Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Dono, -are – I Give
This week’s word of the week is Dono, -are. It means “to give”. There are so many words in the Latin Language for giving. This month we will explore a few of them as we prepare for the Christmas season.
St. Martin of Tours
St. Martin of Tours the perfect saint to kick off our series on giving. His feast day is November 11. St. Martin was not only a military man (making veterans day a great feast day) but he was known for his act of giving.
St. Martin was a Roman solider stationed in modern day France. He was traveling through a town when a beggar dressed in nothing but rags caught his attention. It was winter, and very cold out. St. Martin took out his sword and cut his own cloak into two pieces. He gave half of it to the beggar.
There are a couple different versions of the story, in one – Martin later dreams that Jesus was the beggar wearing the cloak, and in another, when he awakes the next morning his cloak is fully restored.
St. Martin’s cloak was later added to the royal treasury in 679 AD. The priests who took care of the cloak (cape) were called cappellanu and priests who served in the military were called cappellani. The French translation is chapelains and it is where we get our word “Chaplain.
Similarly, there were small church’s build to house the relic called “capella”. This later gave us our English word “chapel”
English Derivatives
Donation: Noun. Meaning – an act or instance of presenting something as a gift, grant, or contribution.
Condone: Verb. Meaning – to give tacit approval to
Donative: Noun. Meaning – a gift or donation.
Donate: Verb. Meaning – to make a gift, grant, or contribution of something; give; contribute:
Donator: Noun. Meaning – one who gives, grants, or contributes to something.
Pardon: Noun. Meaning – kind indulgence, as in forgiveness of an offense or discourtesy or in tolerance of a distraction or inconvenience:
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Elucido- I Enlighten
This week’s word of the week is elucido, -are. It means “I enlighten”. Taken from the opening line of the 95 Theses. English Derivates we get are: elucidate, elucidation, elucubrate, elucubration. The stem word is Lux – Light (luc).
Reformation Day is well on it’s way. Our Regional Synod celebrates Reformation on October 24th this year. Before we get started, I feel I need to apologize for my slacking on newsletters lately. As many of you know, Titvs Classics is a little hobby for me. I started it during shut downs and slowness at work, and now work is starting to ramp up again, leaving me little time to write newsletters. But I can not miss out on the excitement of Reformation Day! I have some fun treats for you all below!
Reformation Day As most in my audience knows, Reformation Day is a celebration of the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses on the door in Wittenberg. I first learned about this day in AP European History class in the very liberal Public School System. If that doesn’t tell you something about the significance of this day, I don’t know what will.
While Titvs Classics is unapologetically Lutheran, our main mission is to teach Latin. So some of you may be wondering what Reformation Day has to do with the Latin Language.
History tells us the 95 Theses was nailed to the door, and news of it spread like wildfire. But we also know that Martin Luther didn’t set out to split the Catholic Church. He wanted to have a conversation with other academics and theologians like himself. The 95 Theses that was hammered onto the door in Wittenberg was written in Latin.
An unknown person translated it into German and distributed it among the masses. This is during a time when the Bible is only in Latin, and Latin is only the language of the church.
Reformation Day Activity
Instead of English Derivates, I have a few activities for your students that are more advance in their Latin Learning. Pull out your Latin Dictionary! You will need it!
— Here is the full 95 Theses in Latin. Have them pick 5-10 and translate them. How does their translation compare to this one in English. Do they interpret anything differently? do they find a deeper meaning?
— For younger kids, have them pull out their “Latin in Church” Coloring book and print out the 95 Theses in Latin (linked above). Give them a highlighter or pen and have them circle or highlight the words from our Latin in Church book that are also used in the 95 theses!
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Scribit – To Write
This week’s word of the week is Scribit. It means “to write”.
St. Jerome
Who is Saint Jerome? Saint Jerome lived in modern day Croatia. He is most famous for translating the Bible into Latin. His translation is known as the Vulgate. Saint Jerome became a Christian in his adult years. He studied the classics deeply and after becoming a Christian abandoned his studies to devote his time to the study of the word of God. He moved to Antioch and Constantinople, visited Syria and he worked with Jewish Christians to translate the Bible from original Hebrew and Greek into Latin. St. Jerome’s work gave us the Bible we have today.
