Latin mnemonics
A Latin mnemonic verse or mnemonic rhyme is a mnemonic device for teaching and remembering Latin grammar. Such mnemonics have been considered by teachers to be an effective technique for schoolchildren to learn the complex rules of Latin accidence and syntax. One of their earliest uses was in the Doctrinale by Alexander of Villedieu written in 1199 as an entire grammar of the language comprising 2,000 lines of doggerel verse. Various Latin mnemonic verses continued to be used in English schools until the 1950s and 1960s.
Authors who have borrowed Latin mnemonics from Latin textbooks for their own works include Thomas Middleton and Benjamin Britten. For example, in Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw, he used the words of a Latin mnemonic that he had found in a Latin grammar book belonging to Myfanwy Piper's aunt for Miles' "malo" song.
Jacques Brel wrote a song in 1962 about a Latin mnemonic verse. Some mnemonics have been recited to hymn tunes.
History
Mnemonic rhymes have been considered by teachers to be an effective technique for schoolchildren to learn the complex rules of Latin accidence and syntax.[1]
One of the earliest uses of mnemonic verse to teach Latin was the Doctrinale by
The verse form of Doctrinale in fact arose by accident. Alexander had been employed by the
Many grammarians adopted Alexander's innovation soon afterwards, including
Thomas Sheridan wrote several mnemonic poems, with the intention of helping students to remember various parts of Latin grammar, prosody, and rhetoric, which were published as An Easy Introduction of Grammar in English for the Understanding of the Latin Tongue and A Method to Improve the Fancy. One of the shorter ones is "Of Knowing the Gender of Nouns by Termination":[5]
All nouns in a make Feminine,
If you like "Musa" them decline,
Except they're from a Graecian line,
Or by their sense are Masculine.[further explanation needed]
Examples and analysis
In his opera The Turn of the Screw, Benjamin Britten used the words of a Latin mnemonic that he had found in a Latin grammar book belonging to Myfanwy Piper's aunt for Miles' "malo" song:[6]
Mālo: I would rather be
Mālo: In an apple tree
Mălo: Than a naughty boy
Mălo: In adversity
The rhyme explains the Latin near-homonym sentence "malo malo malo malo"[note 2], where each is a different meaning for one of the two words "mālo" and "mălo." One of its functions is to remind students that the ablative of comparison does not employ a preposition and that the preposition typically employed with the ablative of place where is sometimes omitted (typically in verse). Thus "in an apple tree" can be rendered "malo", instead of the more common "in malo".[6][7]
Another author who borrowed from Latin grammar textbooks was Thomas Middleton. In his play A Mad World, My Masters the character Follywit addresses a treasure chest that he is about to rob:[8]
Ha! Now, by my faith, a gentlewoman of very good parts: diamond, ruby, sapphire, ’onyx cum prole silexque‘. If I do not wonder how the quean 'scaped tempting, I'm an hermaphrodite!
The Latin phrase is a line taken from William Lily's Latin grammar Brevissima Institutio, from a mnemonic poem entitled "The Third Special Rule", the particular verse of which is entitled "Nouns of the doubtful Gender excepted":[8][9][10]
The literal meaning of the phrase is "onyx with its compounds, and silex". Its use by Middleton is in fact a pun. It has both a surface meaning on the precious metals in the treasure chest and a deeper meaning, given the "doubtful gender" title of the verse, on Follywit's own cross-dressing.[11]
A Latin rhyme for remembering the list of Latin
John Barrow Allen translated it into English as follows:[13]
Another version, taught in the 1950s, was :-
A longer companion verse for the accusative case ended with the line
When MOTION 'tis, not STATE they mean.
A condensed version is SIDSPACE.
Such a mnemonic is a simple collection of words, and the musical rhythm acts as an aid to memory.
rosa rosa rosam
rosae rosae rosa
rosae rosae rosas
rosarum rosis rosis
Jacques Brel's 1962 song about this calls it "le plus vieux tango du monde" (the world's oldest tango) which fair-haired youngsters "Ânonnent comme une ronde En apprenant leur latin" (drone like a round whilst learning their Latin).[1]
Mnemonic rhymes have sometimes failed. Jean-Jacques Rousseau once complained of "those Ostrogothic verses that made me sick to my heart and could not get into my ear". Other children regarded the mnemonics more favourably, setting them to familiar tunes. Edward Hornby would recite the following, which he described as "little pearls of poetry", to the tune of the hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling":[1]
Third Nouns Masculine prefer
Endings o, or, os and er,
add to which the ending es,
if its Cases have increase.
Many neuters end in er,
siler, acer, verber, ver,
tuber, uber, and cadaver,
piper, iter, and papaver.
Third Nouns Feminine we class
ending is, x, aus, and as,
s to consonant appended,
es in flexion unextended.
Footnotes
- Note 1: ^ There were 46 editions printed in Italy alone before 1500. Its use died out in German schools around 1520, but the last Italian edition was published in 1588.[4]
- Note 2: ^ A longer sentence is "malo malo malo malo malo malo malo, quam dente vento occurrere". This uses additional meanings for "malo" and translates to "I would rather meet with a bad apple, with a bad tooth, than a bad mast with a bad wind.".[15]
References
- ^ ISBN 1-85984-402-2.
- ISBN 3-89930-119-6.
- ^ ISBN 0-521-40192-5.
- ^ ISBN 0-521-83909-2.
- ISBN 0-87413-495-1.
- ^ ISBN 1-84383-314-X.
- ^ Metropolitan Opera Guild (1969–1970). Opera News. Vol. 34. Metropolitan Opera Guild.
- ^ ISBN 1-85459-409-5.
- ^ An introduction to the Latin tongue. Eton, England: E. Williams. 1818. pp. 66–67.
- ISBN 0-19-283455-X.
- ISBN 0-87413-680-6.
- ^ William Windham Bradley (1855). Latin exercises. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. p. 153.
- ^ John Barrow Allen (1875). A first Latin exercise book. pp. 46.
- (Page 109) - This is the one I was taught.
- ^ Robert Reid (1864). Old Glasgow and Its Environs: Historical and Topographical. pp. 284.