I am slowly but surely cramming the Latin verb system back into my head. Today, in class, I realized why I was having trouble distinguishing between second and third conjugation verbs based on the infinitive form: we weren’t using macrons anymore! With saintly patience as though explaining it as though to a four year old, my instructor reminded me that you pretty much have to go to the first principal part to tell the difference without macrons; -eo being the characteristic ending of the first principal part for the second conjugation. And then, of course, for the vowel change in the subjunctive, “we fear a liar.” “He eats caviar.” Or something.
I love being thirty-one and being more-or-less newly at an educational level which, ideally, I would have been at when I was twelve or thirteen.
On the other hand, Syriac was good fun yesterday; we’re reading the Gospel of St. Mark now, and it’s not bad. I do sincerely wish there was an equivalent of the Nestle-Aland critical New Testament for the Peshitta–i.e., with an apparatus and glossary; alas, the UBS edition has none of that, and is extremely hard to read. Sounds like somebody up the road might be working on something like this…? Anybody know?
While I’m thinking about it, anybody know how to get my blogroll displayed using this template?
And yes, I know that my notes for Unit 2 of Hansen & Quinn aren’t posted yet. I’m working on them–the last month or so has just been busier than I would like for such things.
More later.
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 