Expert: Maria - 11/4/2008

Question
Hi, could you please tell me what grandmother and granddaughter is in ancient latin?? Thanks very much.

Answer
Hello,

”Grandmother” translates as ”avia”, while ”granddaughter” is
”neptis” in Latin.

Both these nouns are in the nominative singular as subjects of a sentence like in ”My grandmother has always been kind to me” or “My granddaughter is a very good girl”.

If on the contrary the Latin nouns AVIA (1st. declension) and NEPTIS (3rd.declension) are direct/indirect object, they change their ending just because Latin is an inflected language where the words change ending, according to their role in the sentence.  

Moreover Latin has five declensions and six cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, ablative).

Best regards,
Maria