The Vulgate
St. Jerome created the Vulgate in 382 AD. However it was not formally adopted by the Council of Trent until 1545!The Vulgate was the official translation of the Catholic Church until 1979.What made the Vulgate special is that the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Latin, vs using the Greek Septuagint as the primary source. This was controversial at the time, but resulted in our modern day translations. Saint Jerome also wrote many defenses, prefaces, and letters regarding his reasonings behind his translations which offer further context and reliability to his translations. St. Jerome used his gift of language for the Glory of God to bring his word to new ears. His feast day is September 30.
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Fortis– Brave
This week’s word of the week isFortis. It means valiant, strong, powerful, brave, steadfast, sturdy. It is Nom. 2nd Declension.
Bravery
What is Bravery? The movies give us an idea. They give us a hero who goes into harm’s way without a second glance. They show someone willing to sacrifice it all with a determination as solid as rock.
Roman Bravery is a key theme to the culture of Rome. Romans were obsessed with Bravery
– Gladiators anyone?
In past Latin Word of the Week editions, I have talked about Roman Values, one was Virtus – Bravery. Virtus is specific to male bravery and military bravery.
When researching what the Roman’s thought about Bravery, there was always a second virtue that was tied to bravery – Duty.
Romans had a deep deep sense of duty to their country and to their values. Bravery was not just acts of valor, but were displays of commitment and duty to their country and culture. They valued Rome and the values of Rome above their own welfare and even their life.
Bravery without Duty?
So this leads me to ask a question – Can you have bravery without duty?
Perhaps we don’t feel duty to our country in the same was as the Romans – but can one be brave without a sense of duty to something?
I only ask this because our culture is becoming increasingly self-absorbed. We only have duty to ourselves. – If we only have duty to ourselves, can we be brave? or will we always run away out of self-perseverance?
I think we know answer, because our culture is becoming increasingly afraid. Not many stand up for what is right anymore. Some of us, don’t even stand up for ourselves our of fear.
The news today is all about Niki Minaj. I know. I’m as shocked as you that her name is in one of my newsletters…isn’t this about Latin?
If you are still catching up, Niki tweeted a warning about a possible side effect of ….well…the jab. I want to link an article to you guys about it – but honestly, they are all cringe worthy so you will have to google it yourself.
Since tweeting that people should think and pray about getting the vaquine, the star has been banned from twitter and made fun of on every possible platform out there.
I don’t know what duty is motiving her. But she is clearly being brave here, and for her, the stakes are truly high.
I have to ask myself this question – what am I willing to sacrifice for what I know is right? I think many of us (Christians) – have known in the back of our heads that a day would come when we would be asked to make sacrifices. But I don’t know if any of us really know what that means. It’s not as black and white as I think many of us may have thought it would be.
Where is our sense of duty? Is it to our country? our family? our LORD?
How will we be Brave? Steadfast? Powerful? Strong? Valiant?
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Ridiculus– laughable
This week’s word of the week is Ridiculus. It comes from the root word, Ridere meaning “to laugh” it means Laughable, funny, absurd.
It’s All Ridiculousness Here!
One of my favorite scenes in Harry Potter is when the students of Hogwarts are facing their fears and turning what they are afraid of into something funny and tame with the spell “Riddikulus”. JK Rowling turned to Latin for many of her spells in her popular Harry Potter series and this is no exception. (Maybe this is a practice we should practice today?)
In the 14th century, the English word ridyculouse meant “worthy of ridicule or contemptuous laughter”. Stemming from our Latin word of the week – Ridiculus. Over time the spelling shifted to our modern day Ridiculous. The meaning shifted over time by the 18th century it was used to mean “comical, amusingly absurd.” By the 1960’s the word had been adopted by jazz slang to mean “excellent” (That was Ridiculously good).
In modern day US use, Ridiculous can also be used in a synonymous manner with “outrageous”.
What did the Roman’s find Ridiculous?
An ancient book from the 4th century AD gives us a pretty good idea. The Philogelos (Laughter Lover) is a Roman book of Jokes. And while, we may not know why some of the jokes in the book are funny, we do learn that through these Roman jokes there are certain principals of comedy that stand the test of time.
