Expert: Maria - 2/6/2009

Question
Hi Maria. I help run a university history society and we have decided we would like a latin motto but we are finding it hard to find a suitable phrase. The best one we came up with was "knowledge nurtures wisdom" but cannot find the correct translation. Please could you help?

Answer
Hello Claire,

Glad to help you and your university history society.

So, here’s the Latin  translation of  “Knowledge nurtures wisdom” which is a good  motto for history group:

-“Cognitio alit sapientiam”.

Or with a different word order which in Latin can be variable:

-“Sapientiam cognitio alit”.

Both translations are correct, of course, and then you can choose the one you like better.

The only thing I want to point out is  that “Cognitio alit sapientiam” closely follows  a quotation from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, book I, chapter 4, where we read: “Honos alit artes” meaning “Honor nurtures the arts”.


Best wishes,
Maria
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GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

-knowledge = COGNITIO (nominative case of this noun which belongs to the 3rd.declension)

-nurtures = ALIT (from the verb ALO, I nurture)

-wisdom = SAPIENTIAM (accusative case of SAPIENTIA, 1st.declension)

Note that Latin word order can be different from English simply because Latin is an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings, not by the order of the words.