the Italian liceo classico and liceo scientifico , the German Humanistisches Gymnasium and the Dutch gymnasium . Occasionally, some media outlets, targeting enthusiasts, broadcast in Latin. Notable examples include Radio Bremen in Germany, YLE radio in Finland (the Nuntii Latini broadcast from 1989 until it
3500-411: Is the case for Sanskrit , North Mansi , and Alutiiq . In languages with a facultative dual, two of something can be referred to using either the dual or the plural, and so plural means two or more. This is the case for modern Arabic dialects, at least some Inuktitut dialects, and Yandruwandha . In some languages, the dual is obligatory in certain cases but facultative in others. In Slovene , it
3600-417: Is this always the case. The Northern Gumuz paucal/plural may sometimes refer to "much greater than four". In some languages, the default form of a noun is not singular, but rather general, which does not specify number and could mean one or more than one. Singular and plural forms are marked from the general form. The general is used when the specific number is deemed irrelevant or unimportant. In this system,
3700-456: Is to categorize the apparent trial/quadral/quintal forms as "cardinal plurals", or forms of the grammatical plural number where the number of people is specified. Other authors have treated these concepts as perfectly equivalent, referring to pronoun numeral incorporation while still applying the terms quadral and quintal. There are also cases of sign language pronouns indicating specific numbers of referents above five. Ugandan Sign Language has
3800-611: Is used for groups of four or more (and must be used instead of the plural for a group of two or more dyads). There is thus some overlap between the two groups; a family of four can be referred to in Sursurunga by either of the paucals. This distinction is found both in Sursurunga's personal pronouns and in two different sets of possessive pronouns, one for edible things and one for non-edible things. The quadral number denotes exactly four items. Apparent examples of its use are almost entirely confined to pronouns, and specifically those in
3900-543: The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same: volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance and relevant information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy . About 270,000 inscriptions are known. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. In
4000-528: The Holy See , the primary language of its public journal , the Acta Apostolicae Sedis , and the working language of the Roman Rota . Vatican City is also home to the world's only automatic teller machine that gives instructions in Latin. In the pontifical universities postgraduate courses of Canon law are taught in Latin, and papers are written in the same language. There are
4100-502: The Late Latin period, language changes reflecting spoken (non-classical) norms tend to be found in greater quantities in texts. As it was free to develop on its own, there is no reason to suppose that the speech was uniform either diachronically or geographically. On the contrary, Romanised European populations developed their own dialects of the language, which eventually led to the differentiation of Romance languages . Late Latin
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4200-770: The Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio ), the lower Tiber area around Rome , Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire . By the late Roman Republic , Old Latin had evolved into standardized Classical Latin . Vulgar Latin refers to the less prestigious colloquial registers , attested in inscriptions and some literary works such as those of
4300-607: The Middle Ages as a working and literary language from the 9th century to the Renaissance , which then developed a classicizing form, called Renaissance Latin . This was the basis for Neo-Latin which evolved during the early modern period . In these periods Latin was used productively and generally taught to be written and spoken, at least until the late seventeenth century, when spoken skills began to erode. It then became increasingly taught only to be read. Latin grammar
4400-574: The Middle Ages , borrowing from Latin occurred from ecclesiastical usage established by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century or indirectly after the Norman Conquest , through the Anglo-Norman language . From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed " inkhorn terms ", as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by
4500-605: The Sorbian languages . Indo-European languages that have long ago lost the dual still sometimes have residual traces of it, such as the English distinctions both vs. all , either vs. any , and neither vs. none . The Norwegian både , cognate with English both , has further evolved to be able to refer to more than two items, as in både epler, pærer, og druer , literally "both apples, pears, and grapes." The trial number denotes exactly three items. For example, in Awa : It
