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Sat 7 Jan, 2006 03:55 pm
can you translate this into latin for me and also tell me a tiny bit about the language, i feel like i heard it was the very first language or something but i don't want to make a fool out of myself when explaining why i like it so. (i have always been interested but didn't really know why)
"In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." 
IN HIEME ALTISSIMA, TANDEM DEDICI ESSE AESTATEM IN ME INVICTAM
latin is not the oldest language. It is apparently an indo-european language decended from some truly ancient mother tongue that spawned meriad languages from india to england. Boffins know this because there are words that could not possibly have been borrowed from one language by another, but yet sound similar and have the same meaning.
example:
English -> Father (taken from German by English)
German -> vater
Sanskrit -> piter
Latin -> pater
which one was closest to the mother tongue will never be known.
another example of this can be seen in comparing greek & latin: letters S & H
seven in latin is Septa in greek is Hepta
Half in latin is Semi in greek is Hemi
Pig in latin is Sus in greek is Hus
Again the original word is gone to us but we know they have the same root language.
Sometimes, languages go through gross changes - at some point german had some consanant changes so P changed to F - which is why english inherited Father.
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