89-728: The Nullarbor Plain ( / ˈ n ʌ l ər b ɔːr / NUL -ər-bor ; Latin : nulla feminine of nullus 'no' and arbor 'tree') is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world's largest single exposure of limestone bedrock , and occupies an area of about 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 sq mi). At its widest point, it stretches about 1,100 kilometres (684 mi) from east to west across
178-743: 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
267-562: 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
356-405: A poor season in 2005, with only 4 inches (102 mm) of rain falling compared to the average of 9 inches (229 mm). By 2006 things had improved, with 6 inches (152 mm) falling before the onset of winter, guaranteeing that winter grasses would germinate and stock of 32,000 sheep on the property at that stage would have adequate feed. Ross Wood, the station manager, retired in 2007. Wood
445-476: 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
534-481: A single-geared bike. In January 2017, Austrian cyclist Christoph Strasser set the current record from Norseman to Ceduna of 1 day, 21 hours, 42 minutes. The first non-Indigenous person to walk across Australia from the west to the east coast, Henri Gilbert , crossed the Nullarbor Plain on foot, with no support team or stock, in the middle of summer. His walk across Australia, from Fremantle to Brisbane ,
623-526: A small kit and a waterbag, he followed the telegraph line as he crossed the Nullarbor. He later described the heat as "1,000 degrees in the shade". In 1937 Hubert Opperman set a record fastest time of 13 days, 10 hours and 11 minutes for the transcontinental crossing from Fremantle to Sydney. His time cut five days off the previous record. During their three-year cycling trip around Australia between 1946 and 1949, Wendy Law Suart and Shirley Duncan became
712-709: 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
801-465: A water supply. This original line suffered severe problems with track flexing and settling in the desert sands, and journeys across the Plain were slow and arduous. The line was entirely rebuilt in 1969, as part of a project to standardise the previously disparate rail gauges in the various states, and the first crossing of the Nullarbor on the new line reached Perth on 27 February 1970. The Indian Pacific
890-411: 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 ,
979-639: Is a pastoral lease and sheep station located about 339 kilometres (211 mi) east of Kambalda in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia . The locality of Rawlinna and the Trans-Australian Railway are situated along the boundary of the station. It is the largest sheep station in Australia. The station occupies an area of about 10,117 square kilometres (3,906 sq mi) or 2.5 million acres in
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#17327804477971068-405: Is a former shallow seabed , as indicated by the presence of bryozoans , foraminifera , echinoids and red algae calcareous skeletons that make up the limestone . The region is also the location of "Nullarbor limestone" and it has a reputation as a significant karst region with Oligocene and Miocene cave formations. The sequence within the limestone includes five formations: One theory
1157-420: 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
1246-501: Is a regular passenger train crossing the Nullarbor from Perth to Sydney via Adelaide . The railway line has the longest straight section of railway in the world (478 km; 297 mi), while the Eyre Highway (refer below) contains the longest straight section of tarred road in Australia (146 km; 91 mi). Most of the inhabited areas of the Nullarbor Plain can be found in a series of small settlements located along
1335-640: 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
1424-711: Is completely impossible to run the Nullarbor. Once you're out there, however, there is a way. Robert Garside discovered it. So would I". Latin 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 the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio ),
1513-605: Is coterminous with the Nullarbor biogeographic region under the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA). The ecoregion is bounded on the west and southwest by the Coolgardie woodlands ecoregion, on the north and northeast by the Great Victoria Desert , on the southeast by the Eyre and Yorke mallee , and on the south by the Great Australian Bight . Vegetation in the area
1602-660: 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
1691-689: 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
1780-465: Is primarily low saltbush ( Atriplex spp.) and bluebush ( Maireana spp.) scrub. The fauna of the Nullarbor includes communities of crustaceans , spiders , and beetles adapted to the darkness of the Nullarbor Caves and the underground rivers and lakes that run through them. Mammals of the desert include the southern hairy-nosed wombat , which shelters from the hot sun by burrowing into
1869-494: Is stocked with approximately 60,000 sheep, with wool being sent to Adelaide for testing and sale. The record number of sheep shorn at Rawlinna is 80,000. The traditional owners of the land are the Mirning , Ngalea and Wangai peoples, who have inhabited the area for over 10,000 years. John Eyre and his companion Wylie passed through the area as they crossed the Nullarbor in the expedition of 1841. Eyre commented that
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#17327804477971958-1011: 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
