Does anyone know of a reliable English to Latin translator

John Chapman said:

have a sneaking suspicion that, before the Romans became Christian, they would have referred to 'Isis' bow' Arcus Isis instead however. Isis was the goddess of the rainbow. It needs a greater expert than I for the correct translation. Any ideas EvilRooster?

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Actually Iris was the Roman (and Greek) goddess of the rainbow; Isis was the Egyptian goddess of, well, lots of stuff. Although there were cults of Isis in Rome for much of the city's history, they were considered explicitly foreign.

We don't have a lot of pre-Christian Latin texts that involve rainbows. Generally, when they do, they called it the arcus caelestis, the celestial bow. Ironically, the primary cite for iris as a transferred term for the rainbow is the Vulgate, the major Latin translation of the Bible undertaken by Jerome.

Which is to say, yes, you need to understand the idiom and the cultural context around the idiom before you can translate the terminology realistically.

However, in this case, we're just trying for an approximation that sounds good enough for a work of fiction. What if the seekers after truth were, say, inspired by Diogenes (the Greek fella with the lamp), or people who had been themselves inspired by him? Maybe then they'd be the Diogenides, or the Lucernades (children of the lamp), or the Lanternarii (lantern-bearers).

Mind you, all of these names feel like ancient Roman mystery cults rather than medieval societies, but it does depend on the history of the association.

brianjanuary said:

Latin grammar often uses an implied subject, hence quarentes veritatem is the correct form (literally it means "those seeking the truth").

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Of course. Apologies to Evilrooster.

I think it's time to write Latin can have an implied subject on a cricket bat and whack myself with it. It's the only way I'll ever remember.

fadeaccompli said:

I desperately want to study some medieval Latin, just to get an introduction to what sorts of changes went on, and so forth.

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One thing I've noticed with medieval Latin is that you'll often find a C where you might expect a T.

exposicio instead of expositio.
potenciam instead of potentiam.
habencia instead of habentia.

Rufus Coppertop said:

One thing I've noticed with medieval Latin is that you'll often find a C where you might expect a T.

exposicio instead of expositio.
potenciam instead of potentiam.
habencia instead of habentia.

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See, I didn't know that at all! But it makes perfect sense based on what I know of Spanish. (And boy oh boy was knowing some Spanish ever a help in picking up on Latin vocab quickly.) The very small bits of medieval Latin that I've read also suggest that word order starting sliding nearer to what I think of as English word order--it'd probably be more accurate to compare it to Spanish sentences--and that a lot of uses of the ablative and dative (and some accusative) that were unmarked in classical Latin started getting prepositions attached. But beyond that, I don't know a thing about it.

I've just about exhausted my knowledge of medieval Latin with that post above.

Two books that might be worth buying are Reading Medieval Latin by Sidwell and Medieval Mosaic: A Book of Medieval Latin Readings by (ed) Godfrey.

msd said:

I thought of some new sample titles.

Guardians of the truth (Custodes veritatis)

Custodians of the truth (Custodum Custodes veritatis)

Caretakers of the truth (Cultores veritatis)

Keepers of the truth (Custodes Veritatis)

Guards of the truth (Custodibus Custodes veritatis

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You've got a couple of nominatives where you need genitives, and a range of case problems with variants of custos, which means guard, custodian, or keeper. There's one genitive, one dative/ablative where you want a nominative. Once you boil those down, it's a choice between Custodes Veritatis and Cultores Veritatis.

It is hard. This one is particularly hard, and I'm not sure why.

Roxxsmom said:

Unless you are planning on spamming e-mails that ask strangers to send you money to help you deal with some made-up crisis.

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This sort of thing?

Ego sum Dr Mariam Abacha, uxor ultimi Nigeriani presidentis, Generalis Sani Abacha qui mortuus est a.d. VII Id Jun MCMXCVIII dum adhuc in activa officium sum contingentes vos in secundum hoc erimus magno adiutorio ad quisque alterum, item ligulam fervidissimam negotium relationship. Ego aute intra mea pervenire summam Quadraginta-Duo Million United States pupa ($ 42,000,000.00), quae proposueram uti ad investment fines specie in patriam. Hac pecunia venit, ut resultantiam ex stipendium retro contractus paciscor inter mea sera viro et Russian firmum in patriosque Multi-Billion Dollar Ajaokuta Steel Planta.

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evilrooster said:

This sort of thing?

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...that...is a thing of beauty.

Roxxsmom said:

I don't think translation programs are quite there yet Now I want to plug this into Google translate and see what comes out in Latin.

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I got the passage above by taking this snippet (source here, but it's internet famous and turns up in lots of places):

I am Dr. Mariam Abacha, wife of the last Nigerian Head of State, General Sani Abacha who died on the 8th of June 1998 while still on active duty am contacting you in view of the fact we will be of great assistance to each other, likewise developing a cordial business relationship. I currently have within my reach the sum of Fourty-Two Million United States dollars ($42,000,000.00) which I intended to use for investment purposes specifically in your country. This money came as a result of a pay-back contract deal between my late husband and a Russian firm in our country’s Multi-Billion Dollar Ajaokuta Steel Plant.

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I plugged it into Google Translate, fixed the less amusing errors in the first few lines, translated the date into the Roman calendar, and posted it.

Rufus Coppertop said:

Quaerentes isthe nominative and accusative plural form of the present participle. It means seeking.

For practitioners of a verb,we can add tor (M) or trix (F) to the supine stem.

Quaesitores = seekers.

Veritatem Quaesitores = truth seekers

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Veritatis Quaesitores is better Latin. The problem is that quaesitor(es) is a noun derived from a verb, not actually a verb form, and so you should use the genitive, making it literally "seekers of the truth".

Latin Translator

msd said:

Does anyone know of a reliable English to Latin translator on the web?

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This is one of the ones that I use. I honestly can't tell you if it's perfect or not, as I don't actually speak latin, but it IS from a reputable college. (University of Notre Dame)

http://archives.nd.edu/latgramm.htm

Dr. Whom said:

Veritatis Quaesitores is better Latin. The problem is that quaesitor(es) is a noun derived from a verb, not actually a verb form, and so you should use the genitive, making it literally "seekers of the truth".

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Oh man, that was such a basic mistake. Somebody shoot me. Please!

Thanks! This is great information.