Learning Latin Links

Mille Fabulae et Una: 1001 Aesop's Fables in Latin

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:24:00 +0000

This blog is not currently active but you can find lots of new materials at the blog for the new Mille Fabulae book: MilleFabulae.blogspot.com.

Available now from Lulu.com

Download a free copy of Mille Fabulae et Una.

PDF.BestLatin.net

Online Grammar Tables

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:49:00 +0000

Today's Link: Latin Grammar Tables

I'm always on the look out for resources that take good advantage of web-specific layouts and presentation, and these Latin Grammar Tables are a perfect example of how to use tables, colors, and bold highlighting to make information easy to read online. You'll find basic paradigms for nouns and verbs here, very clearly organized and labeled - a very handy online reference!

Some dynamic content may not display if you are reading this blog via RSS or through an email subscription. You can always visit the Bestiaria Latina blog to see the full content, and to find out how to subscribe to the latest posts.

Blog: Rogue Classicism

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:33:00 +0000

Today's Link: Rogue Classicism

David Meadows' Rogue Classicism is one of the few blogs that I make sure to always read, even when I am overwhelmed with other stuff. You can always count on good material here, and LOTS of it - how does he find all these things? The emphasis is more on archaeology and material culture rather than language, but he always does a good job of reporting on events (such as they are!) in classical languages, too. He is also great at following classical topics in the media generally (movies, television), and reports regularly on conferences and also on job openings. I have learned so much from reading this blog, especially since I would not know where to begin to go myself in order to follow the latest goings-on in the world of classical archaeology.

So, if you are looking to keep up with "news" in the world of classics, this blog is definitely the place to do that!

Latin Audio: Del.icio.us, new and improved!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:21:00 +0000

Today's Link: Latin Audio at Del.icio.us

As some of you may know, I've been an advocate for using the tagging service del.icio.us to flag useful resources online, suggesting that people should use the tags "latin audio" to tag any good audio websites they find. One of the problems, unfortunately, was that there are also a lot of Latin music sites out there (as in, Latin American music), and those tags could easily get tangled up with our classical Latin language audio tags.

Well, the brand-new version of del.icio.us was launched just yesterday (yeah!!!), and it is now possible to include a "NOT" variable in a search, along with all kinds of other advanced search options that were not possible before. So, instead of just listing "latin audio," you can now list "latin audio -music -mexico -dj -spanish" in order to exclude non-relevant items - here's what I came up with!

Latin Audio at Del.icio.us

There are 165 results! So, if you have been in search of Latin audio, you can find all kinds of great materials listed here. If you would like to learn more about using del.icio.us (a tool I depend on absolutely), I have a lot of notes at my Technology Tips blog.

Meanwhile, happy listening ... online!

Latin Text: Basia, by Janus Secundus

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:13:00 +0000

Today's Link: Basia, a collection of Latin love poems by Janus (Joannes, Johannes) Secundus

Especially for fans of Catullus, the Basia ("Kisses") of Janus Secundus are sure to delight! There is a nice Latin text available at the The Latin Library Online, and there is also a Latin-English edition available at Google Books! You can read more about the poet at wikipedia, who was born in 1511 and died, only 24 years old, in 1536 (wikipedia is also the source for the image below).

Here is the opening to Basium Septimum, just to give you a sense of what these delightful poems are like:

Centum basia centies,
centum basia millies,
mille basia millies,
et tot milia millies,
quot guttae Siculo mari,
quot sunt sidera caelo,
istis purpureis genis,
istis turgidulis labris,
ocellisque loquaculis,
ferrem continuo impetu,
o formosa Neaera!

Wonderful stuff - and surely a delight for students who have read Catullus or any of the Roman elegists. :-)

Latin sundial mottoes with Spanish translations

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:24:00 +0000

Today's Link: Latin sundial mottoes with Spanish translations

Latin inscriptions on sundials are very common, and very thought-provoking! They represent one of my favorite genres of Latin mottoes, and this brilliant collection of materials - in Latin, with Spanish translations (!) - shows what a range of profound ideas can be provoked by the sundial, which expresses the passage of time through the play of light and shadow. You will find hundreds of examples here, all very short and very pointed!

Here is a sundial with the motto Fruere hora (Enjoy the time!):

eClassics - The Latin Ning

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:44:00 +0000

Today's Link: eClassics Ning

If you haven't visited the eClassics Ning created by Andrew Reinhard (one of the nice folks from Bolchazy-Carducci), it's definitely worth checking out! I first learned about nings thanks to this website, and I've since become an avid participant not only at the eClassics ning, but also at some other nings related to teaching and learning, such as the FiresideLearning ning and the Classroom2.0 ning.

