# Baby



## aviv chadash

I found infantia. But I was reading a book titled Rubicon, by Tom Holland, that avers that Latin had no word for baby...


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## Cagey

This is an odd claim.  _Infans, infantis_, is one possibility. 

Did Tom Holland elaborate on what he meant by _baby_?  What was the context?  What point was he making?


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## Outsider

Cagey said:


> This is an odd claim.  _Infans, infantis_, is one possibility.


Doesn't that more precisely mean "child"?


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## Cagey

Most precisely it means someone who can't speak, which in English would be _infant _or _baby_, not _child._


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## aviv chadash

Beg your pardon, I'm not sure where infantia came from. Checking my Latin dictionary reveals: infantia, -ae, f. = inability to speak; infancy; lack of eloquence.



Cagey said:


> Most precisely it means someone who can't speak, which in English would be _infant _or _baby_, not _child._



This is interesting; because the author is talking about the Roman's perception of children (during the republic, at this point in the book about 80 BC), and explains that the Roman's were a little 'put off' by the helplessness of babies. From Rubicon: "The Romans lacked a specific word for baby, reflecting their assumption that a child was never to young to be toughened up. Newborns where swaddled tightly to mould them into the form of adults" (pg. 112).

Additionally, is infans -ium in the genetive plural, or -um?
Many thanks for the responses.


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## Cagey

The genitive plural would be "infantium", which is the expected form and the one used most frequently. It is the one found in Cicero, for instance.  However there are a couple of citations (Pliny and Vergil) that use "infantum".

(_Infantia_ would be 'infancy', the abstraction.)


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## aviv chadash

Many thanks for the response, as I am 'fairly' new to Latin, I was wondering if you could just explain briefly why the expected form is -ium? As I took infans, infantis to be a 3rd declension increasing noun; and therefore the genetive plural ending to be -um.


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## Cagey

_Infans, infantis,_ is an adjective, also used as a substantive.  Adjectives of this form generally decline as present participles do ~ that is, as i-stem third declension nouns, with some exceptions for the ablative and the accusative plural.  

It may be helpful to compare the regular third-declension i-stem nouns with the declension of a present participle.


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## aviv chadash

Many thanks Cagey. I haven't studied substantives yet, hopefully soon.


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