Expert: Maria - 10/23/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hello Maria - my military command is hoping you can help us.  We are looking for a motto for our unit and were hoping you can translate the following for us: "Excellence, integrity and service to an extraordinary mission".  We appreciate your assistance.  Thank you!

ANSWER: Hello,

“Excellence, integrity and service to an extraordinary mission” can be translated as follows:

-“Excellentia, integritas, officio fidelitas”.

See below for grammatical analysis.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-excellence = EXCELLENTIA (nominative, 1st.declension)

-integrity  = INTEGRITAS (nominative, 3rd.declension)

-and = omitted in Latin as it is understood

-service = FIDELITAS (nominative, 3rd.declension)

-to a mission = OFFICIO (indirect object in the dative of OFFICIUM , 2nd.declension).

-extraordinary =omitted in Latin as this concept  is implied in the word OFFICIUM.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Maria - thank you for the quick reply. And can you tell us what the translation would be for:  "Extraordinary mission, Extraordinary people".  Thank you.

Answer
Hello again,

here are the translations for "Extraordinary mission, Extraordinary people":

-“Extraordinarium officium, Extraordinarii homines”
Or:
-“Extraordinarium munus, Viri extraordinarii ”

They both are correct, of course, and thus you can choose the one you like better.

Best regards,
Maria
_______________________________________________________________

Note that:

-Extraordinary = EXTRAORDINARIUM (nominative neuter of the adjective EXTRAORDINARIUS, agreed with OFFICIUM or MUNUS)

-mission = OFFICIUM (nominative of the neuter noun OFFICIUM, 2nd.declension) or MUNUS  (nominative of the neuter noun MUNUS, 3rd.declension)

-Extraordinary  = EXTRAORDINARII (nominative masculine plural  of the adjective EXTRAORDINARIUS, agreed with HOMINES or VIRI)

-people = HOMINES (nominative of the masculine singular noun HOMO, 3rd.declension)  or VIRI (nominative of the masculine singular noun VIR, 2nd.declension).
Both HOMINES and VIRI mean literally “men” as in Latin the English word “people” in the sense of  “humans considered as a group or in indefinite numbers” corresponds to “homines” or “viri”, i.e. “men”.