Latin/Occupation Lesson 1

Salvēte omnēs! Welcome back to Latin for Wikiversity. Here you can peruse a new lesson in Latin, in a simple format. If you would like to catch up, you can find a directory of lessons, a classified vocabulary list, and Memrise courses at the links on the right.

Today’s lesson will cover common occupations. The vocabulary will be mostly new nouns, with a few we’ve already introduced. Remember that most 1st declension nouns (ending in -a) are feminine but a few, such as agricola, are masculine. Of course historically speaking, most professions were masculine by default. We don’t see why you couldn’t use the same form for a female farmer, sailor, poet, etc., but that’s just an opinion. In the 2nd declension (ending in -us), occupation names are masculine, but many have a corresponding feminine form in the 1st declension, and you could probably create one if it doesn’t exist. There aren’t any ancient Romans around anymore to correct you!

In the 3rd declension, typically male occupations often have the typically masculine suffix, -tor (senātor, ōrātor, doctor...) Some ancient usage exists for a feminized version of this ending (senātrīx, ōrātrīx, auctrīx, imperātrīx, vēnātrīx, scrīptrīx, doctrīx, bellātrīx) but in modern usage it might make more sense to treat traditional –tor ending words as common gender and use them for both. Since we don’t usually in English refer to a woman as a senatress, authoress, doctress, etc., We will generally use the masculine form as common gender. It’s only fair to note that the various Romance languages have different ways of handling this, and it may be addressed differently.

Practice
Now you can tell jokes in Latin, like this version of one you may have heard:
 * Mīles, pīrāta, poēta, agricola et medicus in tabernam ambulant. Mīlēs duōs digitōs lēvat et dicit, “Ego et amīcī meī quīnque cervisiās volumus.”
 * A soldier, a pirate, a poet, a farmer and a doctor walk into a bar. The soldier raises two fingers and says, “My friends and I want five beers.”

And you may have seen the famous conundrum of Juvenal: Quis cū̆stōdiet ipsōs cū̆stōdēs? = Who will guard the guards themselves?

We’ll have more occupations next time. As always, if you see any corrections, or have any questions or comments, please leave them on the talk page. Valēte!