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Just finished watching the movie The Sixth Sense.

You will remember the scene in the church where Cole, the little boy who "sees dead people" is playing with his soldiers and makes one of them speak in Latin :

MALCOLM : What was that you were saying before with your soldiers? Day pro fun...?

COLE : De profundis clamo ad te domine.

Malcolm stares surprised.

COLE : It's called Latin. It's a language.

Malcolm nods at the information.

Yes, Malcolm (Bruce Willis) nods, then he runs home to his Latin dictionary and writes it out in English as : "Out of the depths, I cry to you Lord" and everyone's skin creeps.

However, I find the phrase is written elsewhere as:

"De profundis clamavi ad te Domine."

My Latin's a little rusty : /

Anyone?

"I have cried out to you, O Lord, from the depths."

Clamavi is the present perfect indicative form of clamo 'to call out, shout'. It's part of the liturgy of the Mass. (Originally from the Vulgate Bible, Psalms cxxix.1.)

[Added last parenthetical.)

Quote:

Just finished watching the movie The Sixth Sense.

You will remember the scene

no, I won't. never seen the film.

Yup, the Vulgate version of Psalm 129:1 reads "De profundis clamavi ad te Domine."

Ooh, eta, you should--it's really good!

Quote:

"I have cried out to you, O Lord, from the depths."

Clamavi is the present perfect indicative form of clamo 'to call out, shout'. It's part of the liturgy of the Mass. (Originally from the Vulgate Bible, Psalms cxxix.1.)

[Added last parenthetical.)

Actually the word for "to call out, shout" isn't clamo, it's clamere.

When I took Latin we learned that a complete construction of a verb could be made from the big 4: first person present, infinitive, first person past tense, first person future tense.

So when you "describe" the verb clamo, you list itas clamo, clamere, clamavi, clamatus. Looking at clamatus (translated I called out) you can see where we got the words with "clamation in them, such as declamation, exclamation, proclamation, etc.

Clamo is a regular verb, IIRC, and it wasn't really necessary to list it with all four verb forms, but for irregular verbs it was vital:

To be in Latin is sum, esse, fui, futurus, while to go as to move from one place to another is eo, ire, ivi, itus.

As I recall, if a verb is irregular in Latin it is most likely irregular in English.

Of course, with irregular verbs such as sum, there wasn't much rhyme or reason:

Sum -- I am
es -- you (singular) are
est -- he, she, it is

summus -- we are
estes -- you (plural) are
sunt -- they are.

And I absolutely cannot remember eo, but I am certan it was not regular.

A regular Latin verb's present follows the form:

clamo
clamas
clamat
for the singular and I confess that I can't remember the plural endings.

Quote:

A regular Latin verb's present follows the form:

clamo
clamas
clamat
for the singular and I confess that I can't remember the plural endings.

clamamus, clamatis, clamant

Thanks!

Hey, I'm impressed.

By "my Latin is rusty", I meant non-existent. But you lot are Latin grammarians!

And why not? After all, as my Latin For Every Occassion handbook tells me,

Omnia dicta fortiora, si dicta Latina!

Everything sounds so much more impressive when said in Latin!

So true.

Anyway, forgive my stupidity, but does this mean:

De profundis clamavi ad te Domine = Out of the depths, I have cried to you, O Lord.

and,

De profundis clamere ad te domine = Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord.

while,

"De profundis clamo ad te domine" = boo-boo ?

Thanks.

HL:

Your translations are correct, but it isn't an error. Whoever wrote thescreenplay was familiar with the RC mass but was educated enough to change the Latin because he wanted the statement to be in the present voice.

TEd

Actually the word for "to call out, shout" isn't clamo, it's clamere.

Actually, the standard way to list a Latin verb in a Latin-English dictionary is by the first person present indicative form. (This is called the lemma in lexicography, and there are three other forms usually listed, from which, theoretically, one can reproduce the entire verbal paradigm: the infinitive clamare, the first person present perfect indicative clamavi, and the neuter singular past participle clamatum.) (Traditionally any other irregular forms are given after these four, but before the entry proper starts.) Dictionaries gloss the verbal entry with the English infinitival form. Other languages, have other lexicographical standards, e.g., German dictionaries list verbs by the infinitive, Sanskrit by the root. In the end, good enough for Lewis and Short, good enough for me, but I'm not saying you all have to use it, just why I do.

De profundis clamavi ad te Domine = Out of the depths, I have cried to you, O Lord.

and,

De profundis clamere ad te domine = Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord.

while,

"De profundis clamo ad te domine" = boo-boo ?

No. Your second sentence is ungrammatical.

1. "De profundis clamo ad te domine" = 'I cry out to you from the depths O Lord.'

2. "De profundis clamavi ad te domine" = 'I have cried out to you from the depths O Lord.'

3. The infinitve of clamo is clamare. You could ad another verb into the mix for something like: "De profundis volo clamare ad te domine." = 'I want to call out to you from the depths O Lord.'