Hatrack River Writers Workshop: translation assist request

This is topic translation assist request in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by micmcd (Member # 7977) on :

Does anybody out there speak/read/write Latin?

Why: the wizards in my serial fiction speak an unchanging logical language that I call Rational, but I'm representing as just plain Latin. I'm not so foolish as to have long passages of a language I don't speak (nor do my readers, generally), but the occasional word creeps in and I don't want to look silly. Just as I wouldn't write about horses without checking and double-checking my facts, I was hoping to double check my pseudo-translation. I have actually started some books on learning the language, but for what I have now, I'd prefer to ask a passable expert.

How much: I have exactly three full (three-word) sentences in two hundred pages of writing, and I intend to continue at about that density. In addition, there are people's names (wizards are named by their teachers, and the names are attributes or descriptions - which I know was not the Roman way).

As an example (again, one of three), when a character is freed from years of imprisonment, he screams "Libertas! Liberatus sum!" before switching back to the language of people around him.

If you have a few spare minutes to help out, I'd greatly appreciate not having to trust google translate and my Idiot's Guide To Learning Latin.

Incidentally, I'd be happy to similarly translate mathspeak or programmerspeak if anyone needs it (not just for someone offering to help with my Latin). I can do passable French as well, but I'd need a dictionary to read a page of it.

Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :

There are very Latin-knowledgeable people, including to the level of good understanding of idiom, at http://latindiscussion.com/forum/ (my Latin has nearly rusted away, but I still love the language so I hang out there sometimes).

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

A Google search revealed several sites that translate English into Latin---however, my own experiences with them would suggest running the results by someone with a working knowledge of the language. (I can't remember whether I used any of 'em when I needed to fake some Greek / Latin scientific names, but I do remember the guys on the boards at the time were very helpful...)

Posted by micmcd (Member # 7977) on :

@reziac - I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the link!

@Robert - I tried a few auto-translate sites and they mostly agreed with me, but you're right; I'm not comfortable just trusting a machine with a translation.

Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :

As the folks at the Latin forum will tell you, the machine translations are generally suspect, and often bizarre.

Someone at Google Translate was being a wit, tho... their somewhat strange translation, in English rhyming and word order (which tells me it's a preset result), of a bit of doggerel I learned from my high school Latin teacher:

Latina lingua mortua
jacentem in pulvere
prius occiderat Romani
Sed nos occideres

[And it doesn't backtranslate correctly.]