Latin · Chapter 12 · Lesson 5 · Grammar primer
Scientific Latin
Why every species has a Latin name, how to read one, and the adjective agreement hiding inside Homo sapiens.
The short version
Homo sapiens is adjective agreement
A species name is a capitalised genus noun plus (usually) an adjective agreeing in gender: Quercus alba is feminine because trees are feminine, whatever their ending. Tyrannosaurus rex is the other pattern, a noun in apposition - the tyrant lizard THE KING. Read the epithet's ending and you are doing first-year Latin on a museum label.
Ursus arctos horribilis - the bear that earns its name
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
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One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
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