2047-561: Is that the whole area was uplifted by crustal movements in the Miocene, and since then, erosion by wind and rain has reduced its thickness. The plain has most likely never had any major defining topographic features, resulting in the extremely flat terrain across the plain today. According to Curtin University research published in 2023, "Nullarbor drastically shifted to dry conditions between 2.4 and 2.7 million years ago". In areas,
2136-543: 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
2225-528: 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
2314-502: 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
2403-607: 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
2492-574: 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
2581-643: The Wangai people from their homeland. Since then, they have been awarded compensation, and many have returned to the general area. Others never left. Some agricultural interests are on the fringe of the plain including the 2.5-million-acre (1-million-hectare) Rawlinna Station , the largest sheep station in the world, on the Western Australian side of the plain. The property has a short history compared to other properties of its type around Australia, having been established in 1962 by Hugh G. MacLachlan, of
2670-407: 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
2759-521: The Australian 1981 thriller film Roadgames . The film was directed by Richard Franklin and starred Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis . The film has often been cited as one of the best Hitchcock films Alfred Hitchcock never made . On 25 December 1896, after an arduous journey of thirty-one days, Arthur Charles Jeston Richardson became the first cyclist to cross the Nullarbor Plain, pedaling his bicycle from Coolgardie to Adelaide. Carrying only
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2848-637: 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
2937-703: 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,
3026-599: 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,
3115-691: The Indies, Pieter Nuyts , on the Dutch East Indiaman 't Gulden Zeepaert (the Golden Seahorse). In 1626–1627, they charted a stretch of the southern Australian coast east of Cape Leeuwin and extending to longitude 133 30'E. While the interior remained little known to Europeans over the next two centuries, the stretch of coast adjoining the Great Australian Bight was named for Nuyts, and maps subsequent to 1627 bore
3204-630: 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 ,
3293-606: The Nullarbor Plain, E.A. Delisser in his journal named both Nullarbor and Eucla for the first time. A proposed new state of Auralia (meaning "land of gold") would have comprised the Goldfields, the western portion of the Nullarbor Plain and the port town of Esperance . Its capital would have been Kalgoorlie . During the British nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950s, the Australian Government removed
3382-692: The Nullarbor was "a blot on the face of nature". Established in 1962 by Hugh G. MacLachlan, of the South Australian pastoral family, the station has a short history compared to other properties of its type around Australia. Through the late 20th century the area proved to be prime pastoral and breeding country when seasonal conditions were good. In those days the station held between 40,000 and 60,000 sheep, and annually produced 1100 to 1700 bales of wool. In 2001, an amount of 78,417 sheep were shorn for 2177 bales of wool. In 2014 around 53,000 sheep were shorn and 1285 bales of wool. The station had
3471-429: The South Australian pastoral family. An older property is Madura Station , situated closer to the coast; it has a size of 1.7 million acres (690,000 ha) and is also stocked with sheep. Madura was established prior to 1927; the extent of the property at that time was reported as two million acres (810,000 hectares). In 2013, a huge area of the Nullarbor Plain, stretching almost 200 km (120 mi) from
3560-467: 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
3649-504: 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
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3738-668: The Western Australian border to the Great Australian Bight, was proclaimed as the Nullarbor Wilderness Protection Area under the Wilderness Protection Act 1992 (SA), doubling the area of land in South Australia under environmental protection to 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres). The area contains 390 species of plants and a large number of habitats for rare species of animals and birds. The Nullarbor Plain
3827-442: The area across the Nullarbor and Great Australian Bight was a "hideous anomaly, a blot on the face of Nature, the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams". Eyre departed westwards from Fowlers Bay, South Australia on 17 November 1840 with John Baxter and a party of three Aboriginal men. When three of his horses died of dehydration , he returned to Fowler's Bay. He departed with a second expedition on 25 February 1841. By 29 April,
3916-529: The arid climate. In particular, many meteorites have been discovered around Mundrabilla , some up to several tonnes in weight. According to the USDA soil taxonomy system, the Nullarbor's soils are classified as mainly consisting of aridisols . Frequently The Nullarbor is expanded in tourist literature and web-based material to loosely refer to all the land between Adelaide , South Australia and Perth , Western Australia . Through observing satellite images,
4005-442: 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. Rawlinna Station Rawlinna Station
4094-535: 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
4183-425: 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
