What would be the translation for "Brothers In Arms" ?  Meaning that men who fight an enemy together are like brothers.

Thanks,  Marsha

Yes, I tried google but I want to make sure "arms" isn't being translated literally as in the appendage attached to our torsos, but in the sense of battle "arms", weapons.

Marsha

Yes armis is what you're looking for.  
Consider the opening lines of the Aeneid: "Arma virumque cano" - I sing of arms and the man, referring to arms as in weapons.

So the consensus is that "Fratres in armis" would be the correct Latin translation for the motto "Brothers In Arms" meaning that we are brothers who fight together against a common enemy?

Sorry for asking again but I'm a dummy when it comes to Latin and have no one else to ask.  I just want to make sure it is correct before these young men have their t-shirts done up.

Marsha

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.

I also have a question about Latin, and rather than start a new thread I hope it's OK to ask in this one.

What's the Latin way of saying 'St. Joan' in the vocative, i.e. 'Blessed St. Joan, pray for us'? I know that 'Blessed saint' in the feminine is 'Beata sancta', and of course 'pray for us' is 'ora pro nobis', I just don't know how to Latinize 'Joan'.  

I know that 'John' is 'Johannes', so I'm guessing 'Joan' might be something like 'Johanna'. Does anyone know? Thanks very much.

Gratias, Rosarium!

I don't think this is a good idea. …

Why not just use English? …

Since your suggestion is the best and most sensible of them all, I'm not surprised that it's being roundly ignored, even dismissed.

It is not how a Latin speaker would refer to a fellow soldier.

I've never been a Roman soldier but I suppose they would understand what you 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.

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."