Calling all Latin scholars: help needed translating a phrase
March 16, 2012 3:17 AM Subscribe
Calling all Latin scholars: help needed translating a phrase.
Can someone translate 'strength, courage and majesty' into Latin for me please? I'm a bit suspicious of translation sites on the web - will they get the grammar right?
Thanks!
Wiktionary is good for more precise translations than Google Translate et al (heh). Just search the English word, then expand the appropriate term under "Translations." Common words will have links to translations in a dozen or more languages with etymologies, English definitions of the translation, tenses, etc.
Your motto will be in the form of "X, Y, et Z," but you have a few choices of translation for each term depending on the connotation you're going for (and what rolls off the tongue better):
Strength:
firmitas (firmness/stability/reliability/durability/steadfastness)
firmitudo (ditto, but with a more "dignified" tone)
fortitudo (might/force/valor/fortitude)
robur (hardness, like oak)
Courage:
fortitudo (there's some overlap with the above)
virtus (courage/resoluteness/virtue, with an emphasis on manliness and virility)
audentia (daring/boldness/audacity)
Majesty:
maiestas/majestas (majesty; you can use a j or i here)
I'd recommend:
Firmitudo/Fortitudo, Audentia, et Majestas
...altering the first depending on if you want "strength" to imply strength in passive/defensive stability or a more active strength of force.
posted by Rhaomi at 3:56 AM on March 16, 2012
Your motto will be in the form of "X, Y, et Z," but you have a few choices of translation for each term depending on the connotation you're going for (and what rolls off the tongue better):
Strength:
firmitas (firmness/stability/reliability/durability/steadfastness)
firmitudo (ditto, but with a more "dignified" tone)
fortitudo (might/force/valor/fortitude)
robur (hardness, like oak)
Courage:
fortitudo (there's some overlap with the above)
virtus (courage/resoluteness/virtue, with an emphasis on manliness and virility)
audentia (daring/boldness/audacity)
Majesty:
maiestas/majestas (majesty; you can use a j or i here)
I'd recommend:
Firmitudo/Fortitudo, Audentia, et Majestas
...altering the first depending on if you want "strength" to imply strength in passive/defensive stability or a more active strength of force.
posted by Rhaomi at 3:56 AM on March 16, 2012
If you're just listing the words, you need not the "grammar".
... actually, you kind of do - you put those words in different forms (nominative, genitive, genitive, probably) - thus making no sense - or rather making a totally different sense - something like "the steadfastness of the soul and of greatness".
Couple of things here. First up, classical or medieval Latin (this is an oversimplification in itself, of course, as is everything that follows)? Medieval tends to give you more freedom to use later nouns, and if this is for a crest of some kind heraldic usage is probably in play... I think classical Latin would probably approach this in a different way - most likely adjectivally - fortis, audax, augustus, say - although then you get into gender issues. Or adverbially - fortiter, audaciter, auguste - strongly, bravely, augustly.
Couple of thoughts - 1) I'd leave out the "et", personally. Latin's an efficient language, and in a tricolon like this the information that the three things are balanced is provided by case. And 2) whereas concepts of "strength" and "courage" are roughly parallel across the languages (although "fortis" is often used to describe strength of character rather than physical strength - "strong" and "brave" overlap somewhat, as Rhaomi says), "majesty" is trickier. "Maiestas" is probably not a bad gloss...
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:12 AM on March 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
... actually, you kind of do - you put those words in different forms (nominative, genitive, genitive, probably) - thus making no sense - or rather making a totally different sense - something like "the steadfastness of the soul and of greatness".
Couple of things here. First up, classical or medieval Latin (this is an oversimplification in itself, of course, as is everything that follows)? Medieval tends to give you more freedom to use later nouns, and if this is for a crest of some kind heraldic usage is probably in play... I think classical Latin would probably approach this in a different way - most likely adjectivally - fortis, audax, augustus, say - although then you get into gender issues. Or adverbially - fortiter, audaciter, auguste - strongly, bravely, augustly.