4600-407: The common language of international communication , science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the early 19th century, by which time modern languages had supplanted it in common academic and political usage. Late Latin is the literary language from the 3rd century AD onward. No longer spoken as a native language, Medieval Latin was used across Western and Catholic Europe during
4700-519: The demonstrative determiners—and finite verbs inflect to agree with the number of the noun forms they modify or have as subject: this car and these cars are correct, while * this cars and * these car are incorrect. However, adjectives do not inflect for and many verb forms do not distinguish between singular and plural ("She/They went", "She/They can go", "She/They had gone", "She/They will go"). Many languages distinguish between count nouns and mass nouns . Only count nouns can be freely used in
4800-637: The British Crown. The motto is featured on all presently minted coinage and has been featured in most coinage throughout the nation's history. Several states of the United States have Latin mottos , such as: Many military organizations today have Latin mottos, such as: Some law governing bodies in the Philippines have Latin mottos, such as: Some colleges and universities have adopted Latin mottos, for example Harvard University 's motto
4900-703: The Germanic and Slavic nations. It became useful for international communication between the member states of the Holy Roman Empire and its allies. Without the institutions of the Roman Empire that had supported its uniformity, Medieval Latin was much more liberal in its linguistic cohesion: for example, in classical Latin sum and eram are used as auxiliary verbs in the perfect and pluperfect passive, which are compound tenses. Medieval Latin might use fui and fueram instead. Furthermore,
5000-599: The Grinch Stole Christmas! , The Cat in the Hat , and a book of fairy tales, " fabulae mirabiles ", are intended to garner popular interest in the language. Additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissner's Latin Phrasebook . Some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series,
5100-472: The Kiwaian languages, but it is now recognized that many actually have a paucal instead. Linguist Michael Cysouw has suggested that most languages reported to have trials in fact have mislabelled paucals, and that true trials are very rare. On the other hand, Luise Hercus stated in her published grammar of Arabana that the language's trial (which can be marked on nouns) is a true trial which cannot act as
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#17327906779995200-630: The Latin language. Contemporary Latin is more often studied to be read rather than spoken or actively used. Latin has greatly influenced the English language , along with a large number of others, and historically contributed many words to the English lexicon , particularly after the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest . Latin and Ancient Greek roots are heavily used in English vocabulary in theology ,
5300-458: The Melanesian pidgins of Tok Pisin, Bislama, and Pijin. However, while these are grammatically possible, they are rare, and plural forms are almost always used in their place. Many different sign languages have been explicitly described as having quadral pronoun forms. Estonian Sign Language has even been described as having the quadral for nouns. Marshallese has been said to have
5400-467: The United States the unofficial national motto until 1956 was E pluribus unum meaning "Out of many, one". The motto continues to be featured on the Great Seal . It also appears on the flags and seals of both houses of congress and the flags of the states of Michigan, North Dakota, New York, and Wisconsin. The motto's 13 letters symbolically represent the original Thirteen Colonies which revolted from
5500-563: The University of Kentucky, the University of Oxford and also Princeton University. There are many websites and forums maintained in Latin by enthusiasts. The Latin Misplaced Pages has more than 130,000 articles. Italian , French , Portuguese , Spanish , Romanian , Catalan , Romansh , Sardinian and other Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. There are also many Latin borrowings in English and Albanian , as well as
5600-444: The author and then forgotten, but some useful ones survived, such as 'imbibe' and 'extrapolate'. Many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French . Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and Dutch vocabularies. Those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Grammatical number The word "number"
5700-535: The beginning of the Renaissance . Petrarch for example saw Latin as a literary version of the spoken language. Medieval Latin is the written Latin in use during that portion of the post-classical period when no corresponding Latin vernacular existed, that is from around 700 to 1500 AD. The spoken language had developed into the various Romance languages; however, in the educated and official world, Latin continued without its natural spoken base. Moreover, this Latin spread into lands that had never spoken Latin, such as
