The confusion you evince between T-shirts and the lex credendi suggests that your understanding of what Tradition entails leaves something to be desired.
I clearly state that people may want to use Latin for things which are small out of affection for the language rather than any particular functional use. I use a Latin screen name for that reason. It fits as a name...whereas "Rosary" would not, and the English term "rose garden" would fit even less.
And the NO comment was a rebuttal to the lengthy and pointless attempts to...rebut (I suppose) the simple request for a Latin translation. A bunch of people gave their input without showing much expertise. It shouldn't be that big of a deal.
Here is the post:
What would be the translation for "Brothers In Arms" ? Meaning that men who fight an enemy together are like brothers.
Thanks, Marsha
And here are two responses to it:
I don't think this is a good idea.
First, if you/they don't know Latin enough to know how to say/write it, why use Latin?
Why not just use English?
Does Latin add some gravitas to it? Is it not enough they serve together?
Also, you're taking an *idiom* and translating it into Latin.
It is not how a Latin speaker would refer to a fellow soldier.
I've never been a Roman solider but I suppose they would understand what your were getting at with the 'brothers in arms' transliteration, but they would use a noun for their comrade/fellow soldier.
If they had some idiom for the concept, this isn't it.
Since your suggestion is the best and most sensible of them all, I'm not surprised that it's being roundly ignored, even dismissed.
Right as rain! I haven't been a Roman soldier either, but I have been both a combat soldier and a five-year student of classical Latin, and so I hope that that combination of experience counts for something in the present context.
Cicero used the word commilitones (sing., commilito) to refer to "fellow soldiers," and in the post-classical period, Tacitus used commilitium to mean "comradeship in war or military service."
Most germane of all, however, may be the vocabulary of Caesar—though being an officer, he had the low opinion of enlisted men that remains one of the great constants of human nature and human history. Caesar, concerned as he was with the comradeship of arms only insofar as it produced results on the battlefield, generally uses only miles or pedes to refer to a foot soldier and eques to refer to a mounted soldier. On the other hand, whether writing about the Gallic Wars or the cινιℓ ωαrs, he makes frequent and quite broad use of the word fratres, to signify friends, associates, and allies in combat.
All in all, unless Marsha's aim is to be silly, confusing, pretentious, or some combination of the foregoing (not that I suppose it is!), taking the advice of Iuvenalis is far and away the wisest course of action. One can say all he likes that "it is a tradition in English speaking nations to use Latin phrases and mottoes," but since the English of the Old World, the New World, and the Antipodes is littered with mottoes, slogans, and just plain dumb remarks in at least twenty different languages that I can count without even putting my mind to it, this is hardly a germane contribution to the discussion at hand. Indeed, it might best be described by something an old friend of mine wrote in his first published book some forty years ago: "It was the ne plus ultra of plus ça change."
Omnia dicta fortiora si dicta Latina
Topic: A question for someone who knows latin (Read 3580 times)