Reading in Latin

I’m starting to learn how to read and write in Latin. I found this incredible app for my iPhone called Memrise, and I’ve already gone through about 10 hours on it learning all these different Latin vocabulary terms. Here are some interesting words I’ve learned so far:

video = I see

audio = listen 

domini = Lord

canis = dog

magnus = great

maximus = the greatest

domus = house

alba = white

ego = I

sum = (I) am

cogito = I think

ergo = therefore

multi = many

deus = god

ad = to, towards

anno = year

aut = either, or

disco = learn

inferno = hell

nihil = nothing

verbum = word

lego = I read 

Domus alba est = house white is

Cogito ergo sum = I think, therefore I am

Anno Domini = year lord

disco inferno = to learn in hell

aut Caesar aut nihil = either Caesar or nothing

Codex Vaticanus - new testament in greek from 325 a.d.

I’m also really interested in studying ancient greek. The Roman alphabet was taken from the Greek. I’d like to read the New Testament in the original Greek, because that’s what the New Testament authors wrote in, Koine Greek. The original apostles wrote in greek because the land they lived in was conquered by Alexander the Great in the 300s B.C. 

I found this book that I’m going to get, The Greek New Testament for Beginning Readers, and there’s also some great little lessons on the memrise app to study greek. 

I’m very excited to read the original writings, as far as they were preserved by monks in the desert, in greek and then to read Cicero in his own words in Latin would, I think, be quite exceptional. 

The monks would sit all day and copy and recopy these writings in Latin for over 1000 years, long before the invention of a printing press. The Bible was translated by St. Jerome from old Latin passages into the people’s bible, or the vulgate Bible. Vulgar is latin for ordinary, or common, so a bible for the common people (that’s vulgar!).  

Vulgate Bible - from the 1200s

I’d like to buy a Vulgate Bible to study, but I haven’t found one I can purchase just yet. 

To help me read Latin, I downloaded this awesome app, Biblium, that is the Vulgate Bible. If you click on the New Testament passages, they start with some incredible chants. St. Augustine commented about how he enjoyed the chanting of the scriptures by the monks in the late 300s. It’s a tradition that has been going on for nearly 2000 years, and after seeing some of the cathedrals in France and listening to the monks chant their scriptural passages inside, it was a very moving experience, something I hope I get to experience again in the next 10 years.  

Check out this amazing video of these singers signing in Latin in a cathedral. The words have been translated into English so you can read them. It is quite moving to think that people had preserved these latin texts for 1000s of years, and then they would sing them in their most sacred structures. 

Miserere Mei Deus = Have mercy my god

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your great mercy

Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.

According to the multitude of Thy mercies, blot out my transgressions

Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea: et a peccato meo munda me.

Wash me throughly from my iniquity: and cleanse me from my sin.

Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco: et peccatum meum contra me est semper.

For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.