Expert: Maria - 3/29/2011

Question
Hello, could you please translate these phrases into Latin. "God enlighten me", "God protect me" and "God protect and enlighten me".

Thank you very much.

Regards,

Rod.

Answer
Hello,

here are the translations you asked me:

-“Illumina me,Domine!”( God enlighten me)

-“Me, Domine, custodi!” (God protect me)

-“Me,Domine, illumina ac custodi!” (God protect and enlighten me)

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

Best regards,
Maria
______________________________________________
Note that:

-God =DOMINE (vocative of DOMINUS, 2nd.declension)

-Enlighten /protect = ILLUMINA (2nd.person singular, imperative of ILLUMINO) /CUSTODI (2nd.person singular, imperative of CUSTODIO)

-me = ME (direct object, accusative of the 1st.person pronoun)


-God =DOMINE (see above)

-protect =CUSTODI (see above)

-and =AC

-enlighten= ILLUMINA (see above)

-me= ME (see above)