Couple of thoughts - 1) I'd leave out the "et", personally. Latin's an efficient language, and in a tricolon like this the information that the three things are balanced is provided by case. And 2) whereas concepts of "strength" and "courage" are roughly parallel across the languages (although "fortis" is often used to describe strength of character rather than physical strength - "strong" and "brave" overlap somewhat, as Rhaomi says), "majesty" is trickier. "Maiestas" is probably not a bad gloss...
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:12 AM on March 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
As noted above, you do need to keep them in the same grammatical case, the nominative singular. Luckily for you, the nominative singular is the first entry for (I think) every noun in the dictionary, so you don't have to worry about declension when you look up the words.
But do feel free to drop your version in here and the classicists will be happy to look at it.
Latin likes alliteration, so as you're putting your motto together maybe keep that in mind. A combination like vires* virtus or firmitas fortitudo, which have some nice internal rhymes would probably be the way to go for "Strength, courage".
I can't find a good alliterative third for "Majesty" so you might think about putting "maiestas" in the middle of your two nicely alliterative words. Consideration of such symmetries is not unusual in classical Latin.
*vis, which is the singular form of vires contains the meanings of force, strength, and violence, and may be inappropriate depending on how you want to color the word. Vires, meaning most literally "forces," is -- if I'm recalling correctly -- much more a martial and numerical sense of the word "strength" than it is an expression of personal character attribute.
posted by gauche at 6:33 AM on March 16, 2012
But do feel free to drop your version in here and the classicists will be happy to look at it.
Latin likes alliteration, so as you're putting your motto together maybe keep that in mind. A combination like vires* virtus or firmitas fortitudo, which have some nice internal rhymes would probably be the way to go for "Strength, courage".
I can't find a good alliterative third for "Majesty" so you might think about putting "maiestas" in the middle of your two nicely alliterative words. Consideration of such symmetries is not unusual in classical Latin.
*vis, which is the singular form of vires contains the meanings of force, strength, and violence, and may be inappropriate depending on how you want to color the word. Vires, meaning most literally "forces," is -- if I'm recalling correctly -- much more a martial and numerical sense of the word "strength" than it is an expression of personal character attribute.
posted by gauche at 6:33 AM on March 16, 2012
Hey, spend the twenty bucks and get gen-yoo-wine Latin Professors to make your translation: The Latin Translator. "$20.00 budget service for phrases up to 20 words for mottos, love-letters, gifts", "New Tattoo translation service."
posted by elle.jeezy at 6:53 AM on March 16, 2012
posted by elle.jeezy at 6:53 AM on March 16, 2012
Another thing to remember is that Latin mottoes typically convey an idea or an aspiration, and if they don't include a verb, then the verb 'to be' is generally assumed. For example, 'virtus vera nobilitas' doesn't just mean 'virtue and true nobility', it means 'virtue is true nobility'. So you can't say 'strength, courage and majesty' without also implying 'strength = courage = majesty', which would also imply some deeper idea such as 'strength and courage are the highest form of majesty'.
posted by verstegan at 12:22 PM on March 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by verstegan at 12:22 PM on March 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
The existence of commas between the words should make it clear that they are not being equated... but if one was worried about someone thinking an equivalency was being drawn, the easiest thing to do would probably be to stick the suffix -que on the second and third nouns.
posted by running order squabble fest at 12:46 PM on March 16, 2012
posted by running order squabble fest at 12:46 PM on March 16, 2012
no commas in latin.
posted by elle.jeezy at 2:28 PM on March 17, 2012
posted by elle.jeezy at 2:28 PM on March 17, 2012
no commas in latin.
And, it seems, no capital letters in English. But you raise an interesting question.
I have in front of me Goold's edition of the Elegies of Propertius. Let me open it at random:
tam tibi ne viles isti videantur ocelli,
per quos saepe mihi credita perfidiast!
hos tu iurabas, si quid mentita fuisses,
ut tibi suppositis exciderunt manibus.
Now, that punctuation would not have occurred in the same poem being read in 1st century Rome. You know what else probablywouldn't occur? Spaces between the words.
