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Latin for Research' equips students with the basic skills and knowledge needed to read, understand, and translate documents written in Classical, Medieval, and Neo-Latin (e.g., notarial and ecclesiastical documents, as well as Latin literature). Students taking this course need not have had any exposure to Latin or Italian. All grammar, syntax, and vocabulary will be explained and illustrated during the lectures.

The Study-Unit focuses on engagement with texts and uses pedagogical techniques developed by Cambridge and Oxford (e.g., Reading Latin/Greek Series, 1986) as well as newer 'tiered-readers' which enable students to start reading Latin within as short a time as possible. It also makes use of various on-line resources (e.g., podcasts; blogs) to give the students an immersive experience into Latin grammar and literature. Using Gaius' Institutes to illustrate various grammatical and syntactical features, this study-unit is also designed to quickly build a solid vocabulary of the common terms used in these documents and especially forensic and legal terms. [This text has been selected since it is not only a standard text of Roman Law and easily comprehensible, it also introduces much of the legal terminology and forms still in use in the 18th Century and beyond.]

The Study-Unit will also dedicate time to tackling key skills such as paleography and to building a dictionary of notarial abbreviations of the 17th and 18th-Century. Throughout the course, the students will also build a index of common Latin words, expressions, and abbreviations, as well as short texts and sentences, which will be translated in class. Students will also be instructed on the Roman dating system used still used, for example, on the graduation certificates at the University of Malta.

Students will also be introduced to the history of Latin from antiquity to the present, focusing on the use of Latin in Malta. The Study-Unit will also expose the students to the Latin documents found in the repositories of documents written in Latin (e.g., the National Library of Malta).

The assessment of this study-unit is divided into two parts. The first part (60%) is a case-study in which the student transcribes and translates simple parts of a notarial or ecclesiastical document. The second part is exam (40%) is based on a comprehension test of a transcribed notarial document.

Main Reading List

• P. Jones; K. Sidwell (2016) Reading Latin: Text and Vocabulary. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• P. Jones; K. Sidwell (2016) Reading Latin: Grammar and Exercises. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• A. Olimpi (2019) Daedalus et Icarus: A Tiered Latin Reader. Petersburg, FL: Comprehensible Classics.
• O. F. Robinson, W. M. Gordon (eds.) (2015) The Institutes of Gaius. Bristol: Duckworth.

Supplementary Reading List

• Lewis, Charleton T., and Short, Charles. A Latin Dictionary. Oxford, 1879. Known simply as 'Lewis and Short'. If you want to purchase a dictionary, make it this one. Its definitions incorporate meanings not only from classical sources, but also as late as the early-modern period.
• Kennedy, Benjamin H., Mountford, Sir James, ed. The Revised Latin Primer. Longman, 1962. Known simply as 'Kennedy'. The best quick reference for most questions.
• Mantello, F. A. C., Rigg, A. G. Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996. Immensely useful collection of short articles with pinpoint bibliographies, all organized under a comprehensive selection of topics. The study aid that this webpage can only pretend to imitate.