Expert: Maria - 7/10/2011

Question
I started speaking Latin..I believe.. I don't know the language well but did my best how can I say a prayer for a child with a tumor?? I used Angeli protegi Ambulubant "the child" In Nomoni  Patri Et Filli Spiritus Sancti... and crazy things happen. I don't know her personally but that she lives down the street and has a tumor. I woke in the middle of the night and followed an ambulance knelt in front of her house and threw a rose that happen to land into the ambulance.... I'm not a saint and won't ever claim to be . What more can I do or say?? And why did this happen to me?.... Thank You Maria for what you can explain.....

Answer
Hello,

if you want to say a Latin prayer for this little girl, who unfortunately  is seriously ill, maybe you could say correctly:

“Hanc custodiant Angeli puellulam eamque sanent! In nomine Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti”.
(literally, “May the Angels protect this little girl and cure her! In the name  of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”).

Hope this little girl can recover from her illness.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-Hanc (accusative feminine of the adjective HIC agreed with PUELLULAM)= this

-custodiant (3rd.person plural, hortatory subjunctive of CUSTODIO) = may… protect

-Angeli (subject, nominative plural of ANGELUS) = the angels

-puellulam (direct object, accusative singular of PUELLULA, 1st.declension) = little girl

-eamque (composed of EAM meaning “her” and the enclitic –QUE meaning “and”) = and her  

-sanent (3rd.person plural, hortatory subjunctive of  SANO) = may...cure

-In nomine (composed of the preposition IN + the ablative NOMINE) = in the name

-Patris (genitive of PATER, 3rd.declension) = of the Father

-et = and

-Filii (genitive of FILIUS, 2nd.declension) =of  the Son

-et = and

-Spiritus (genitive of SPIRITUS, 4th.declension) = of the Spirit

-Sancti (genitive of the adjective SANCTUS agreed with SPIRITUS) = holy


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.