Expert: Maria - 3/9/2008

Question
How Would u say brotherhood and family in ancient Latin

Answer
Hello,

Here are the translations you asked me.

1-"Brotherhood" = “Fraternitas" (nominative case, 3rd.declension),  just as “brotherhood”, “fraternity”.

There is also another noun, that is “Sodalitas” (nominative case, 3rd.declension) which means “brotherhood “ in the sense of  'fellowship', 'companionship','friendship', 'intimacy'.

2-"Family" = “familia”(nominative case, 1st.declension)

Note that  FRATERNITAS/ SODALITAS and FAMILIA are in the nominative case, as subjects of a phrase, but they change ending according to their function in a sentence (direct object, indirect object).
Latin is in fact an inflected language with five declensions, six cases, four conjugations, different concords between the adjectives and the nouns (masculine, feminine, neuter/singular, plural) and a very  complex syntax.

Best regards,
Maria