Expert: Maria - 12/9/2008

Question
Hi,
I would like to translate "Free the Zombies" into latin for my new website.    So far I have "Liberate Mortuus Vivens", using Living Dead since I don't think Zombie exists.   
Got any ideas?   Thanks!
Heidi

Answer
Hello,

If you really want this kind of oxymoron to be translated into Latin, the correct phrase must sound as follows:

-“Mortuos libera viventes”, if the command “Free” is addressed to only one person.

-“Mortuos liberate viventes”, if the command “Free” is addressed to two or more persons.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-MORTUOS (accusative masculine plural of MORTUUS) = the dead

-LIBERA (2nd.person singular, imperative  of LIBERO, I free) or LIBERATE (2nd.person plural, imperative ) = free

-VIVENTES (accusative masculine plural of the present participle of VIVO, I live) = living

Latin word order can be different from English, as you can see, simply because in Latin syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings, not by the order of the words.

As for your translation “Liberate Mortuus Vivens", note that  the words “Mortuus Vivens” are wrong as they are in the nominative singular, while they must be in the accusative plural (direct object).

Finally this phrase is an oxymoron because  incongruous / contradictory terms  such as  “dead/living” are combined here.