So, what's a ning...? A ning is a social network website, which combines online discussion, blogging, video-sharing, and image-sharing - it's just an all-around great way to hook up with other people online and exchange ideas! I've published some notes about nings over at my Technology Tips blog - but the best way to get to know what nings are about is to visit one... so just head on over to eClassics and see what's going on today! :-)

William Whitaker's WORDS

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:35:00 +0000

Today's link: Whitaker's Words Online and, for both PC users and Mac users, Whitaker's Words on your computer

I'm a huge fan of Whitaker's Words, which I have installed on my Macintosh computer. I've been using it for about a year now, and it is a real timesaver, something extremely useful and also very easy to use! It is not just a dictionary but also a morphology tool, so you can enter the inflected form of a word and receive a list of the possible dictionary entries from which that word may derive.

I previously used the Perseus Latin Morphology Tool online, but with Perseus being more offline than online over the past couple of years, I am so glad to have found this great alternative which I can install and run on my own computer. Kudos to William Whitaker for having created such a great program, and for making it freely available for both Windows and Mac users. It's a wonderful digital tool!

Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:22:00 +0000

Today's Link: Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum

I've mentioned previously some sites where you can find Latin texts online, and I wanted to make sure to include the Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum on that list. It's a great place to look for some more obscure texts (or links to text) that you might not find at some of the other sites! This listing of Latin texts is part of a larger project, Forum Romanum, which you can find here: ForumRomanum.org.

Unlike some of the other text repositories, this one is partly a text repository (or link repository), and a bibliography tool. You will often click through on an author only to find a listing of the author's works in Latin, without any online versions. So, you would probably want to check one of the most standard repositories first, but then come here to CSL to see if the text you are looking for might be available here after all - I've had good luck here on many occasions myself, and I appreciate very much the effort that David Camden has put into maintaining the site. You can get a sense of the effort he has put into the project from the Credits page - well done!

Roman Breviary

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:35:00 +0000

Today's link: Roman Breviary

The Roman Breviary online is a vital resource for anyone with an interest in the Catholic liturgy in Latin. While you will find many sites that contain the basic order of the Latin mass, the Catholic liturgy is actually a complex calendar of ritual and prayer, and the Roman Breviary will help you to follow the ritual year (you can read more about the history of the Breviary in this wikipedia article).

Consider, for example, the order as shown for the month of July, 2008. It outlines the complexity of the calendar in a way that is actually not too difficult to follow, with links to the liturgical materials online.

Although I am not a practicing Catholic, I personally find it fascinating to read the lessons about the lives of the saints which regularly form part of the Mass. Today, for example, July 8, honors Saint Elizabeth of Aragon, Queen of Portugal (1271-1336). As part of today's liturgy, you can read the story of her life, as told in Latin, together with a helpful facing-text English translation for those of you who are beginning students - but don't worry: the Latin is very straight-forward, and not at all difficult to read.

So, whether you are interested in the Catholic liturgy for devotional reasons or for its general cultural significance, you will find the Roman Breviary online a profoundly rich resource; we are very fortunate that it is available in this way online.

Recommended Blog: Laudator Temporis Acti

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:22:00 +0000

Today's Link: Laudator Temporis Acti

This is one of my favorite Latin blogs, with detailed and wonderfully written posts about Latin, and also about Greek, the English language, the history of literature, and all kinds of thoughtful topics. The author of the blog is Michael Gilleland, and here is how he describes himself at the blog: "Michael Gilleland is an antediluvian, bibliomaniac, and curmudgeon." This blog has been active since 2004, which means that the blog archives are a treasure trove of great material.

Using the magic power of Feed2JS.org, here is a little javascript that displays the latest blog post titles - just click on any title that interests you, and take a look. Personally, I think this is one of the most original and best-written blogs in any field that you will find on the Internet! :-)

Latin Number Names

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:33:00 +0000

Today's Link: Latin Number Names

There are many pages where you can find the Latin number system - cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers, numerical adverbs and distributives - but this page is the one I have bookmarked for myself, since it presents everything so clearly. Don't miss the list of Latin Fraction Names down at the bottom of the page either!

Multilingual & Name Origin Periodic Table

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:38:00 +0000

Today's Link: Interactive Multilingual Periodic Table

I absolutely love this interactive periodic table of the elements - as you mouse over an element, the name pops up in the list of languages on the left-hand side of the screen. Wow! Plus, that's not all - you can find a list of even more languages, organized by language families. What an absolutely fantastic project! I wish there were something like this for animal names of the world, but unfortunately there is no such handy schematic for animals as there is for the chemical elements. Lucky chemists!

