Hi Lawrence,

Going OT :-)

I have a rudimentary knowledge of both Spanish and Latin. They are
grammatically very similar, but I would not put it to the level of "nearly
identical". Latin grammar is a fair bit more complicated. For example,
Latin has five declensions of nouns and four conjugations of verbs. Spanish
does not inflect nouns and has only three conjugations of verbs. Latin
places a lot more emphasis on a wide variety of prepositions and
conjunctions, and also uses a whole slew of expressions where a noun has no
preposition but is in a particular case (and the case determines the exact
meaning) and such similar situations would require a preposition in Spanish
(or English, for that matter).  In strict Latin grammar (which you are
allowed to partially dispense with in poetry or, if you are famous, in
prose), there is a specific word order (subject object verb with adjectives
after nouns) whereas Spanish is less strict and follows more closely the
English word order (except that you are correct that adjectives come after
nouns).

In summary, I would say that Spanish is like a less-inflected version of
Latin, with some Arabic words/expressions thrown in. The biggest similarity
is in the conjugation of verbs and use of the subjunctive mood (which
English has but rarely uses nowadays). The biggest difference is that
Spanish drops the idea of inflecting nouns and all the subtlety of meaning
that can be expressed that way is now expressed in a more mechanical way
with just a handful of prepositions (like English does).

Sean

At 02:27 PM 1/10/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>I was just reading "En La Casa Azul"  (in the House Blue) IIRC Spanish
>often puts the noun first.  Any Spanish Speakers verify this?  Likewise,
>Spanish grammar is supposed to be nearly identical to Latin.  Any Latin
>Speakers?  (The book is in English by Isabelle Allende, and so far I can
>recommend it)
>
>Meanwhile, back to computers, this is a good method, Olin, to put the
>general before the specific in a naming convention.  I have usually used
>the get_max_temp() type of names just from habit.  temp_get_max makes a
>lot of sense.
>
>
>-- Lawrence Lile
>

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