deskthority

I used to do Latin in school but I can't do English --> Latin, only Latin --> English. Can anyone help me translate something into Latin please?

Cheers!

Well I'm taking latin right now. I might be able to help.

What do you need translated?

I can help, I've done my major in Latin. Also for precisely this I've created this interface to an English-Latin dictionary:

http://edgard.bikelis.com/lat/dic.py

Incomplete!

http://edgard.bikelis.com/lat/dic.py?key=Barf+

PMs sent!

What? People speak Latin? What is this? 150 A.D.?

Hmmm... Ecclesiastical Latin or Classical Latin? That is the question.

E pluribus unum! Nemo me impune lacessit! Plebian, semper fidelis!

Latin's like French. A long dead language fancy people keep around to be fancy.

Any latinist worth his salt uses the reconstructed pronunciation nowadays, no ecclesiastical chichero for Cicero anymore. As for speaking it... one tries, but it's hard to say what exactly is classical Latin. If you mean speaking like in the written texts, not even the Romans spoke like that ; ). If you mean whatever they spoke in Rome around the time of Caesar, then it's way easier, specially in the syntax. Plautus is a good example that even early Latin isn't always syntactically crooked. Most people I know speak like a Roman who learnt Greek also, which gives some funny pronunciations like of philosophia with aspirate [p] like in pie, not at all an [f] for instance.

Speaking of being useful... ; )

Muirium wrote: […] Latin's like French. A long dead language fancy people keep around to be fancy.

Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses - often referred to in the short form "Si tacuisses…"

Classic translation: "If you had kept silent, you would have remained a philosopher."
Modern translation: "Had you kept your mouth shut, we might have considered you to be clever."
My translation: "Always posting the first crap that comes to your mind is not a demonstration of intelligence."

Look on the bright side: French will be better remembered than German, whose legacy is mostly confined to meat products.

Muirium wrote: Look on the bright side: French will be better remembered than German, whose legacy is mostly confined to meat products.

Look <- German
on <- German
the <- German
bright <- German
side <- German
French <- French
will <- German
be <- German
better <- German
remembered <- French
than <- German
German, <- German
whose <- German
legacy <- French
is <- German
mostly <- German
confined <- French
to <- German
meat <- German
products. <- Latin

Yup. You say any of those things to a German and they'll know exactly what you mean.

(I know about linguistics really. English is Germanic, which is a branch of the Indo-European language family that reaches right across to the Himalayas. But English isn't so much a mere neighbor, as a great thief who borrows other people's words with abandon, and smothers their cultures with its products. Lingua Franca, like we say, in English!)

Muirium wrote: […] German, whose legacy is mostly confined to meat products.

May I quote myself?

kbdfr wrote: […] "Always posting the first crap that comes to your mind is not a demonstration of intelligence."