Language desk
< March 20	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 22 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 21

Latin translation check

Hello! If anyone would be so kind, I'd like you to check my grammar for me. I'm sure it's just awful, I'm only a very new Latin learner.

Volo corpum celeritissimis avis / Diu noctuque cogito de te / Per medium dium canto meum cantum / Relinquo corpum meum / Avi volitant / Mihi placere cum mortuum numerare / Voces calestes nomen meum loquuntur

I'm not sure what language this was in originally, but here is the English translation I'm working from:

I wish to have the body of the swiftest bird / Every day I think of you, half the day I sing my song / I give away my body / And the birds fly away / I am happy to be numbered among the slain / The spirits on high recite my name

2601:1C1:8100:900:8CA:15B1:ADFB:DF14 (talk) 02:11, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a Latin expert, but I can correct some of the grammar (without attempting to suggest more appropriate vocabulary):

Volo corpus celerrimi avis
Die nocteque cogito de te
Per mediam diem canto meum cantum
Relinquo corpus meum
Aves volitant
Mihi placet cum mortuis numerari
Voces caelestes nomen meum loquuntur

I haven't checked the gender of avis - if it is feminine, then it should be celerrimae avisColinFine (talk) 10:02, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It is, as in "rara avis". Adam Bishop (talk) 10:46, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The original language, incidentally, is a Native American one. --Antiquary (talk) 10:51, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. How did you locate that book? The original text is not exactly that posted by the OP, yet it is obviously essentially the same text. How on earth did you do it? Basemetal 16:14, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Really not difficult: the first line is identical in both versions. Having found it that way I then covered my tracks by going back to the beginning and using one of the non-identical lines as a search term. And that might have impressed everyone if you hadn't forced me to come clean. Curse you! --Antiquary (talk) 16:29, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside: another resource besides the RD for all questions regarding the Latin language, Latin literature, Roman civilization, Roman history, etc. is the Latin Vicipaedia and especially their Taberna where I've been told it was perfectly fine to ask any kind of Latin question, whether you wanna do it in Latin or in English... Basemetal 16:14, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the help, and finding the original book, which is not the one I have! I'm sure I made a mistake using 'numer-,' could anyone help me with that? 2601:1C1:8100:900:C9A3:CF46:3B8F:2675 (talk) 02:31, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No that's fine, Colin corrected it to "numerari" ("to be numbered") but otherwise it's correct. There are lots of synonyms you could use there (recenseri, for one), but numerari works too. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:57, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Even under, under even

"UQ study finds coral reefs under even greater threat." "even under the most stringent reading of UN Charter requirements."

I'm having problems to understand the difference between these two: even under, under even. Could someone provide a synonym for them? --Hofhof (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what "even" is qualifying. In the first case, it's qualifying greater threat, as an intensifier. The threat to coral reefs is worse than it was at some previous time, hence even greater threat.

In the second case, "even" is qualifying the whole phrase under the most stringent reading .... It's just a coincidence that the word "under" appears at all there. It could just as well have been written as even on the most stringent reading .... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:10, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Or perhaps better, even with the most stringent or even using the most stringent or even by the most stringent. The original is also fine, of course. --69.159.62.113 (talk) 18:39, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Almost. In the first, even is qualifying not "greater threat" but simply "greater". One could rearrange the sentence to say that the UQ study says that the coral reefs are "under a threat that is even greater" (than a level inferrable from the context). -- Hoary (talk) 08:36, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "Coral reefs are under threat" means that something is threatening coral reefs, and "under even greater threat" is intensifying the threat, i.e. making it a greater problem. Meanwhile, "under the most stringent reading of UN Charter requirements" means "if you interpret the requirements stringently", and "even" intensifies that. In other words, "Regardless of how stringently you interpret the requirements". Nyttend (talk) 22:35, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]