Expert: Maria - 4/1/2011

Question
Could you please translate the phrase "she rises from the ashes"

Right now I have ascendit per cinerem.

Thanks you for your help!

Answer
Hello,

“She rises from the ashes” translates correctly as follows:

-“E cineribus resurgit” or “Ex cineribus resurgit”.

See below for grammatical analysis.

As for “Ascendit per cinerem”, I’m sorry, but it is wrong, since “ascendit” means “she/he mounts” and “per cinerem” corresponds to “throughout the ash”.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-She rises = RESURGIT (3rd.person singular, present indicative of RESURGO). The pronoun “she” is implied in the verb.

-from = EX or E ( prepositions that take the ablative)

-the ashes= CINERIBUS (ablative plural of CINIS, 3rd.declension)

Such a phrase was usually related to the fabulous Arabian bird, the Phoenix, that was said to live 500 years and rise again from its ashes.

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.