“Latin is a dead language, as dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, and now it’s killing me” is a common ditty recited by students struggling in their Latin course. But Latin remains the source of many words and rules for the English language.
Nouns have different endings depending on their role in the sentence. Life is vita. But the life that belongs to me is vitae. The ending shows possession. Thus, a curriculum vitae should not be called a curriculum vita. The phrase means “course of life.” The “of” means it ends in “-ae.” Confusion can arise because Latin makes single nouns plural by adding “-ae.” So more than one CV are curriculum vitae. Knowing Latin can help one determine the proper endings to words that have come to be used as English.