5800-425: The benefit of those who do not understand Latin. There are also songs written with Latin lyrics . The libretto for the opera-oratorio Oedipus rex by Igor Stravinsky is in Latin. Parts of Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana are written in Latin. Enya has recorded several tracks with Latin lyrics. The continued instruction of Latin is seen by some as a highly valuable component of a liberal arts education. Latin
5900-430: The comic playwrights Plautus and Terence and the author Petronius . While often called a "dead language", Latin did not undergo language death . By the 6th to 9th centuries, natural language change eventually resulted in Latin as a vernacular language evolving into distinct Romance languages in the large areas where it had come to be natively spoken. However, even after the fall of Western Rome , Latin remained
6000-465: The country's full Latin name. Some film and television in ancient settings, such as Sebastiane , The Passion of the Christ and Barbarians (2020 TV series) , have been made with dialogue in Latin. Occasionally, Latin dialogue is used because of its association with religion or philosophy, in such film/television series as The Exorcist and Lost (" Jughead "). Subtitles are usually shown for
6100-503: The decline in written Latin output. Despite having no native speakers, Latin is still used for a variety of purposes in the contemporary world. The largest organisation that retains Latin in official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church . The Catholic Church required that Mass be carried out in Latin until the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965 , which permitted the use of the vernacular . Latin remains
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#17327906779996200-533: The demonstrative, that/those , and on the verb, is/are . In the second sentence, all this information is redundant , since quantity is already indicated by the numeral two . A language has grammatical number when its noun forms are subdivided into morphological classes according to the quantity they express, such that: This is partly true for English: every noun and pronoun form is singular or plural (a few, such as " fish ", " cannon " and " you ", can be either, according to context). Some modifiers of nouns—namely
6300-568: The development of European culture, religion and science. The vast majority of written Latin belongs to this period, but its full extent is unknown. The Renaissance reinforced the position of Latin as a spoken and written language by the scholarship by the Renaissance humanists . Petrarch and others began to change their usage of Latin as they explored the texts of the Classical Latin world. Skills of textual criticism evolved to create much more accurate versions of extant texts through
6400-568: The dual can only be used by an adult male speaking to another adult male. Dual number existed in all nouns and adjectives of Proto-Indo-European around 4000 BCE, and was inherited in some form in many of its prehistoric , protohistoric , ancient , and medieval descendents. Only rarely has it persisted in Indo-European languages to the modern day. It survived in Proto-Germanic in the first and second person pronouns, where it
6500-413: The earliest extant Latin literary works, such as the comedies of Plautus and Terence . The Latin alphabet was devised from the Etruscan alphabet . The writing later changed from what was initially either a right-to-left or a boustrophedon script to what ultimately became a strictly left-to-right script. During the late republic and into the first years of the empire, from about 75 BC to AD 200,
6600-491: The existence of multiple plural categories may blur the line between paucal and plural. For example, Mele-Fila is said to have a paucal, plural, and greater plural. However, the transition between plural and greater plural occurs around 15 to 20. This puts the Mele-Fila "plural" in range of some larger "paucals" described in other languages. Thus the distinction is muddied between a system of paucal, plural, greater plural, and
6700-445: The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and some important texts were rediscovered. Comprehensive versions of authors' works were published by Isaac Casaubon , Joseph Scaliger and others. Nevertheless, despite the careful work of Petrarch, Politian and others, first the demand for manuscripts, and then the rush to bring works into print, led to the circulation of inaccurate copies for several centuries following. Neo-Latin literature
6800-459: The genus Larvivora in 2006. This article about an Old World flycatcher is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Latin language Latin ( lingua Latina , pronounced [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna] , or Latinum [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃] ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages . Latin was originally spoken by
