The Vocabulary Of The Gospel Of St. Matthew

Abstract

In our high schools of to-day students studying Latin are given the works of such classic writers as Caesar and Cicero to translate. statistics show that lost of these students do not continue with their Latin studies in college. Since this is so they will soon forget, naturally, what Latin they have had. Therefore, why not give them something to translate which will not only increase their facility in translating, but will do so along a line that will be very useful to them later on. Holy Scripture fulfills this purpose ideally, because, by translating it they will become familiar with liturgical Latin. By having a knowledge of liturgical Latin they can use the missal more intelligently. However, it is not intended that liturgical Latin replace classical Latin but only supplement it. For that reason this vocabulary of one of the gospels has been made. In this vocabulary the number of times that each word appears in the Gospel of St. Matthew has been tabulated. Certain proper nouns, prepositions and conjunctions have been omitted. For verbs the first person singular has been given. The masculine gender and singular number has been used throughout in listing adjectives, and all nouns are listed in the singular, unless there is none.