Latin: why do many declensions?

[mschrank]

Seriously, 5 declensions?

Why?

I get the first (feminine) second (masculine) and third (neuter)

But what is up with the 4th and 5th? They seem totally random and I do not understand why they exist.

Could someone explain it to me?

Thanks

By the way, if you really want to laugh, check this out:

youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8

 

[DaveBj]

One does not ask “Why?” in language study.

One accepts and memorizes.

Sorry.

DaveBj (Language Geek)

 

[ora_pro_nobis]

I agree with my fellow language geek
Just be thankful you’re not learning classical Greek - then you’d have all the definite and indefinite articles to learn too!

 

[dixieagle]

Seriously, 5 declensions?

Why?

I get the first (feminine) second (masculine) and third (neuter)

But what is up with the 4th and 5th? They seem totally random and I do not understand why they exist.

Could someone explain it to me?

Thanks

By the way, if you really want to laugh, check this out:

youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8

If I recall from my 4 years of Latin MANY years ago…the declensions are simply designed to cause much gnashing of teeth.

 

[didymus]

Seriously, 5 declensions?

Why?

I get the first (feminine) second (masculine) and third (neuter)

But what is up with the 4th and 5th? They seem totally random and I do not understand why they exist.

Could someone explain it to me?

Thanks

By the way, if you really want to laugh, check this out:

youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8

LOL!! I wonder if the poor guy’s mastery of Koine was any better?

As for why there are five declensions instead – well, when I was a kid my mom used to tell me, “To make little boys ask questions.”

Is Latin at least fairly regular? I read that someone used computer analysis to figure out that 58% of German nouns are irregular, i.e., there are more exception than follow the “rules”.

 

[tee_eff_em]

Seriously, 5 declensions?

Why?

You might as well ask why English has no declensions? (“Sheesh, how do you remember all those words!?”)

I get the first (feminine) second (masculine) and third (neuter)

But what is up with the 4th and 5th? They seem totally random and I do not understand why they exist.

If that is your understanding, then you don’t “get” even the first, second and third declensions…

tee

 

[GandalfTheWhite]

Seriously, 5 declensions?

Why?

I get the first (feminine) second (masculine) and third (neuter)

But what is up with the 4th and 5th? They seem totally random and I do not understand why they exist.

Could someone explain it to me?

Thanks

By the way, if you really want to laugh, check this out:

youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8

Don’t complain! Some language have even more and that includes most Slavic languages.

 

[IrishBrigade]

I get the first (feminine) second (masculine) and third (neuter)

…as another poster intimates, your parenthetical definitions for the declensions are not accurate, and further study is needed…which of course goes for all of us as well…I might venture the educated guess that there are five declensions because there are five differing genitive singular endings, as the genitive singular identifies the declension…as I say, that is a guess and could be nothing more than hot air…

 

[drafdog]

You have asked the question backwards. The correct way to ask the question is: Why doesn’t English have five declensions?

Matthew

 

[bpbasilphx]

<<
You might as well ask why English has no declensions? (“Sheesh, how do you remember all those words!?”)>>

Actually, English DOES decline and inflect, though not as much as Latin. Examples:

I is nominative ME is objective.

Then there are the forms for most nouns: cat, cats, cat’s, cats’.

 

[tee_eff_em]

<<
You might as well ask why English has no declensions? (“Sheesh, how do you remember all those words!?”)>>

Actually, English DOES decline and inflect, though not as much as Latin.

I did not say nouns in English do not decline. I said English has no declensions – That is: families of nouns that decline according to pattern (in the sense that Latin does).

Nouns in English decline, either regularly or irregularly. The end.

tee

 

[Freshman88]

You have asked the question backwards. The correct way to ask the question is: Why doesn’t English have five declensions?

Matthew

Exactly.

Latin and English are both Indo-European languages having descended from one original language - Proto-Indo-European.

This parent language is believed to have 8 declensions. I believe they are very few languages which still retain 8 declensions and so most languages have reduced the amount of declensions, as someone pointed out Slavic languages have as many as 7 declensions.

It has been the tendency of Indo-European languages to reduce the amount of declensions and combine declensions. Latin though several thousand years old had already by the point of its formation lost 2 of those original declensions - the locative and the instrumental by combining them both in the ablative.

• on a side note, there are really six declensions - the vocative is not always the same as the nominative (2nd masculine declension comes to mind)

 

[Fuerza]

Seriously, 5 declensions?

Why?

I get the first (feminine) second (masculine) and third (neuter)

But what is up with the 4th and 5th? They seem totally random and I do not understand why they exist.

Could someone explain it to me?

Thanks

By the way, if you really want to laugh, check this out:

youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8

5 declensions is nothing. Try studying Hungarian.