These principles are: ambiguity, the unexpected, wordplay, understatement, irony, ridicule, silliness and pratfalls
One such joke found in the Philogelos is “An idiot is returning home from a foreign trip, and is absolutely amazed to find himself climbing a steep hill. “When I first came this way,” he says to himself, “it was a nice downhill stroll. How can it have transformed into such a steep climb on my way back?”
Most jokes from the Philogelos aren’t for children. But they do share certain similarities with some of our more adult jokers today…
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Curro- I run
This week’s word of the week isCurro. Curro issingular and Indicative. It means “I run” .
Back to School
Back to School is here! I don’t know about you, but ever since I was in elementary school, Back to School time has always been my favorite time of year. I can’t wait until my boys are old enough to go school supplies shopping. There is something about getting a notebook you are excited to fill with notes that is just rewarding.
Many of you are probably putting the final touches on your homeschool Curriculum or after school curriculum, or gathering supplies for your child’s school curriculum. So I figured, it was appropriate for this week’s Latin word of the week to be Curro – I run. Which is where we get the word Curriculum.
When I first started Titvs Classics, Curro was the first word (and last) that I did a Reel on. I have wanted to do one for each newsletter, but Reels are not my forte.
So why is the verb I run the root word of Curriculum? Well in Latin “Curriculum” was the word for “racetrack”, or “course of action” and “way of behaving”. Professionally you may have applied for a job that asked for CV or “Curriculum Vitae” this document is suppose to show how you “run the race of life”. In education, Curriculum is our course of action for the year, or the way we run the race of education.
I like thinking education this way. Rather than a curriculum be benchmarks or a standard to meet, I think of it as a road map, a journey. It isn’t about the destination it’s about the method of traveling.
So if you don’t like the road you are on, find a new path, or if necessary, carve out your own!
So from me to you- Happy Start of School! Happy Travels!
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Natura- Nature
This week’s word of the week is Natura. Natura is singular, feminine, nominative and first declension. It means “nature”.
Roman thoughts on Natural Law
I apologize to my subscribers who may not be as in love with the political contributions of the Romans as I am. But I do believe that now more than ever, it is very relevant to what we are experiencing in our world today.
As a quick review: Our country was founded during the age of a classicism. This was a renaissance of sorts of all things classic. There was a new found love of the Greeks and Romans. Artists enjoyed painting gods and goddesses and their mythology, builders tried to emulate the temples of Rome and Greece. And philosophers, lawyers, policy-makers steeped themselves in Roman and Greek philosophy and thought. Our Founding Fathers made citations and references to the ancients on multiple occasions.
Cicero, a popular Roman Philosopher strongly held the belief of Natural Law. Natural Law is the belief that all law has it’s origin or root in nature – and in this time, by nature, Cicero meant the gods. Laws were passed down to people from the gods. This makes it supreme, true, and provides genuine justice. Cicero goes onto say that justice does not exist at all, if it does not come from nature or right reason (that being divine).
Cicero continues to explain that the law is outside of the bounds of time. He calls it eternal and everlasting. It has origins before any writing or any State was created.
I think what I love most about this, is that Cicero came to these conclusions around 50 years before the estimated time of Christ’s Birth. (Cicero was assassinated in 43 BC and it is estimated Christ was born between 4-6 BC). These principles are really written on the hearts of every man.
So what exactly is natural law?
According to Cicero, Natural law permits us as individuals to pursue self-help. To protect ourselves. It also forbids harming others either aggressively or through fraud. Other Philosophers like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Stuart Mills, and John Locke have also contributed to definitions and theories of Natural Law.
Ernst Levy writes succinctly puts it this way: “For nature ordains that anyone desire to promote the interests of a fellow-man, whoever he may be, just because he is a fellow-man.”
This is different from Man’s law which is bound by time, different amoungst different people, and largely based on expediency rather than justice.
You may be asking, why then do we have man’s law (i.e. the Government). In his book, Written on the Heart J. Budziszewski addresses this when talking about natural law.
A key purpose of government is supposed to be to protect natural law, better than we can protect it on our own. Any purpose of government that conflicts with the protection of natural rights, is illegitimate. Let’s finish the quote from our Declaration of Independence…
This newsletter is turning out to be about much more than a word. But I do hope this sparks something in your heart. We have been given rights by the nature of who we are – human beings. Those rights should not be infringed upon and must be eagerly protected.
