Expert: Maria - 11/25/2010

Question
Hi there,

I hope you can maybe help me with regards to a Latin term I
would like to use to memorialize my late father. The way I
got the verse is "alis grave nil sic itur ad Astra" suppose
to be "nothing is heavy to those who have wings, thus you
shall go to the stars" but as I have very limited knowledge
of Latin I am not sure if this is correct. I was also trying
to get the verse in Aramaic but to no avail as the language
is virtually extinct.

Much Obliged,  

Answer
Hello,

First of all I have to tell you that “Alis grave nil” does not mean “Nothing is heavy to those who have wings”, but “Nothing is heavy to wings” which sounds quite absurd in English and mostly in Latin as in ancient Rome nobody would have said it.

With regard to “Sic itur ad astra”, it is correct  as it is a quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid,  book IX, line 641, where this phrase literally means “Thus one goes to the stars”, in the sense that this is the way to Heaven and the immortality of the glory connected with it.

So, as you can see, it is incorrect to say in Latin “Alis grave nil sic itur ad Astra” to mean“ Nothing is heavy to those who have wings, thus you shall go to the stars”.

Anyway, if you are looking for a correct translation of “Nothing is heavy to those who have wings, thus you shall go to the stars”  to  memorialize your  late father, you could say as follows:

-“Nihil grave tibi qui alis es praeditus. Ergo ibis ad astra” (literally, “Nothing is heavy to you who have wings. Thus you shall go to the stars”).

Best regards,
Maria
_____________________________________________________________________Note that:

-Nothing = NIHIL (contracted form  NIL, subject)

-is = omitted in Latin as it is implied.

-heavy = GRAVE (adjective in the neuter agreed with NIHIL)

-to you = TIBI (dative case of the 2nd.person pronoun)

-who = QUI (nominative masculine, relative pronoun)

-have wings =ALIS ES PRAEDITUS (literally, “you are provided with wings” as ES means "are; PRAEDITUS means "provided " and ALIS, ablative plural of the noun ALA means "with wings)

-Thus=ERGO

-you shall go= IBIS (2nd.person singular, future of EO, I go)

-to = AD (preposition which takes the accusative ASTRA)

-the stars = ASTRA (accusative plural  of ASTRUM, 2nd.declension)

As you can see, Latin word order is different from English. Latin  is in fact an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings of each term, not by the order of the words.