Expert: Maria - 3/30/2008

Question
I was wondering how you say a few phrases in latin dealing with flowers. The phrases I had in mind were "the flower" and "the flowers".

Also, I was wondering how to say "shadowed wanderer" in latin? And also, what does the term "peregrinus" imply in latin?

Thanks for your time! I greatly appreciate any feedback that you are able to give.

Answer
Hello,

First of all "the flower" translates into Latin as “flos” (nominative singular, 3rd.declension), while the plural "the flowers" translates as “flores” which is just the nominative plural of FLOS.
Latin does not use the definite/ indefinite article and then FLOS means “the flower” and FLORES means “the flowers”.

As for “shadowed wanderer", if it means “the shadow wanderer“ like in  “shadow minister”, it cannot be translated into Latin as this concept did not exist in ancient times.
If on the contrary it means ”hidden wanderer” in the sense that this wanderer follows someone like his shadow, in Latin you can say: “Occultus viator” or “Occultus peregrinator”, both in the nominative case, of course.
Note that OCCULTUS is "shadowed" and VIATOR / PEREGRINATOR is "wanderer".

Finally, the term "peregrinus" (nominative masculine singular) means “strange”, “foreign” when adjective, and “foreigner” , “stranger” when noun.

To conclude I have to point out that Latin is an inflected language where the words change ending according to their grammatical role (subject, direct object, indirect object, etc.), their gender and number.

Best regards,
Maria