4272-521: The border between South Australia and Western Australia . Historically, the Nullarbor was seasonally occupied by Indigenous Australian people , the Mirning clans and Yinyila people. Traditionally, the area was called Oondiri , which is said to mean 'the waterless'. The first Europeans known to have sighted and mapped the Nullarbor coast were Captain François Thijssen and Councillor of
4361-500: The bores are 140 metres (459 ft) deep and are all powered by windmills . A homestead exists about 11 kilometres (7 mi) south west of the railway siding. A huge shearing complex, known as the Depot Outstation, was built in the middle of the property in 1967. The outstation has a 16-stand shearing shed , an overseer's house, shearers' and station hands' accommodation, mess and kitchen facilities. The property
4450-485: The boundary between eastern and western Australia, regardless of the travel method. The press might write that a prime minister who visits Perth has "headed across the Nullarbor". "Crossing the Nullarbor", for many Australians, is a quintessential experience of the "Australian Outback ". Stickers bought from roadhouses on the highway show "I have crossed the Nullarbor", and can be seen on vehicles of varying quality or capacity for long-distance travel. The process of "beating
4539-423: The centre. The unsealed Trans Access Road closely follows the Trans-Australian Railway , running all the way from Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta and onward. It services the numerous cattle and sheep stations that populate the Western side of the Nullarbor and affords access to rail maintenance teams. It is a brutally rough road and—despite the amount of traffic it carries—is poorly maintained. The Nullarbor represents
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#17327804477974628-433: The coast, the temperature is milder with more rainfall in the winter months. The mean annual rainfall at Cook is 184.1 millimetres (7.25 in), with most rain falling between May and August. Summers are very dry, with rain falling mainly from sporadic storms; however, occasionally decaying tropical systems can cause heavier rain in the summer months. Temperatures on the plain have ranged from 49.9 °C (121.8 °F) at
4717-430: 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
4806-465: 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
4895-681: The crowds" on overbooked and overpriced air services at the time of special sporting events can also see significant numbers of vehicles on the road. Crossing the Nullarbor in the 1950s and earlier was a significant achievement, as most of the route then was a dirt track of variable quality, and presenting real hazards to the motorist. It presented one of the major challenges in Round-Australia car trials (the Redex and Ampol Trials ) and gave photographers many opportunities for shots of daring driving and motoring misfortune. The Nullarbor features in
4984-503: 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
5073-568: 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
5162-413: 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,
5251-512: The east to drought -resistant shrubs and grasses on the plain. Feral dogs are a problem for graziers on the Nullarbor, so a 3-metre (10 ft) dog-proof fence was constructed with marsupial netting at the base; it is 370 kilometres (230 mi) in length. A separate 900-square-kilometre (347 sq mi) block adjoins the fence that is also dog proofed with a solar powered electric fence . Stock are watered from 37 bores in 87 main paddocks, along with other holding paddocks. Some of
5340-453: The ecoregion is in protected areas. Protected areas include: The need for a communications link across the continent was the spur for the development of an east–west crossing. Once Eyre had proved that a link between South Australia and Western Australia was possible, efforts to connect them via telegraph began. In 1877, after two years of labour, the first messages were sent on the new telegraph line, boosted by eight repeater stations along
5429-445: 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
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#17327804477975518-406: The first women to cycle across the Plain. Between 29 June and 3 July 2015, brothers Tyron and Aaron Bicknell recorded the fastest-known crossing of the Nullarbor Plain on single speed bicycles. Their ride took advantage of the low temperatures in the Australian winter months and was completed over 4 days, 5 hours and 21 minutes, making it one of the fastest bicycle crossings and the fastest done with
5607-546: 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
5696-703: 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
5785-412: 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
5874-405: 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
5963-424: The legend "Landt van P. Nuyts" or "Terre de Nuyts". That survives as two geographical names in West Australia: Nuytsland Nature Reserve and Nuyts Land District , and in South Australia as Nuyts Reef, Cape Nuyts and the Nuyts Archipelago . Edward John Eyre became the first European to successfully cross the Nullarbor (from East to West) in 1841. In writing about Eyre's voyages in 1865, Henry Kingsley wrote that
6052-438: The like-named Nullarbor, South Australia which is the fourth hottest recorded temperature (and the hottest recorded December temperature) in all of Australia, to −7.2 °C (19.0 °F) at Eyre , which is the coldest recorded temperature in Western Australia. The Nullarbor Plain constitutes a deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion , called the Nullarbor Plains xeric shrublands by the World Wildlife Fund . The ecoregion
