Familia post funus tacet.

Because familia is in the nominative singular, the case typically used for the subject of a sentence.

• familia = the family / household
• It matches the verb tacet, which is also singular
• So the basic structure is: familia ... tacet = the family ... is silent / keeps silent

After post, Latin normally uses the accusative case.

So in this sentence:

• post = after
• funus = funeral
• post funus = after the funeral

A learner might expect a special ending on funus, but funus is a neuter noun whose nominative and accusative singular have the same form. So here it is accusative singular, even though it looks unchanged.

Because funus belongs to a noun type where the nominative singular and accusative singular are identical.

So:

• nominative singular: funus
• accusative singular: funus

Even though post requires the accusative, the word still appears as funus. This is very common with many neuter nouns in Latin.

tacet comes from the verb tacere, meaning to be silent, to keep quiet, or to say nothing.

More specifically:

• tacet = he/she/it is silent or keeps silent

Since familia is grammatically singular, Latin uses the singular verb tacet, even though in English family can sometimes feel like a group.

Because familia is a singular noun in Latin.

• tacet = is silent (singular)
• tacent = are silent (plural)

Even though a family contains several people, Latin treats familia as one unit here, so the verb is singular.

Latin does not have definite or indefinite articles like English the or a/an.

So:

• familia can mean family, the family, or sometimes a family
• funus can mean funeral, the funeral, or a funeral

The context or the translation tells you which one is most natural in English.

Not always. In Latin, familia can mean more than just parents and children.

Depending on context, it may mean:

• a family
• a household
• all the people belonging to a house, including servants or dependents

In a simple sentence like this, the family is usually the best translation, but the broader idea of a household may also be present.

Yes. Latin word order is fairly flexible because the endings show how the words function.

This sentence could appear in other orders, such as:

• Post funus familia tacet
• Familia tacet post funus

All of these can mean roughly the same thing: The family is silent after the funeral.

The chosen order is straightforward and natural:

• Familia = subject first
• post funus = time expression in the middle
• tacet = verb at the end, a very common Latin pattern

Yes, effectively it functions as an adverbial prepositional phrase.

It tells you when the family is silent:

• post funus = after the funeral

So although post is a preposition and funus is its object, together they modify the verb tacet by adding a time circumstance.

Usually the simplest translation is is silent or keeps silent. But depending on context, English may choose a more natural phrasing such as:

• The family is silent after the funeral
• The family keeps silent after the funeral

Falls silent is possible in some contexts, but it more strongly suggests a change happening at that moment. The Latin tacet by itself does not necessarily emphasize that change; it mainly states the condition of being silent.

You would usually look them up like this:

• familia, familiae — family, household
• post — after (when used as a preposition with the accusative)
• funus, funeris — funeral, death rites, corpse
• taceo, tacere, tacui — be silent, keep quiet

A beginner often sees tacet in the sentence but needs to know that the verb is listed in the dictionary under taceo.

A common classroom pronunciation would be something like:

fa-MI-li-a post FU-nus TA-ket

More roughly:

• familia = fa-MI-lee-a
• post = post
• funus = FOO-noos or FU-nus, depending on the pronunciation system used
• tacet = TA-ket

In restored Classical pronunciation, c is always hard, so tacet sounds like TA-ket, not like English tay-set.