6900-572: The global plural, the remote plural, the plural of abundance, the unlimited plural, and the superplural. For example, in Tswana : The greater plural may also be a component of larger number systems. Nouns in Barngarla have a four-way distinction of singular, dual, plural, and greater plural. The same four-way distinction is found in Mokilese pronouns, where a former trial has evolved to become
7000-401: The greater plural exists only in nouns and not pronouns. Oppositely, Mokilese has the greater plural in pronouns but not nouns. Chamacoco has the greater plural only in first person inclusive pronouns, second person pronouns, and first person inclusive verb inflections. Tigre has the greater plural only in a single word, nälät , which means a large number of deer. Greatest plural is
7100-425: The grounds that a Russian noun cannot be declined to stand by itself and mean anywhere between 2 and 4. Similar constructions can be found in other Slavic languages , including Polish , Serbo-Croatian , and Slovene. Because Slovene also has a regular dual, there is a four-way distinction of nouns being singular with 1, dual with 2, plural with 3 or 4, and genitive plural with 5 or more. The greater paucal number
7200-575: The highland Lepoʼ Sawa dialect spoken in Long Anap . There seems to be no other published sources of info on this dialect's pronouns, and an investigation into the lowland Lebo’ Vo’ dialect has revealed a paucal instead of a quadral. A quadral claim has also been made for the animate demonstrative pronouns in Nauruan . Outside the Austronesian family, Abun storytelling reportedly frequently contains quadral pronouns in addition to trial ones. Perhaps
7300-546: The history of Latin, and the kind of informal Latin that had begun to move away from the written language significantly in the post-Imperial period, that led ultimately to the Romance languages . During the Classical period, informal language was rarely written, so philologists have been left with only individual words and phrases cited by classical authors, inscriptions such as Curse tablets and those found as graffiti . In
7400-703: The invention of printing and are now published in carefully annotated printed editions, such as the Loeb Classical Library , published by Harvard University Press , or the Oxford Classical Texts , published by Oxford University Press . Latin translations of modern literature such as: The Hobbit , Treasure Island , Robinson Crusoe , Paddington Bear , Winnie the Pooh , The Adventures of Tintin , Asterix , Harry Potter , Le Petit Prince , Max and Moritz , How
7500-467: The lack of grammatical number with an extensive system of measure words . Joseph Greenberg has proposed a number category hierarchy as a linguistic universal : "No language has a trial number unless it has a dual. No language has a dual unless it has a plural." This hierarchy does not account for the paucal. Obligatory plural marking of all nouns is found throughout the languages of western and northern Eurasia and most parts of Africa . The rest of
7600-704: The language of the Roman Rite . The Tridentine Mass (also known as the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass) is celebrated in Latin. Although the Mass of Paul VI (also known as the Ordinary Form or the Novus Ordo) is usually celebrated in the local vernacular language, it can be and often is said in Latin, in part or in whole, especially at multilingual gatherings. It is the official language of
7700-405: The language, Vulgar Latin (termed sermo vulgi , "the speech of the masses", by Cicero ). Some linguists, particularly in the nineteenth century, believed this to be a separate language, existing more or less in parallel with the literary or educated Latin, but this is now widely dismissed. The term 'Vulgar Latin' remains difficult to define, referring both to informal speech at any time within
7800-437: The languages of Oceania or in sign languages . It has been contested whether the quadral truly exists in natural language; some linguists have rejected it as an extant category, while others have accepted it. Some languages that have previously been described as having a quadral, like Sursurunga, have since been reanalyzed as having a paucal instead. Like trial forms, quadral forms of pronouns have been said to be attested in
7900-431: The meanings of many words were changed and new words were introduced, often under influence from the vernacular. Identifiable individual styles of classically incorrect Latin prevail. Renaissance Latin, 1300 to 1500, and the classicised Latin that followed through to the present are often grouped together as Neo-Latin , or New Latin, which have in recent decades become a focus of renewed study , given their importance for