Latinum: Latin Learning Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Today's Link: Latinum: The Latin Language Learning Podcast

As there was some discussion about the Latinum podcast website over at the LatinTeach listserv this weekend, I thought it would be a good post for today! Here is how the Latinum website describes itself:

LATINUM - The Latin Language Learning Podcast from London: The Online Latin Course. Learn Latin through Total Immersion. Download our free lessons and accompanying .pdf textbook, and soak yourself through with the sounds of spoken Latin. It's the only way to rapidly acquire fluency. We offer free lessons in spoken Latin, an expanding repository of readings from classical texts, and a wide range of study materials for every level of learner.

As far as I know, this is the only free online course which contains all the audio needed to provide a complete audio immersion experience to accompany the textbook, which is Adler's Practical Grammar of the Latin Language. Because this textbook is in the public domain, it can be freely downloaded and printed from GoogleBooks - and you have all the audio you need at the Latinum website! So, if you are just learning Latin, this is a wonderful place to start - and if you already know Latin, this website is the perfect way to RE-learn Latin, with an emphasis on listening and speaking, not just reading!

Carmina Popularia

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:44:00 +0000

Today's Link: Carmina Popularia: Latin Translations of Some Popular Songs by Meredith Minter Dixon.

I'll confess that I am a big fan of translations into Latin of modern stories, songs, etc. It's a way for you to use something that is familiar to you in order to connect up with Latin, which is always going to seem very foreign in the absence of a community of native speakers to hang out with these days. So, for today's link I wanted to share a nice little collection of popular songs translated into Latin - including Puff the Magic Dragon (one of my own childhood favorites). Here's a list of the song lyrics you can find here:

Blowin' in the Wind
Both Sides, Now
Bridge Over Troubled Water
For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
I Am a Rock
Leavin' on a Jet Plane
Lili Marleen
Lost in the Sun
Piano Man
Puff, the Magic Dragon
Seven Spanish Angels
Somewhere, My Love
The Sound of Silence
To Each His Dulcinea
We Gotta Power
We Will All Go Together When We Go
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
You Keep Coming Back Like a Song

Thanks so much to Meredith Minter Dixon for having the wherewithal to share these lyrics with us over the Internet! If you have some songs or poems you have translated into Latin, why not publish them online and share them via the Internet? With Blogger.com, it takes just a minute or two to get your work published online!

Ephemeris

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:19:00 +0000

Today's Link: Ephemeris

You can follow the news of the world in Latin at this Latin newspaper online, Ephemeris. The site is especially useful because the archives are all available online, too, going back to the year 2004.

To search the site, just add site:ephemeris.alcuinus.net to your Google search. Here, for example, is a search for news about Baracus Obama - just click on the link to read about the American elections in Latin!
obama site:ephemeris.alcuinus.net

Diederich, The Frequency of Latin Words

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:38:00 +0000

My apologies for not posting last week! If you read the Bestiaria Latina blog round-ups, you know that I've been working on harvesting all the Latin Aesopic fables I could find at Google Books and other online sources... finally telling myself to stop when I reached 4000 fables! You can see the results of those efforts at the Latin Aesopus wiki. I'm going to try to get back to my regular blogging schedule this week! :-)

Today's Link: Diederich, The Frequency of Latin Words

Paul Bernard Diederich was a Latin teacher in Columbus, Ohio who devoted considerable study to the frequency of Latin vocabulary in classical and medieval sources. Diederich discovered what he called a "point of diminishing return" for vocabulary study (see graph below). The idea is that for the most frequently used words, it is of real benefit to study the vocabulary for its own sake, since the words are so commonly used. Beyond that point, studying vocabulary on its own terms offers few benefits. So, in order to develop a systematic plan for Latin vocabulary study, frequency lists are invaluable.

Thanks to William Whitaker (author of Whitaker's Words software), you can find Diederich's publications online:

James Dee has published these materials in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet, combining Diederich's work with Gonzalez Lodge's Vocabulary of High School Latin.

Latin Teaching Materials at Saint Louis University

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:08:00 +0000

Today's Link: Latin Teaching Materials at Saint Louis University

The folks at St. Louis University have put a great variety of Latin materials online, including some very useful Elementary Readers. Here is a list of the titles that are currently available:

John Harmar's Praxis Grammatica (a wonderful Latin textbook from the year 1623)
Jacobs-Döring's Latin Reader (including Aesop's fables!)
Lhomond's De Viris Illustribus
Cato: Monosticha
Gesta Romanorum

The Gesta Romanorum in particular is a fantastic resource. One of my favorite stories from that wonderful book is the legend of the Emperor Jovinianus - the man who was replaced by his own double! You will find this as Chapter 148: De nimia praesumptione imperatoris, qui ideo correptus est.

