Comments on: Latin Translation

Question: Latin Translation

Melinika — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 07:21:28 -0800

I need a phrase in English translated into Latin, please. (more inside)

My brother asked me to check his grammar on a translation of the phrase "there is no justice without truth", but my Latin is embarassingly rusty - I haven't used it in six years.

Any Latin scholars out there? I didn't know who else to ask.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 07:58:32 -0800

Interpolating a bit from H2G2 Handy Latin phrases and my own casual Latin knowledge, I think it's "Nemo justicia sans veritas," but I wouldn't bet denarii on that.

By: fvw

fvw — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:12:59 -0800

Sans? Shouldn't that be absque or something?

</even worse at latin>

By: NekulturnY

NekulturnY — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:14:57 -0800

Yes, that would probably be

Nemo justitia (with t not c) sine veritas.

The great thing about Latin is that you don't need any verbs for this.

By: headspace

headspace — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:21:07 -0800

I think it should actually be Nemo j[i]ustia sine veritas- but I'm also not betting denarii because I think "veritas" has to be in the ablative.

By: briank

briank — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:24:40 -0800

nemo is "nobody" or "no one", not "there is no"

Try something like:

nulla justitia sine veritas

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:29:27 -0800

Don't use "nemo," which means "no person" or "no one". It's actually:

"Numquam justitia sine veritas"

"Never justice without truth"

By: briank

briank — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:40:51 -0800

One last try:

nulla justitia sine veritate

Cripes, four years of Latin and you'd think I could remember to make my cases agree.

By: NekulturnY

NekulturnY — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:06:53 -0800

Ha! I admit I wasn't sure of that nemo thing. And the cases, ah, those cases... I would go for brianks solution, but you want to check what accord 'sine' wants.

"Sine" is a preposition, meaning "without" and as the vocabulary tells you, the noun that follows it will be in the ablative (link)

Now all you have to do is make sure that "veritate" is the ablative of veritas.

By: briank

briank — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:10:16 -0800

nom: veritas
gen: veritatis
dat: veritate
acc: veritatem
abl: veritate

(well, at least I can still decline a noun)

By: headspace

headspace — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:43:33 -0800

Woohoo, I was right about the ablative! That salves the wound of being totally wrong about nemo.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:51:41 -0800

Sorry for my uneducated first try above. Not a single word made it through.

By: jfuller

jfuller — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:32:01 -0800

> Sans? Shouldn't that be absque or something?

"Sans" is French. "Sine" and "absque" are both Lat. "without." I had that in my head, or that's my story anyway.

Both are prepositions that take the ablative (most do but some don't.) I did not have that in my head, I got it from the Notre Dame online Latin dictionary. Here's Latin to English and English to Latin.