Discussion: Lingua Latina per se Illustrata: Familia Romana

Author: Hans Henning Ørberg

Description: Lingua Latina per se Illustrata: Familia Romana by Hans Henning Ørberg is a foundational textbook in the Lingua Latina series, designed to teach Latin through the Natural Method, an immersive approach that prioritizes thinking in Latin over translation. Published initially in 1955 as Lingua Latina secundum naturae rationem explicata and revised in 1990–91 under its current title, the book is entirely in Latin, using no non-Latin words except the author’s name. This method, developed during Ørberg’s time at the Naturmetodens Sproginstitut (1953–1961), aims to replicate natural language acquisition, making Latin accessible to learners without prior knowledge by introducing vocabulary and grammar contextually. Familia Romana, the first part of the series, consists of 35 chapters that narrate the daily life of a Roman family in the 2nd century A.D. The text begins with simple, paratactic sentences like “Rōma in Italiā est” (“Rome is in Italy”), allowing beginners to grasp meaning through context, illustrations, and marginal notes that explain new words using Latin synonyms, antonyms, or drawings. This inductive approach avoids reliance on dictionaries or translation, fostering intuitive understanding. As the chapters progress, the complexity increases, introducing hypotactic structures, new grammatical forms like the subjunctive, and expanded vocabulary, all while reinforcing earlier material to ensure retention. By the end, students read unadapted excerpts from classical poets like Catullus, Ovid, and Martial, as well as Donatus’s Ars Grammatica, a standard Latin text for centuries.

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