The world continues to spin, and men continue to seek power. As we still have a voice and a power and a legal system built upon the premise of protecting our natural rights – it is important we deeply understand them.
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Olympia – Olympics
would be remise to ignore the heritage of the Olympics this week.
While the Olympics began in Ancient Greece as a tribute to Zeus, The Romans also participated in this tradition. The Romans LOVED all things Greek, so it’s no surprise that once the Roman Empire began, Emperor Augustus reinstated the games.
Many in the emperor’s families participated and a few even won, such as Tiberius’ adoptive son Germanicus who won the chariot races in the 199th Olympiad in 17 BC.
Emperor Nero even participated. in the 211th Olympic games. He famously declared himself the winner of the chariot races even though he had fallen off his chariot during the race. After he died, they actually struck that Olympic game out of the record.
Roman Games included: Running, long jump, shot put, javelin, boxing, pankration and equestrian events, such as chariot races.
The Romans held the games until 393 AD (over 400 years!). There is some tension as to why it ended around 393 A.D-450 A.D. Some say Emperor Theodosius (A Christian) called a ban on all pagan festivals (in the early days of the Olympics, sacrifices were made to the gods). Others say after the temple of Zeus burnt down in 420 AD and economic shifts, it fizzled out.
Today’s Olympic traditions started in 1896 in Athens Greece.
Today there are still many connections to the ancient Olympic tradition. The Olympic Torch for example is lit in front of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece before the games begin and the torch relays around the world up until the opening ceremony when the torch lights the fire at the games (I have actually had the privilege of holding the torch during it’s relay across Kansas to Atlanta in 1994 – I had my mom look all over the house today for the picture and alas it has been lost) . Additionally, Latin makes up the modern motto for the Olympics — Citius, Altius, Fortius, “Faster, Higher, Stronger”.
There are no English Derivatives for Olympia besides Olympics. The Name Olympia is the name of the Greek city the festival took place in and Mt. Olympus which in mythology, is where the Olympian gods and goddesses of Greece lived. There are several modern uses of the word Olympus that all harken back to these ancient Greek myths.
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Folium – Leaf
This week’s word of the week is Folium. Folium is singular, masculine, nominative and second declension. It means “leaf” .
Latin and Botany
Botany is the study of plants. The word comes from the Greek word “Botanê” meaning herb, weed, plant.
The ancients weren’t too concerned with the classification of plants, they mainly focused on the medicinal effects of plants vs their characteristics.
We’ve established that Latin, being the language of formal education in sixteenth century Europe, was used to create new English words for scientific discovery. When the study of plants became especially popular, Latin was used on large scale to come up with terminology to describe what was being observed and discovered.
A man by the name of Carl Linnaeus is primarily responsible for our naming system – the binomial system of classification (two-name).
This system starts with a broad generic name called the Genus (Latin for birth, kind, class) and the a specific name, the Species (Latin for appearance, special nature).
The Genus will always begin with a capital letter, and the species will be lower case.
For example, Peony – My favorite flower. the Genus is Paeonia (P.) and the species is officinalis or P. officinalis. The flower is named after the mythical Greek healer Paeon who used the flower for medical purposes. the species name comes from the Latin word opificina ( a place where a product was made) and primarily used in the middle ages to describe store rooms or herbs or pharmacies.This word is used to describe many species that have a medical use.
The full Latin naming system is internationally recognized and gives us a common language to refer plants – not unlike medical terms.
Folium
In geometry, the Folium of Descartes is an algebraic curve defined by the equation. On a graph, the curve makes the shape of a leaf. It was discovered in 1638 by Renee Descartes (“I think, therefore I am”).
Exfoliation When we hear exfoliate – we may think about skin care. But exfoliation is the loss of leave from a plant. Below are a few more words that from from Folium. Can you think of anymore?
English Derivatives
Foliage: Noun. Meaning: plant leaves collectively
Foliaceous: Adjective. Meaning: of or resembling a leaf
Foliar: Adjective. Meaning: relating to leaves
Folio: Noun. Meaning: an individual leaf of paper or parchment
Exfoliant: Noun. Meaning: a cosmetic product designed to remove dead cells on surface of the skin.
