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Ancient Languages/english to latin translation

Expert: Maria - 6/22/2010

Question

Could you please translate 'What has been seen, cannot be unseen' into Latin for me. I am a wood carver and your translation will be carved on my latest effort - an interpretation of Munch's 'The Scream'. Very much work in progress but I though you might like to see the attached photograph.

Answer
Hello,

'What has been seen, cannot be unseen' translates as follows:

-“Quod visum est, invisibile esse non potest”.

Best wishes,
Maria
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Note that:

-What = QUOD (nominative neuter of the relative pronoun QUI)

-has been seen = VISUM EST (passive voice, past tense of VIDEO, I see)

-cannot = NON (negative adverb)…POTEST ( present indicative, 3rd.person singular of POSSUM, I can)

-be = ESSE (present infinitive of SUM, I am)

-unseen = INVISIBILE (nominative neuter singular of the adjective VISIBILIS, agreed with QUOD).

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

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