Expert: Maria - 7/7/2011

Question
Hello

I read the answer to a question on this site about the translation of the phrase

Nemo vir est qui mundum non reddat meliorem

meaning no man can call himself a man that does not make the world better, the person who answered said it was a quote from the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" which is where i got it from. He went on to say that it was a quote from a Latin author but did not mention a name i would like to know the specific origin of this phrase.

Answer
Hello,

Actually “Nemo vir est qui mundum non reddat meliorem” means “There is no man who does not make the world better”.

As for the origin of this phrase, it is not a quote from a Latin author, but simply  a Latin saying or an old Latin inscription which points out that every man can render the world better, if he uses his best qualities and tries to do the best he can.

Read more below.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-NEMO (adjective in the nominative masculine singular agreed with VIR) = no

-VIR ( nominative, 2nd.declension) = man

-EST ( 3rd.person singular, present indicative of SUM, I am) = there is

-QUI (relative pronoun in the nominative masculine related to VIR) = who

-MUNDUM (direct object, accusative singular of the noun MUNDUS, 2nd.declension) = the world

-NON  REDDAT (negative adverb + the present subjunctive of REDDO, I render, I make)= does not make

-MELIOREM(accusative masculine singular of the comparative MELIOR agreed with MUNDUM)= better

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