8000-433: The only known spoken language outside Oceania to have a claimed quadral is Apinayé of Brazil, recorded as having a third person pronominal prefix meaning "they four", although this has been little researched or described. In some Austronesian languages with a singular/dual/trial/plural pronoun system, the plural forms are etymologically related to the number four. This has led to suggestions or assertions that historically
8100-457: The only part of speech with a dual form in some Polynesian languages , including Samoan , Tuvaluan , and Māori . In Maltese , the dual only exists for about 30 specific nouns, of which it is obligatory for only 8 (hour, day, week, month, year, once, hundred, and thousand). Words that can take a facultative dual in Maltese include egg, branch, tear, and wicker basket. In Mezquital Otomi ,
8200-649: The paucal in Avar). Takivatan Bunun has a paucal only in its distal demonstratives used in reference to people. It is common for former trials to evolve in meaning to become paucals, and many Austronesian languages have paucal markers that are etymologically derived from the numeral three, indicating the old usage. It is less common for duals to evolve into paucals, but this has been observed in some dialects of Arabic. Paucals that are etymologically trials are sometimes incorrectly described as being trials. For example, trial pronouns were once described as being found in all
8300-418: The primary factor for using the paucal is not a specific number range, but the referents forming a single group; although the paucal is most common between 3 and 5, it has been used with more than 20. In Paamese , a major factor is relative group size compared to the plural, such that even though the paucal generally means 12 or fewer, a group of 2,000 people may be referred to in the paucal when contrasted with
8400-870: The pronouns in Mussau and Lihir have dual, trial, and paucal. The lower bound of the paucal is usually defined by what other number categories exist in the language. In singular/paucal/plural paradigms, use of the paucal begins at two, but with the addition of the dual, the paucal begins at three. There is usually no exact upper bound on how many paucal refers to, and its approximate range depends on both language and context. It has been recorded as going up to about 5 in Warndarrang , about 6 in Baiso , 10 in Arabic, and about 10 or 15 in Murrinh-patha . In Manam ,
8500-415: The quadral as a regular feature in its pronoun system. While the apparent Marshallese quadral can mean exactly four, it also has an alternate rhetorical use in speeches to larger groups in order to impart a sense of individual intimacy. According to Greville Corbett , this means it is better classified as a paucal. However, there is not consensus that this alternate use means Marshallese does not truly have
8600-525: The range of possible numbers into different sections. One low cut defines paucal and plural, and one high cut defines plural and greater plural. Two low cuts define paucal, greater paucal, and plural; one low cut and one high cut define paucal, plural, and greater plural; and two high cuts define plural, greater plural, and greatest plural. There does not appear to be any language with three such cuts, and so no language with three paucal categories and an "even greater paucal". Because they are inexactly defined,
8700-421: The sciences , medicine , and law . A number of phases of the language have been recognized, each distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, and syntax. There are no hard and fast rules of classification; different scholars emphasize different features. As a result, the list has variants, as well as alternative names. In addition to the historical phases, Ecclesiastical Latin refers to
8800-504: The second person pronouns yutufala (dual) and yutrifala (trial). These forms theoretically have no specific limit, but in practicality usually stop at three. Sign languages described as having a quintal in addition to the quadral include American Sign Language , Argentine Sign Language , British Sign Language , German Sign Language , Levantine Arabic Sign Language , and Ugandan Sign Language . The validity has been debated of categorizing sign language pronouns as having
8900-566: The singular and in the plural. Mass nouns, like "milk", "gold", and "furniture", are normally invariant. (In some cases, a normally mass noun X may be used as a count noun to collect several distinct kinds of X into an enumerable group; for example, a cheesemaker might speak of goat, sheep, and cow milk as milks .) Not all languages have number as a grammatical category. In those that do not, quantity must be expressed either directly, with numerals , or indirectly, through optional quantifiers . However, many of these languages compensate for
9000-569: The storytelling of Abun , a possible language isolate. In the Solomon Islands, trial pronouns are used very frequently in Touo , either a Central Solomon language or a language isolate. As a result, bilingual speakers of Touo and Pijin will use trial pronouns a lot more commonly in Pijin than other speakers, for whom the trial is usually a lot less common than the dual. A very rare example of
