Translation Help Please

July 24, 2006 12:58 PM

Please help me translate from English to Latin.

And for my next tattoo, I want a piece of text that reads "The only constant in life is chage." However, I want to get it done in Latin. Any chance a couple of you can agree on this translation?? It is kind of a permanent thing that I want to get right. :-)

posted by AlliKat75 to writing & language (25 answers total)

And given its permanence, I really should have checked my spelling. That should read: "The only constant in life is change."
posted by AlliKat75 at 1:02 PM on July 24, 2006

Solus jugis in vita est change. is what I got from here.
posted by black8 at 1:15 PM on July 24, 2006

here, I mean.
posted by black8 at 1:16 PM on July 24, 2006

I can’t translate it, but in the lists of Latin maxims, phrases, etc. I just searched through, the nearest readymade equivalent I could find was: Omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis—‘All things change, and we change with them.’ A pithier phrase, but not quite what you’re after, follows it on this list: Omnia mutantur, nihil interit—‘Everything changes, nothing perishes.’
posted by misteraitch at 1:20 PM on July 24, 2006

Thanks. I got that too. I'm just worried that the software is too literal.
posted by AlliKat75 at 1:21 PM on July 24, 2006

Misteraitch...Thanks. That is an awesome list.
posted by AlliKat75 at 1:23 PM on July 24, 2006

It's not the exact meaning you want, but please, please, please, get mutatis mutandis. It's a commonly used Latin phrase, and it's an ironic commentary on both the permanence of tattoos and that the tattoo will fade and change shape as you age. Oh, please, please, please.
posted by orthogonality at 1:27 PM on July 24, 2006

Thanks. I got that too. I'm just worried that the software is too literal.

It is. Inasmuch as it's just swapping vocab for vocab. "jugis" is an adjective-- it may have a noun equivalent, but it means "static" as written, "constant," but not "a constant".
posted by Mayor Curley at 1:42 PM on July 24, 2006

Sic transit gloria mundi

(not a literal translation, but a similar idea couched in a common Latin expression)
posted by briank at 2:07 PM on July 24, 2006

I'm voting for mutattis mutandis: nice riff on all the nonsensical Japanese dermoglyphs out there.
posted by rob511 at 2:09 PM on July 24, 2006

Okay, so you might have me convinced on the change to mutatis mutandis. Would it be proper to say (write): "Mutatis mutandis. Quod me nutrit me destruit."?
posted by AlliKat75 at 2:24 PM on July 24, 2006

OK...I've only been doing Latin for a semester, but I want to take a crack at this before somebody fluent charges in and see if I can learn from my inevitable mistakes.

Constantia sola vitae mutatio est.

I'm 99% sure that my cases and declensions are good. I'm just not sure if mutatio is the right sense of "change."
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 2:31 PM on July 24, 2006

"Mutatis mutandis. Quod me nutrit me destruit."?

I don't know if you care, but Angelina Jolie has the second sentence as a tattoo on her hip.
posted by Falconetti at 2:32 PM on July 24, 2006

Or, muTATis mutandis?

AlliKat75 writes "Would it be proper to say (write): 'Mutatis mutandis. Quod me nutrit me destruit.'?"

Grammatically, it seems to be ok.

Aesthetically, my response (and this is merely my own sense) is that Quod me nutrit me destruit is a bit dramatic. It's not as bad as "What doesn't destroy me makes me stronger" (and indeed, has almost the opposite sense), but anything that talks about "destroy[ing] me" seems (again, to me) grandiose. You see a lot of grandiose and obvious tattoos ("Killer", "Love", "Hate", "Momma"), so I really prefer elliptical, somewhat ambiguous ones: if the thing's always gonna be on your skin, your want the meaning to not be literal, bald or obvious, but to change as the reader interprets it.

(As an aside, that's why I've always hated repeating wallpaper -- all too soon, you see the pattern, and no matter how interesting the wallpaper, the pattern becomes banal and obvious. So I've gone to some trouble to avoid wallpaper or replace it with marbling or other unique non-patterns. But that's just me. It's your skin.)

On tattoo I really liked was "Iconoclast" in Russian translation and Cyrillic script, on the back of a woman's neck -- it's "hidden" under the hair, it (putatively) describes her outlook on life, it's ironic when one considers regimented Soviet society, but,also invokes the famous Russian religious icons, but literally means "icon smasher", which of course is what the Soviets did to real Orthodox Church icons when they came to power. So one word can be interpreted a multiplicity of ways, some of them contradictory to each other. And being hidden under the hair, it suggests "I'm outwardly conforming to society, but secretly am destroying your icons (conformities)." All in one word.
posted by orthogonality at 2:41 PM on July 24, 2006

One tattoo I really liked was "Iconoclast" in Russian translation and Cyrillic script, on the back of a woman's neck

Great tattoo, great analysis. And I too like "mutatis mutandis." Please ignore all the responses from people who don't actually know Latin but feel they have to contribute something anyway.
posted by languagehat at 3:03 PM on July 24, 2006

There is a really wicked part of me that wants to translate it thus: Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.

