Expert: Maria - 6/22/2009

Question
Would you be so kind to translate "My Son, my life" to latin.  I read you answered someone else who asked my son , my light which was "Fili mi, Lux mea" I realise their is probably not much difference but I could be wrong??  Thankyou in advance for your time, it means a lot to me.

Answer
Hello,

If  “My Son, my life” is in the vocative as in “O my son, my life”, where you are addressing to your son, the correct translation is the following:

-“Fili mi, vita mea!”

If on the contrary the phrase “My son, my life” is  used as a subject of a phrase like in “My son (is) my life”, the correct translation would be:

-“Filius meus, vita mea”.


Best regards,
Maria
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-My = MI (vocative masculine of the adjective MEUS agreed with FILI) or  MEUS (nominative masculine agreed with FILIUS)

- son = FILI  (Vocative of FILIUS, 2nd.declension)  /  FILIUS (nominative)

-my  = MEA (either nominative feminine or vocative feminine of MEUS agreed with VITA)

-life =VITA (nominative as well  vocative , 1st.declension)