Latin Language having Random Word Order..?

Okay, So this post is basically for all the newbies like me who has just begun learning a Language and that too especially a dead one! Recently I started one, which was Latin ofcourse and the very first question that popped-up in my mind was "Why Latin language has a Random Word Order??"

When we first start learning Latin, we come across sentences like :

Servus dominam salute

The slave greets the mistress

Now let's match up :

Servus - Slave 

Salutat - Greets

Dominam - The mistress

Oh! Wait a second. What's going on here? Why are the words all jumbled up in a weird order?

Let us first talk about English. Here is a basic sentence :

The cat sits on the chair.

Here we have the Subject : the cat -->coming first in the sentence followed immediately by the Verb : sits then finally we have the Prepositional Phrase : on the chair showing where the cat sits. 

If we arrange the order of these words into :

The cat on the chair sits.

It will still make sense because we have one part of every speech : One Noun, One Prepositional Phrase and One Verb. Now again :

On the chair sits the cat.

We can even do :

Sits on the chair the cat.

Don't get me wrong but although these sentences are not one of the best, yet your brain can at least decode What's going on in the sentence?

Now let us complicate it a bit and have two nouns one that is doing the action and the other receiving the action.

The dog chases the cat.

As you know the doer- the dog is the Subject and receiver - the cat is the Direct Object. Here word order is very important because in here our primary action is The dog chases so it has to come immediately before the Verb and it's typical in English for the Direct-object "cat" to come after the Verb.

Now what if we re-arrange the order and switch cat and dog?

Orignal sentence : The dog chases the cat.

Final sentence : The cat chases the dog.

Now since the cat is right before the Verb it is doing the chasing and the dog coming after the Verb (Chases) is the Direct-object who is being chased.

In English the word order tells us many things & is very important. Infact, we use the order of the words in a sentence to tell us the things that Latin tells us simply by the ending of a Noun. Typically, Subject in English comes before verbs and direct-object comes after.

COMING TO LATIN : 

So, in Latin we know the ending of the word changes based on the grammar.

So the word :

servus - slaves

It ends in us when it is doing the action which is Nominative Case

servum - slaves

& ends in um when it is receiving the action which is Accusative Case

So, going back to our original sentence from where I started this discussion :

Servus dominam salutat

The slave greets the mistress

Here the 'us' ending in servus tells us that it is doing the action(Subject) & the 'am'ending in the dominam tells us that it is receiving the action(Direct-Object). 

And if we move these words around the sentences :

Servus dominam salutat.

Servus salutat dominam.

Dominam servus salutat.

Dominam salutat servus.

Salutat servus dominam.

Salutat dominam servus.

Guess what? 

The ending stays the same and the every bit of information is still there. Servus still ends in 'us' no matter where it is placed in the sentence and so it is still doing the action i.e it is still a Subject. Dominam likewise still ends in the 'am' no matter where it is and is still the Object. With three words there are 6 different possible orders but guess what? All of these say more or less the same thing which is :

The slave is greeting the mistress.

And this is a great flexibility that Latin offers to us that you can construct your Latin-sentence in whatever order you want!

But we usually emphasize the first word of the sentence. So if you really want to point out at "slave" then put "servus" first 

servus dominam salutas 

if the "mistress" then put dominam.

dominam servus salutes Kind of like it's the mistress the slave is greeting. 

But in all these flexibility there is a little bit of chaos and the Romans did love the order, so they did have a standard word order. Basically we will find sentences with Subject first > Direct object> Verb

Example :

Servus dominam salute

Servus : Subject - the nominative case- the doer of the action comes first and the Verb comes last. Everything else like the direct object , prepositional phrase comes in the middle.

But there are exceptions to the standard order like in the sentence : 

Brutus est amicus. (Brutus is a friend) 

It is typical because the Linking Verb - est comes in between two nouns joining them together. But you can also set this sentence into : 

Brutus amicus est 

and it will mean the same thing.

WORD ORDER PROVIDES EMPHASIS

Since Latin doesn't require word order for basic comprehension, the fact that there is a fallback word order suggests that there is something word order does that the inflection doesn't do. Latin word order is varied to emphasize particular words or for variety. Postponement, placing of words in unexpected positions, and juxtaposition were ways Romans achieved emphasis in their sentences, according to an excellent, public domain online Latin grammar, A Latin Grammar, by William Gardner Hale and Carl Darling Buck. First and last words are most important in writing. Speech is different: When talking, people emphasize words with pauses and pitch, but regarding Latin, most of us are more concerned with how to translate or write it than how to speak it.

It's like :

Brutus

(ah! we know that Brutus is doing something, What's he doing I don't know )

Now :

Brutus in tablino

(Oh! now we know where he is i.e he is in the study)

Brutus in tablino amicum

(Now we know to whom he is doing something i.e Brutus-in the study-friend)

Brutus in tablino amicum salutat

(Oh! he is greeting him .)

Oh wait nooo!

Brutus in tablino amicum salutat verberat

(Oh! he is beating him.)

It's like a roller-coster with all the ups and down & expectation from Latin is like a great mystery novel, where you don't quite know - Who has done it or what's quite being done until the end. You might know who did it & to whom it was done & where it was done before you know what it was that happened. 

That still remains a SUSPENSE !!

I hope, now you guys will understand as to why Latin has the random word order! 

TIP : A suggestion to all the newbies out there >>  If you're learning a language through some app then additionally you should also focus on little-bit of grammar because no app will teach you that. Learning from app is best for travel but for forming any sentence and having a proper discussion there you will require at least - the basics of the grammar and vocabulary. I am not asking you to go in detail but in a language like Latin you should focus on the main points like the Cases, Gender, Adjectives and Verbs....