History Memes

Kind of a revelation to me in studying Latin, the whole purpose of adjusting each word to fit the part of speech that it is, is that you're then free to rearrange the words in any order. That's very handy for poetry - ancient poetry tends to be based on rhythm, not rhyme, so you get options. But it also means that you change emphasis based on word order.

Sticking the verb at the front emphasises that particular choice of verb. I didn't say that I was happy about it. (Maybe I did a dance.) But it usually goes at the back.

Also a revelation for translating into other languages. English doesn't do very much verb conjugation at all. Your four choices are to leave the verb as it is, or to add the sounds -d, -s, or -ing to the end. I walk, she walks, he walked, they're walking. -d makes verbs into adjectives - 'the walked path' - and -ing makes verbs into nouns - 'I like walking'. There are 'trigger phrases' that indicate what follows is subjunctive, a matter of conjecture or hearsay - 'I heard that you like walking'; if something will happen in the future - 'I will walk'; and if you're giving an order then you can just leave off the pronoun -'walk!'.

To describe this as 'not how verbs work in Spanish or Polish' is a massive understatement. Hence how those languages manage to have many dozens of ways to conjugate verbs. An Italian friend of mine did tell me he prefers the English 'trigger phrase' arrangement than remembering how to form all the subjunctives in his native language, though.

Anyway! Latin - not useful for speaking to people. Very useful for appreciating how language works.