Latin Department Home | Latin Tutorials Home | Lesson I: What Is Latin? | Lesson II: Conversational Latin | Lesson III: Latin Nouns

We all know Latin is a dead language nowadays, but what if you're visiting Vatican City (or you're just a geek who likes to talk Latin)? Well, these words/phrases/sentences will help you get along in life. Emphasis is placed on grammar in addition to just things to know how to say.

Thanks to the h2g2 Edited Entry Handy Latin Phrases and Henry Beard's book Latin for All Occasions for many of the expressions/words/phrases that follow.

Greetings

Grammatically speaking, most greetings are verbs in the imperative — the non-tense form that acts as a command. The three major, oft-used ones follow:

Ave! — Hail! You'll hear this being used by Roman army officers in books, Asterix comics and the like. It can be used as a greeting by anyone, though usually from an inferior to a superior. According to a source from the Latin learners' website Textkit, 'ave' does not actually come from a real Latin verb (contrary to the established pattern):

(h)aue (or OL auo) is thought to be a word of Punic origin. once regularised in Latin it was considered a formation from *(h)aueo (which did not exist - it was an artificial back formation) and thus it conjugates as such a verb was (Mamertius is the only ancient to have introduced a finite form, the rebel he was).¹

Salve! — Hello! Greetings! Health! The all-purpose greeting, whether you genuinely wish the person you're greeting good health, or if you just want to say hi. The root verb of 'salve' is 'salvere', a 2nd conjugation verb that means 'to be well' or 'to be in good health.' So when you greet someone with 'Salve!' you're essentially saying, 'Be well!'

Vale! — Goodbye! From 2nd conjugation verb 'valere', meaning 'to be strong' or 'to be well,' one will note that this verb serves more or less the same function as 'salvere', but for some linguistic reason has come to mean the opposite — 'hello' instead of 'goodbye'.

Other Conversational Tidbits

Ita vero! — Indeed! Used as an exclamation when someone else has said something you believe to be true, this expression has fallen into use in the realms of modern conversational Latin as a common word for 'yes'. Literally, the phrase means 'I believe that to be true,' and is really a short-hand way of saying exactly that.

Minime! — No; definitely not!Ita vero's counterpart, should you ever actually wish to say 'no' in the context of a Latin discussion. It is a very emphatic reply, and is really only used as the standard one because Latin does not actually have a word just for 'no'. Though textbooks such as Ecce Romani give 'Minime' as the correct word for 'no', it is listed here only for completeness's sake. If you want to disagree with someone, it would probably better to use a more polite phrase.

Quod agis? — How are you? Though this literally means 'What are you doing?' it has come to mean 'How are you?' in a colloquial context. To address more than one person, you would say 'Quod agitis?' as 'agitis' is the 2nd person plural form of the verb 'agere', 3rd conjugation meaning 'to make or do'. To literally say 'How are you?' you might use the construction 'Quantus es?', but this was never used in real Latin.

Bene, Bene sum. — Well, I am well. Obviously, used in reply to 'Quod agis?' 'Bene' is the adverbial form of the adjective 'bonus, -a, -um', meaning 'good'.

Gratias — Thank you Literally, 'Thanks.' Quite literally. 'Gratias' is the plural form of 'gratia', which is one 'thank'.

Mihi nomen est... — My name is... This would, of course, be followed by your name. It might be nice to put your name in Latin. There are official Latin names for most normal European given names (for example, Charles is Carrolus) but if you want to make something up just make sure it ends in -us (male) or -a (female). 'Mihi nomen est' literally means 'the name that is to me', but 'My name is...' will work fine for our purposes.

Tibi nomen estne...? — Is your name...? Not to be confused with Quid nomen est? (What is your name?), 'Tibi nomen estne...?' involves asking for a specific name. So, you might say 'Tibi nomen estne Echo?' meaning 'Is your name Echo?'

Read on to Lesson III: Latin Nouns to find out more!