I obviously don’t speak Latin, is it a grammatical thing? AFAIK it stands for “Senatus Populusque Romanus” meaning “The Senate and People of Rome”. I obviously see the q in there, but it seems to not merit it’s own letter in the acronymn. Apparently it does, but why?
There were no spaces in the original Latin. The inscription would’ve been something like “SENATUSPOPULUSQUEROMANUS”. Why not call it four words?
So que means of? I kinda thought that, but everywhere I’ve seen it it looked like a suffix. Maybe the definitions blurred with time. Like you said.
‘que’ means and, and may have been a separate word at one point, but by the time period whose language I studied, it was only a suffix.
The -que, while not physically separated from populus, has a meaning unto itself. It is sometimes called an enclitic conjunction and is translated “and”. It is generally appended to the second of two words to be connected. It’s as if we said “The Senate People-and of Rome” instead of “The Senate and People of Rome” except that it makes sense in Latin.
Thanks!
I guess applying English acronymn stadards to a different language doesn’t always make sense in English. Succinct explanation though.