Undeviginti naves in portu manebant, et undeviginti nautae tempestatem timebant.

Undeviginti means nineteen. Literally, it is built like one from twenty: unde- + viginti.

Latin often forms 18 and 19 this way:

• duodeviginti = eighteen (two from twenty)
• undeviginti = nineteen (one from twenty)

So a learner may expect something more like ten-nine, but classical Latin commonly uses this subtractive pattern instead.

Also, undeviginti is indeclinable here, so it does not change its form to match the noun.

Latin can repeat a word for clarity or balance, just as English can. Here the sentence has two parallel ideas:

• undeviginti naves in portu manebant
• et undeviginti nautae tempestatem timebant

Repeating undeviginti makes the structure neat and emphasizes that there were nineteen ships and nineteen sailors. Latin certainly can omit repeated words in some contexts, but it does not have to.

Naves is the nominative plural of navis, meaning ships.

It is nominative plural because naves is the subject of manebant:

• naves ... manebant = the ships were remaining/staying

A learner might expect a first- or second-declension-looking ending, but navis is a third-declension noun, so its nominative plural is naves.

Nautae is the nominative plural of nauta, meaning sailors.

It is nominative plural because it is the subject of timebant:

• nautae ... timebant = the sailors were fearing

A very common learner question is: if nauta ends in -a, why does it mean a man or a masculine noun? The answer is that nauta is a first-declension noun with masculine meaning. Latin has a small group like this, especially jobs or roles, such as:

• nauta = sailor
• poeta = poet
• agricola = farmer

So nautae here is grammatically first declension, even though the noun is masculine in meaning.

Because in can take either the ablative or the accusative, depending on the meaning.

• in + ablative = in / on a place, with no motion
• in + accusative = into / onto a place, with motion toward it

Here the ships are not moving into the harbor; they are already there and staying/remain­ing there:

• in portu = in the harbor

So portu is ablative singular of portus.

If the sentence meant the ships sailed into the harbor, then Latin would use in portum.

Because portus is a fourth-declension noun. Its ablative singular ends in -u:

• nominative singular: portus
• ablative singular: portu

That can look unusual to an English-speaking learner, because many common Latin ablative singular forms end in -o or -a. But fourth-declension nouns often use -u in the ablative singular.

Because timeo takes a direct object in the accusative. The sailors are fearing the storm, so the storm is the object of the verb:

• nautae tempestatem timebant
• the sailors feared/were fearing the storm

The dictionary form is tempestas. Here tempestatem is its accusative singular form.

So:

• tempestas = storm
• tempestatem = storm, as the direct object

Both are imperfect active indicative, third person plural.

The imperfect often describes:

• an ongoing action in the past
• a repeated action in the past
• background description in a narrative

So here:

• manebant = were staying / remained
• timebant = were fearing / feared

A native English speaker often wants a single fixed translation, but Latin imperfect can be translated in more than one natural English way depending on context. For example:

• manebant could be were staying, stayed, or kept remaining
• timebant could be were fearing, feared, or used to fear

In a simple sentence like this, were staying and were fearing help show the ongoing sense.

The ending -bant tells you they are:

• imperfect
• third person plural

So:

• manebant = they were remaining/staying
• timebant = they were fearing

That matches the plural subjects:

• naves = ships
• nautae = sailors

A useful comparison is:

• manebat = he/she/it was staying
• manebant = they were staying

And similarly:

• timebat = he/she/it was fearing
• timebant = they were fearing

Latin word order is more flexible than English word order because the endings show each word’s grammatical role.

English usually depends heavily on order:

• The sailors feared the storm

Latin can show subject and object through case endings, so the words can be arranged more freely:

• nautae tempestatem timebant
• tempestatem nautae timebant
• timebant nautae tempestatem

All of these could mean essentially the same thing, though the emphasis may change.

In this sentence, the order is fairly straightforward:

• number + noun
• place phrase
• verb

Then the second clause parallels the first. That balanced structure is very common in Latin prose.

All three can work, depending on context.

The basic meaning of maneo is remain, stay, or wait. So manebant might be translated as:

• were staying
• remained
• stayed
• sometimes even were waiting

In this sentence, were staying in the harbor or remained in the harbor are both good choices. If the idea is simply that the ships were still there, remained may sound nice. If the idea is more descriptive and ongoing, were staying works well.

Yes. The sentence is built very neatly in two parallel halves:

• Undeviginti naves in portu manebant
• et undeviginti nautae tempestatem timebant

This kind of balance helps readability and style. Each clause has:

• a number
• a plural noun
• then the rest of the clause
• and a plural imperfect verb at the end

A learner should notice that Latin often likes this kind of symmetry, especially in simple teaching sentences and in polished prose.

A reconstructed classical pronunciation would be roughly:

oon-deh-wee-GIN-tee NAH-wes in POR-too mah-NEH-bahnt, et oon-deh-wee-GIN-tee now-TAI tem-pes-TAH-tem ti-MEH-bahnt

A few helpful points:

• v is pronounced like English w
• ae is pronounced like eye in classical Latin
• c is always hard, though there is no c in this sentence
• ti in tempestatem is just ti, not like English sh

This is not necessary for understanding the grammar, but it is a common learner question.