Q Valerius Scerio

Sure, but to affirm that it is the only way to distinct a language from a dialect is utterly absurd. To this day, there are some "languages" which still should be considered dialects, and dialects with amries that aren't considered separate languages. American English and British English are dialects of each other, not separate languages, though each have their own "army". Then again, what is American English?

Funny, I heard the generalizaiton from three different professors of linguistics. Latin obviously had an enormous army. Not in any truth you didn't. Else I'd stay far away from your school. Furthermore - where is Latin's army now? Does the language cease to be since it lost its army? What were the Gauls speaking before they gathered their army? China has several different languages within its border, yet only Mandarin can be thought of as having a language. Is Tibetan a language since they don't have an army? Yeah. Real scientific, huh?

Two of the largest factors - first and foremost was the creation of the empire by Augustus. After that, poor leadership corrupted what good the empire could have become. The final touches was Christianity, which really caused the tumultuous overthrow of the Roman idealogy. With those three combined, the barbarians were able to overrun the empire and finally ransack Rome herself.

I second Primus Pilus' note - atheism is not a religion. Over at IIDB where I am a moderator for the Existence of God forum, we've come up with technical definitions for atheism and agnosticism. It might be worth a look. You can see it here. As for me, I'm a dignist. Same, it is arrogant to presume humans know ^*&* about reality. Wouldn't it be equally arrogant to presume that you know that we don't know? Argumenta ad Ignorantiam. (IIRC) Likewise, to Moonlapse, merely having no belief in god warrants you an atheist. You may not be a "strong" atheist, which would require you to actively deny the existence of god, but nonetheless an atheist you'd be. If I read you correctly, you'd be an agnostic atheist - one who does not believe in the existence of gods yet states that knowledge of gods' existence cannot be known.

To put it into perspective - just by learning Latin I was able to read a little bit of Italian. Italian is the closest (the Romanian thing is utter BS), followed by Catalan, Spanish, then Portuguese. The rest diverge severely from there.

I missed this earlier - actually, the Chinese had their book burning well before the Cultural Revolution - way back in 540-541 auc (212-213 BCE) by the first emporer of united China Qin Shi Huang. Uh-oh, I just realized that the last post was in January 2005 not January 2006! Mea culpa!!!

BTW - what did happen to the previous topic? I distinctly remember writing in it, but it's not here anymore?

Are you serious? What army does Latin have? Where are Latin's nukes? The "generalization" betrays a total ignorance of linguistics.

Constantine - Id dicis per iocum??? Substantives???!?

Sub Saturni Umbras has a really nice ring to it - I don't particularly like the ub-umb sound that Andrew's suggestion, though grammatically correct, would make. Then again, it's a matter of preference. Latin is extremely malleable, unlike English

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of all places, I'd expect that ignorant excuse for a generalization to NOT occur here! I think I'll shoot the next person who uses that!!!!!

Astrum is neuter, so it would be "Astra habemus". Another word for star is stella, ergo "Stellas habemus".

This is actually more complex than you present it. Latin took off in barbaric, uncivilized places, while Greek left its impact in places where empires had already shone and cities already existed. Greek did leave an impact in some places, such as Egypt, where Coptic was not only written with mostly Greek letters, but contained many Greek words (but very little, if any at all, Latin). Furthermore, the Arabic conquests of the area wiped out much of the Greek, that even in modern Egyptian no trace of the Greek can be found, while Europe remained Latin speaking peoples.

Germanic influence on the Gallo-Latin language, if I recall correctly.

No, it was my mistake. It is 3rd conjugation singular. Concredet.

Viis? "Today we walk ??? of the Romans to the lands of Europe." "They will not occupy our lands with fights." "We were carrying food from the provinces with carts and horses." "The Romans were giving honor to the gods of the temple with sacrifices and statues. In fights in the arena, gladiators (either) save (their) lives or lose (them). Regina templum deis sacrificiis concredibunt.

bene tibi, bene mihi, vinum bibamus!

In hoc signo vinces - the phrase that marked the beginning of Rome's death. But that is topic for another thread. My personal favorite is: Id est, quod est. Therein sums up my entire philosophy. (Incidentally, I made it up as well.)

Defaming one's enemy was one of the highest forms of art in Roman rhetoric. Cicero definitely pulls his weight there. He's actually a little over the top for me. Tactius is a fine writer, if a bit terse, but does get his point across clearly. If I had to choose, it would be Vergil, the great poet of the ages. He's not my favorite Latin author, but no one seriously contends as a master of the language. Cicero would be second.

Nope. A piece of badly translated Latin is like a mudspeck for the obsessive compulsive. Scrub scrub scrub.

Actually, Pompeius was wrong. Freedoms isn't Liber, it's Libertas! Libertatem mihi aut mortem mihi date!

Ha! My request was finally heard. Come on, you admins. Give props to the man who suggested the idea.

That's no excuse. When I was your age, I was speaking 44 languages and 78 dialects. And paper hadn't even been invented yet. We were still carving on boulders.

Oh, you'll be learning Greek two? I'll have to school you on that as well. Now that I'm learning Hebrew and Coptic, you'll have time to catch up with me on Latin and Greek. The best word for financially poor is "pauper, pauperis". "If I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. If I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." "Si cibum pauperibus, me sanctum vocant. Si rogo cur pauperes cibum non habeant, "communista" vocant." Points on FVC: nihil cibi also works, literally meaning "nothing of food." Nil is more "modern", and indirect questions always take the subjunctive.

Indeed. My mistake. A tessera was a type of dice, like alea and talus. Actually, all three are very common, but the most common in English would be alea uttered infamously by Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon "Alea iacta est" (The die is cast). Oh yes, the future. Deus me ducet.