6141-482: The limits of the limestone formation of the plain can be seen to stretch from approximately 20 km (12 mi) west of the original Balladonia settlement (now abandoned) to its easternmost limit a few kilometres west of the town of Ceduna. The Nullarbor has a desert climate , with arid to semi-arid conditions. Inland, summers can be scorching hot, with daytime temperatures close to 50 °C (122 °F), while in winter nights can drop well below freezing. Closer to
6230-427: 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
6319-431: 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
6408-706: The party had reached Caiguna . Lack of supplies and water led to a mutiny . Two of the Aboriginal men killed Baxter and took the party's supplies. Eyre and the third Aboriginal man, Wylie , continued on their journey, surviving through bushcraft and some fortuitous circumstances such as receiving some supplies from a French whaling vessel anchored at Rossiter Bay , Western Australia, some 36 kilometres (22 mi) east of Esperance . They completed their journey in Albany in June 1841. In August 1865, while travelling across
6497-624: The railway, and in small settlements along the Eyre Highway that provide services to travellers, mostly spaced between one and two hundred kilometres apart. The town of Cook , in South Australia , was formerly a moderately thriving settlement of about 40 people, with a school and a golf course. The reduction of railway operations at the town resulted in its virtual desertion, and it now has a permanent population of four. The Tea and Sugar Train operated until 1996, supplying provisions to
6586-610: The remote south east of Western Australia, making it the largest sheep station in Australia. It is owned by the Jumbuck Pastoral Company . The station is an amalgamation of the Pondana, Rawlinna and Vanesk leases. It encompasses part of the Nullarbor Plain , so the geology changes from the red dirt of the goldfields to the plain's famous white limestone outcrops. The vegetation changes from woodlands to
6675-528: The sands, as well as typical desert animals such as red kangaroos and dingoes . An elusive subspecies of the Australian masked owl unique to the Nullarbor is known to roost in the many caves on the plain. The grasslands of the Nullarbor are suitable for some sheep grazing and are also damaged by rabbits . The caves provide roosts to large colonies of wattled microbats, species Chalinolobus morio . A 2017 assessment found that 62,317 km, or 32%, of
6764-421: 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
6853-490: The southern ocean blows through many caves, resulting in blowholes up to several hundred metres from the coast. The Murrawijinie Cave in South Australia is open to the public, but most of the Nullarbor Caves on the Western Australian side can only be visited and viewed with a permit from the Department of Parks and Wildlife . The Nullarbor is known for extensive meteorite deposits, which are extremely well preserved in
6942-641: 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
7031-495: The town along the railway line. The Eyre Highway , which connects Norseman in Western Australia to Port Augusta, was carved across the continent in 1941. At first it was little more than a rough track but was gradually sealed over the next thirty years. The last unsealed section of the Eyre Highway was finally sealed in 1976. Unlike the railway, though, it crosses the plain at its southernmost edge rather than through
7120-431: The way. The line operated for about 50 years before being superseded, and remnants of it remain visible. The Trans-Australian Railway railway line crosses the Nullarbor Plain from Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta . Construction of the line began in 1917, when two teams set out from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and Port Augusta in South Australia, meeting in the centre of the Plain at Ooldea , an uninhabited area noted for
7209-481: The world . Unconventionally, Garside obtained water and other support from "passing traffic" who would leave water cached ahead for him at agreed drop-offs, to achieve the feat. In 2010, columnist Dan Koeppel ran the 200 mi (320 km) heart of the Nullarbor with a friend the same way, to vindicate Garside. Garside commented in his diary, that "the key to running the Nullarbor turned out to be Australian hospitality", and Koeppel concurred that "[F]rom an armchair it
7298-422: 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
7387-447: Was achieved between August 1897 and December 1898. For two winter months in 1985, six young Jesus Christians walked 1600 kilometres (1000 miles) from Port Augusta to Norseman without taking any food, water, additional clothing or a support vehicle- although supplies were given to them by passing motorists. In 1998, runner Robert Garside ran across the Nullarbor without a formal support crew, as part of an authenticated run around
7476-783: 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
7565-491: 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
7654-503: 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
7743-529: 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
7832-431: 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
7921-433: Was the third manager employed at Rawlinna since 1967, the other two being David Seaton and Murray McQuie. Michael Simons, who started with Jumbuck as a jackaroo in 1983, replaced Wood in 2007. Jimmy Wood became station manager in 2018. In April 2023, it was reported that Fortescue Metals Group was to acquire the station for renewable energy generation. In November 2024, it was reported that Fortescue had withdrawn from
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