Expert: Maria - 7/27/2010

Question
I want to learn to say an irish saying; "mo chlann, mo chairde,i mo shaoil is e gach rud" which is basically; My family, my friends-my everything(in my life,it is everything) in latin.hope you can help!

Answer
Hello,

“Familia et amici vita sunt mea” meaning “My family and my friends  are  my life” is the correct translation of the phrase you mention which cannot be translated literally  into Latin, as no language can be translated word for word into another language.

See below for learning more.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-FAMILIA (subject, nominative case, 1st.declension) = my  family
-ET = and
-AMICI (subject, nominative plural, 2nd.declension) = my friends
-VITA  (nominative case, 1st.declension)=  my life
-SUNT (3rd.person plural of SUM, I am) = are
-MEA (adjective in the nominative feminine agreed with VITA)

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.