Expert: Maria - 9/7/2011

Question
Good Morning Maria, Can you please help me to translate the following phrase as I am very confused.

FREE YOUD MIND which one is the correct translation:

Tuam Libera Mentem

Libera Mentem tuam

Libera tuam mentem.

Libera = free

tuam = your

mentem = mind.

Which one is the correct translation?

Grazie

Jean

Answer
Hello,

all the translations you wrote, i.e. “Tuam Libera Mentem”, “Libera Mentem tuam” and “Libera tuam mentem” are grammatically correct, but the best is “Tuam Libera Mentem” as it has the best word order.

As you can see, in fact, the difference among “Tuam Libera Mentem”, “Libera Mentem tuam” and “Libera tuam mentem” is just word order which in Latin can be variable for Latin is an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings, not by the order of the words.

Finally, I have to tell you that  the following parsing is correct,as you can read in one of my previous answers at http://en.allexperts.com/q/Latin-2145/English-latin-free-mind.htm):

-LIBERA (2nd.person singular, imperative of the verb  LIBERO) = free;

-TUAM (accusative feminine of the possessive TUUS agreed with the feminine noun MENTEM) = your;  

-MENTEM (direct object, accusative of MENS, 3rd.declension) = mind,

Best regards,
Maria