You can also find some fascinating translations into Latin, including the Gettysburg Address and the Analects of Confucius!

The Latin Library

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:58:00 +0000

Today's Link: The Latin Library

One of the very best places to look for Latin texts online is at TheLatinLibrary.com. Check out their Classical Authors list, along with special areas for Christian authors and Medieval Authors. The site has been going strong for ten years, and you can see Quid Novi for the latest additions.

You can also do searches of this website by adding the phrase site:thelatinlibrary.com to your Google search. Be careful when you are doing searches involving the letters "u/v" and "i/j" at this site. Different texts at the site follow different spelling conventions, so you may need to try out different possibilities in your search phrase, as well as different forms of the inflected word. For example, here is a search for the word gaudeamus:
gaudeamus site:thelatinlibrary.com

This is an excellent resource for all the main classical authors, and the medieval Latin text collection is also quite impressive!

Theoi.com: Greek and Roman Myth Sources

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:36:00 +0000

Today's Link: Theoi.com

As someone who teaches Mythology online, I am always on the look-out for good mythology websites. The best overall Greek and Roman resource at this time is definitely Theoi.com. One of the things I like best about this site is its extensive citation of ancient Greek and Roman sources in translation accompany each of the entries. It is also a great resource for ancient Greek vase images and other illustrations. Just take a look at the range of ancient sources cited for Pandora, just to take one example. Wow!

As the Greek name of the site - "Theoi" means "Gods" in Greek - the coverage is strongest for the gods and goddesses, and less strong for heroes and heroines, although new materials are being added to the site all the time, and the section devoted to heroes and heroines is growing steadily.

To search the site, you can just add "site:theoi.com" to your Google search. For example, here are the results of a search for "sphinx site:theoi.com".

I used the Theoi.com website to create my "Greek Beast of the Week" widget, which you can find at the SchoolhouseWidgets.com website. Here is this week's beast:

Bibliotheca Augustana: Latin and Greek texts

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:17:00 +0000

Today's Link: Bibliotheca Augustana.

There are many great Latin and Greek text resources online, and the Bibliotheca Augustana is one of the most long-standing and user-friendly sites you will find. Although it is based in Germany, all the interface is written in Latin, making it extremely easy to use! I decided to post about this website today, because its Greek text of Apostolios's proverbs was incredibly useful to me as I put together my new Greek Proverb of the Day Widget.

One of the distinctive features of this website is the way that it provides both a chronological and an alphbetical index to the authors, and not just Greek and Latin, but other European languages as well - Russian, Polish, etc. In some cases, the texts are reproduced in the Bibliotheca Augustana site, and in other cases, the link takes you to another site. One of the big advantages of this website is that it is meticulous in documenting the printed source from which the digital version derives.

There continue to be new items added to this marvelous site - in June 2008, the MARVELOUS collection of "miracle" stories by Caesarius of Heisterbach is the new addition. I've read these stories very successfully with students in the past - they have the feel of "urban legends" from the Middle Ages, as Caesarius has usually heard the story from a FOAF, friend of a friend, as he repeatedly assures us. How delightful to find it online here at the Bibliotheca! If you have not browsed through this site before, I can recommend it most highly! Plus who can resist this homepage emblem:

Polyglot Bible (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English)

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:28:00 +0000

Today's Link: Sacred Texts Polyglot Bible

I'll be posting at this new blog links to the online resources I use in my ongoing study of Latin. The Latin texts that are available online keep increasing, and it is amazing to have access, free, online, to such an incredible range of texts!

The text resource I want to highlight today is Sacred Texts Archive, which is an amazing repository of all kinds of public domain full-text books related to religion and religious traditions.

In Latin, one of the most useful resources that it offers is a Polyglot Bible, with the text of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew-Greek-Latin-English and the New Testament in Greek-Latin-English. The layout is easy to use, as you can see in this screenshot for Genesis 21:

One of the most useful things about this presentation of the Bible is that it includes the apocryphal books with the Septuagint (Greek) and Vulgate (Latin) texts for those books, such as the book of Wisdom, Tobit, etc.

Because of the simple, clear structure of the Sacred Texts website, you can easily create Custom Google Searches for the Polyglot Bible. So, for example, to search the Polyglot Bible, just add "site:sacred-texts.com/bib/poly" to your Google Search. Here is a search for the word "paradise": paradise site:sacred-texts.com/bib/poly

Although there are some other great Latin Bible resources online (I'll post about those another time), I wanted to start with this resource, since it is one that I find myself using constantly! I would find it very hard to teach my online courses in mythology without the amazing online library provided by the Sacred Texts site.

Test

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Gibbs) — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:43:00 +0000

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