The orthography of heraldry is distinct from the orthography of Classical Latin, and the orthography of 21st century written Latin is distinct again. Thus, "uno avulso, non deficit alter" is generally written with a comma, for example. To a capable Latin speaker there is no need for that comma, because the ablative case marks that part of the sentence as grammatically distinct in itself, and because word order and sense show that "non" goes with "deficit alter" rather than "uno avulso". However, it's handy for people who are used to uninflected languages, and thus don't instinctively arrange by case.
Likewise, the Olympic motto is generally written as "citius, altius, fortius", not "citius altius fortius".
In this case, a native Latin speaker would IMHO look at three adverbs in a row without a controlling verb and see them instinctively as a syntactically balanced tricolon, rather than in a balanced antithesis. Verstegan has seen this balanced antithesis occur with two nominative forms placed together without a controlling verb, and has taken this to mean that it is common to all collections of words without a controlling verb, which I think is incorrect - nobody reads "citius, altius, fortius" as "faster is the same as higher is the same as stronger". The Latin way to clarify a possible confusion would probably be with the suffix -que, if it was seen to be necessary. So, you'd get something like this:
WORDWORDWORD
or
WORDQUEWORDQUEWORDQUE
However, non-Latin speakers might need a bit of help with that, which is where uninflected-language punctuation comes in, along with word breaks.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:47 PM on March 17, 2012
And, it seems, no capital letters in English. But you raise an interesting question.
I have in front of me Goold's edition of the Elegies of Propertius. Let me open it at random:
tam tibi ne viles isti videantur ocelli,
per quos saepe mihi credita perfidiast!
hos tu iurabas, si quid mentita fuisses,
ut tibi suppositis exciderunt manibus.
Now, that punctuation would not have occurred in the same poem being read in 1st century Rome. You know what else probablywouldn't occur? Spaces between the words.
The orthography of heraldry is distinct from the orthography of Classical Latin, and the orthography of 21st century written Latin is distinct again. Thus, "uno avulso, non deficit alter" is generally written with a comma, for example. To a capable Latin speaker there is no need for that comma, because the ablative case marks that part of the sentence as grammatically distinct in itself, and because word order and sense show that "non" goes with "deficit alter" rather than "uno avulso". However, it's handy for people who are used to uninflected languages, and thus don't instinctively arrange by case.
Likewise, the Olympic motto is generally written as "citius, altius, fortius", not "citius altius fortius".
In this case, a native Latin speaker would IMHO look at three adverbs in a row without a controlling verb and see them instinctively as a syntactically balanced tricolon, rather than in a balanced antithesis. Verstegan has seen this balanced antithesis occur with two nominative forms placed together without a controlling verb, and has taken this to mean that it is common to all collections of words without a controlling verb, which I think is incorrect - nobody reads "citius, altius, fortius" as "faster is the same as higher is the same as stronger". The Latin way to clarify a possible confusion would probably be with the suffix -que, if it was seen to be necessary. So, you'd get something like this:
WORDWORDWORD
or
WORDQUEWORDQUEWORDQUE
However, non-Latin speakers might need a bit of help with that, which is where uninflected-language punctuation comes in, along with word breaks.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:47 PM on March 17, 2012
(WORDWORDQUEWORDQUE, more likely, actually. But I think the suffix would probably be seen as otiose.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:54 PM on March 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:54 PM on March 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Some comments deleted. Elle.jeezy, you made your recommendation; please don't repeat. Everyone else, please just answer the question.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:03 AM on March 18, 2012
posted by taz (staff) at 5:03 AM on March 18, 2012
Response by poster: Wow, thanks guys! Much food for thought. I should have said that it'll be the title of a piece of artwork with a Roman theme; I'm now thinking I may need to get a tatoo as well...
posted by Intaglio a go-go at 8:36 AM on March 18, 2012
posted by Intaglio a go-go at 8:36 AM on March 18, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by verstegan at 3:51 AM on March 16, 2012 [1 favorite]