Expert: Maria - 2/2/2010

Question
Hello, I'm trying to find out an English translation of the motto "TUNDENTEM CAVETE". I thought it would be straitforward using the internet but no!  It was used as the motto on the badge of a WW2 British submarine. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer
Hello,

The literal translation of "TUNDENTEM CAVETE" is  “Beware of the one who is beating”, i.e. “Beware of whoever is attacking you”.

Note that TUNDENTEM corresponds to “of the one who is beating” /” of whoever is attacking you “, while CAVETE means “beware”.

See below for grammatical analysis.

Best regards,
Maria
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-TUNDENTEM (accusative of the present participle of the verb TUNDO)= of the one who is beating/is attacking.

-CAVETE (2nd.person plural, imperative present of the verb CAVEO which requires the accusative) = beware

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