9100-578: The styles used by the writers of the Roman Catholic Church from late antiquity onward, as well as by Protestant scholars. The earliest known form of Latin is Old Latin, also called Archaic or Early Latin, which was spoken from the Roman Kingdom , traditionally founded in 753 BC, through the later part of the Roman Republic , up to 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin . It is attested both in inscriptions and in some of
9200-537: The use of markers higher than the dual not being obligatory, with replacement by the plural being acceptable. There was not enough data available to McBurney to argue whether or not these reasons equally applied to other sign languages. Linguist Raquel Veiga Busto has argued they do not equally apply to Catalan Sign Language , and has applied the terms quadral and quintal to the language's pronouns for convenience without taking an official stance as to whether they are grammatical number or numeral incorporation. A third model
9300-695: The world's languages present a heterogeneous picture. Optional plural marking is common in Southeast and East Asia and Australian languages , and complete lack of plural marking is particularly found in New Guinea and Australian languages. In addition to the areal correlations , there also seems to be at least one correlation with morphological typology : isolating languages appear to favor no or non-obligatory plural marking. This can be seen particularly in Africa, where optionality or absence of plural marking
9400-422: The written form of Latin was increasingly standardized into a fixed form, the spoken forms began to diverge more greatly. Currently, the five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish , Portuguese , French , Italian , and Romanian . Despite dialectal variation, which is found in any widespread language, the languages of Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy have retained
9500-783: Was also used as a convenient medium for translations of important works first written in a vernacular, such as those of Descartes . Latin education underwent a process of reform to classicise written and spoken Latin. Schooling remained largely Latin medium until approximately 1700. Until the end of the 17th century, the majority of books and almost all diplomatic documents were written in Latin. Afterwards, most diplomatic documents were written in French (a Romance language ) and later native or other languages. Education methods gradually shifted towards written Latin, and eventually concentrating solely on reading skills. The decline of Latin education took several centuries and proceeded much more slowly than
9600-491: Was extensive and prolific, but less well known or understood today. Works covered poetry, prose stories and early novels, occasional pieces and collections of letters, to name a few. Famous and well regarded writers included Petrarch, Erasmus, Salutati , Celtis , George Buchanan and Thomas More . Non fiction works were long produced in many subjects, including the sciences, law, philosophy, historiography and theology. Famous examples include Isaac Newton 's Principia . Latin
9700-503: Was largely separated from the unifying influences in the western part of the Empire. Spoken Latin began to diverge into distinct languages by the 9th century at the latest, when the earliest extant Romance writings begin to appear. They were, throughout the period, confined to everyday speech, as Medieval Latin was used for writing. For many Italians using Latin, though, there was no complete separation between Italian and Latin, even into
9800-529: Was perceived as a separate language, for instance early French or Italian dialects, that could be transcribed differently. It took some time for these to be viewed as wholly different from Latin however. After the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 and Germanic kingdoms took its place, the Germanic people adopted Latin as a language more suitable for legal and other, more formal uses. While
9900-482: Was shut down in June 2019), and Vatican Radio & Television, all of which broadcast news segments and other material in Latin. A variety of organisations, as well as informal Latin 'circuli' ('circles'), have been founded in more recent times to support the use of spoken Latin. Moreover, a number of university classics departments have begun incorporating communicative pedagogies in their Latin courses. These include
10000-573: Was then inherited by Old English , Old High German , Old Low German , Early Old Swedish , Old Norwegian , Old Icelandic , and Gothic . It continued in Icelandic until the 1700s, some dialects of Faroese until at least the late 1800s, and some dialects of North Frisian through the 1900s. From Proto-Greek it entered Ancient Greek , and from Proto-Indo-Iranian it entered Sanskrit. From Proto-Slavic , it still exists today in Slovene and
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