Expert: Maria - 1/21/2011

Question
i saw this phrase the other day in a movie and wondered what it meant: "familia via est mea ac fortitude"

Answer
Hello,

the correct Latin phrase is "Familia vita est mea ac fortitudo" meaning :“My family is my life and my strength".

See below for grammatical analysis.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-FAMILIA (subject in the nominative case, 1st.declension)= [My] family. Sometimes in Latin the possessive adjective can be omitted.

-EST (from SUM, I am)= is

-MEA (possessive adjective, nominative feminine of MEUS agreed with VITA)= my

-VITA (nominative, 1st.declension)= life

-AC =and

-FORTITUDO (nominative, 3rd.declension) = [my] strength.

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.