Exfoliate: Verb. Meaning: cause a surface to shed material in scales or layers
Folate: Noun. Meaning: a salt or ester of folic acid
Titvs Classics delivers the Latin word of the week along with questions to engage with your kids on how the word is used, what it means, and how it influences our English Language today. Sign up for our Newsletter today!
Pater – Father
This week’s word of the week is Pater. Pater is singular, masculine and third declension. It means “Father”. This is where we get the English word Paternal.
Founding Fathers
We just celebrated the 4th of July, or Independence Day in the United States.
When I was studying Latin and Roman history, I was inspired at how American History was connected. Latin and Roman influence can be found all over our history and culture.
From our National motto “E Pluribus Unum” to the Architecture of our national buildings, The Roman influence is hard to miss.
America was a bit of a political renaissance. For centuries countries had been ruled with a feudal system or monarchy. Thomas Jefferson said about the founding of America, “we have seen no instance of this since the days of the Roman Republic.”
It was the engagement of Roman classics that helped shape our founder’s arguments for what America needed to be and served as a model for the greatest, freest country in the world.
Madison and Hamilton both cite Aristotle’s Politics and Plato’s Republic in the Federalist papers. In these documents, they, like the classics before them, speak of the importance of a system of checks and balances, the dangers of being led by a popular majority, and advocate for unity.
In fact, The founding fathers took lessons learned from the Roman Republic, and built America to avoid the same pitfalls. For example, the Roman Republic had two co-consuls who were in charge of Rome the way the President is in charge of the U.S.. Often, these two consuls disagreed and prompted the people to appoint dictators to take over.
The Founding Fathers lived in the age of Classicism. This was a time when the Classics were highly regarded in art, literature, and education. Children began learning Latin and Greek at the age of 8.
During this time, students at Harvard had to speak Latin and Greek to be admitted, and many classes looked only at original Latin texts.
This meant that Latin and ancient texts greatly shaped the worldview and manner of thinking of many of our founding fathers.
This is why it is so important to give your kids a classical education.
This past year we have seen our history as a country rewritten, we have seen statues pulled down, and we have seen the slow disassembling of the freedoms we have fought so hard over the last two centuries to keep.
We are a country that does not know it’s own history. We are a country that has lost the ancient wisdom and lessons learned of governments before us, and we will continue to lose the freedoms our founders so masterfully handed to us.
Without studying the classics and understanding why we have the Electoral College, why we have checks and balances, and why we have the Bill of Rights, we can not vote for leaders that will uphold the constitution.
This is not a question of whether the next generation can name the three branches of government (although that is a good start). It is about teaching higher levels of thinking. Teaching our kids to ask – Why do we have government? What is the purpose of government? Is government good or evil? and taking lessons of history to find the answer.
I will never forget sitting in my Ethics in Public Administration class in Graduate School and our professor asking “Is government good?”. I was in a class of 30 students – many straight out of undergrad and I was the only person to say no. This is not too surprising for a class of aspiring public servants and bureaucrats. But when the future leaders of our government do not understand the potential of evil governments inherently hold (as our founders knew well) it becomes increasingly difficult to defend against it.
Latin is the gateway to this knowledge. It is through the learning of Latin that we see how Romans thought, How they were influenced, and how they helped build the greatest country in the world. Our Coloring Books are a great introduction to Latin or a great supplemental activity for any student learning Latin. Through simple vocabulary and engaging facts, our books will help your kids increase their Latin skills.
“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided,” said Patrick Henry, “and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.”
Paternal- Adjective. Meaning: Characteristic of a father, fatherly. Relating to a father.
Paternity – Noun. Meaning: The state of being a father, fatherhood.
Patrician – Noun. Meaning: A person of noble or high rank, a person of a very good background.
Patrilineal- Adjective. Meaning: inheriting or determining descent through the male line.
Patrimony– Noun. Meaning: An estate inherited from one’s father.
Patron – Noun. Meaning: A person who is a customer, client, or paying guest. A person who supports with money, gifts, or endorsement an artist, writer, museum, charity.
Patronage – Noun. Meaning: The financial support or business provide to a store by a customer.
Repatriation – Noun. Meaning: The act or process of returning a person or thing to the country of origin.
Patriarchy- Noun. Meaning: a form of social organization in which the father is the authority in a family.