But really, don't get that tattooed on you. I would be cruel to advise that. Seriously.
posted by leapfrog at 4:34 PM on July 24, 2006

Can mutatis mutandis stand alone, though? The rusty part of my brain that got me through Latin A Level tells me it means 'that having been changed which had to be changed', so it only works as part of a sentence.

Given that languagehat reckons it's kosher, I'm almost certainly wrong about this, but it feels wrong without something to refer to, e.g. 'I eventually agreed to his plan mutatis mutandis.'

I hope I am wrong, actually - I've long wanted a tattoo, but never known what to get, so if mutatis mutandis stands alone, it would be an ideal expression of the non-specific need to be tattooed (I toyed with the idea of a tattoo of the word 'tattoo' for a long while, which is so ridiculous it might just work, assuming folk assumed I was joking about the joke as much as making it).
posted by jack_mo at 4:54 PM on July 24, 2006

Depends what you mean by "stand alone." No, it doesn't carry a complete thought by itself, but I'm not aware that that's considered a requirement for a tattoo, considering all those Chinese characters people have engraved on their epidermides. All that matters is that it's good Latin (on the off chance you might run into a Latinist who might laugh at you), and this is excellent Latin. If you'd rather have a complete peroration of Cicero pricked into your lumbar region, that's up to you, of course.
posted by languagehat at 5:10 PM on July 24, 2006

jack_mo writes "feels wrong without something to refer to, e.g. 'I eventually agreed to his plan mutatis mutandis.'"

That's sort of the point: make the reader supply the referent. The reader may understand that the referent to be the tattoo itself (which changes over time, as it fades and the underlying skin loosens), to the skin (it's been changed by the addition to the tattoo), the person with the tattoo (who has been changed from a person without that tattoo to a person with that tattoo), the person in a more general sense (who understands that life is a process of change), life or the human condition (the tattoo states that its wearer recognizes that every person's life changes, and that even those without tattoos have literally and figuratively in the lines on our faces and in the attitudes "engraved" by life's needle in the "grooves" of our minds, our life experiences written on us, which the literal engraving of the tattoo both reflects and reifies this*) , or the tattoo may represent the irony of a "permanent" tattoo on an ephemeral epidermis and mortal body which will eventually "have" to be changed into worm-food and dust.

(*For a less pleasant version, see Kafka's "In the Penal Colony".)

So the lack of a concrete referent forces the reader to evaluate the suitability of these several referents and any others that may occur to him, making the tattoo both more "mysterious"a nd more interesting that one with a single, unambiguous, obvious referent. The tattoo then provokes conversation and thought rather than just making a statement, and so it's less boring to see it everyday of the rest of the wearers life.
posted by orthogonality at 5:38 PM on July 24, 2006

(on the off chance you might run into a Latinist who might laugh at you)

That was my worry on AlliKat75's behalf, but orthogonality's reader-supplied referent examples scotch any Latinists who might get sniffy and ask 'What, pray, has been changed?'.

(And I'm now seriously thinking of getting a Lawrence Weiner-inspired tattoo that reads 'INK + SKIN'...)
posted by jack_mo at 3:19 AM on July 25, 2006

Well, you convinced me to use the 'mutatis mutandis' phrase. It seems to convey the message I am looking for on a much more interesting level. I am off to my tattoo artist right now. Thanks for the help everyone.
posted by AlliKat75 at 9:35 AM on July 25, 2006

orthogonality, never say you didn't leave your mark on the world.
posted by languagehat at 10:13 AM on July 25, 2006

languagehat: indeed.


AlliKat75 writes "I am off to my tattoo artist right now"

Oh, damn. Forget to mention it should look Latin too: all caps (languagehat will correct me, but isn't lowercase an outgrowth of Carolingian Miniscule, post-dating the Roman Empire (or at the non-Holy Roman Empire)?), and with "V" for "U": MVTATIS MVTANDIS.

But in any case, please update with a picture of the tat!
posted by orthogonality at 11:08 AM on July 25, 2006

isn't lowercase an outgrowth of Carolingian Miniscule, post-dating the Roman Empire

Sounds right to me, though I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment.

I second the call for pictures!
posted by languagehat at 11:31 AM on July 25, 2006

Okay, so I got the tat. I debated with myself for quite a while over the all caps and the 'v' for 'u'. But, I decided against both. I figured I would allow a little modernity into the phrase. Also, having done a bit more research on the phrase, I discovered that using the 'v' slightly shifted the meaning - the use of the 'v' indicates a reference to having made some necessary substitutions (so, not quite what I wanted to convey). Anyway, the final tat read as follows: ...mutatis mutandis. Dolor hic tibi proderit olim. I truly appreciate the irony of both phrases, given the permanence and pain involved with the tat. It wraps from my shoulder blade to my pelvis. If I can somehow get a picture made, I will definitely post it. Thanks for all the input. It is much appreciated.
posted by AlliKat75 at 8:06 AM on July 26, 2006