Expert: Maria - 6/1/2007

Question
I would like to translate "Reason" (as in, a life of reason, or the age of reason) into Ancient Greek.  I found way to many versions of the word to determine which is correct and am not sure how to obtain the Ancient Greek script of the translation either.  I would also appreciate to have the phrase "Question everything" translated into Latin... is their an Ancient Latin?  Thank you very very very very much for your time!

Answer
FOLLOW UP.
Hello John,
Thanks for rating me! As for the Greek translation of the phrase "Question everything", here it is :
”Pánta eróta (2nd.person singular);
“Pánta erotãte (2nd.person plural).

Note that “Pánta”(accusative neuter plural of 'Pas') means ‘everything’ and “eróta” / “erotãte” (imperative of the verb 'erotao') mean ‘Question’.

Greek letters:
-πάντα (pi-alpha with the acute accent-nu-tau-alpha). Latin transliteration “pánta”

-ερώτα (epsilon with the smooth breathing-rho-omega with the acute accent-tau-alpha). Latin transliteration “eróta”

-ερωτãτε((epsilon with the smooth breathing-rho-omega -tau-alpha with the circumflex accent-epsilon). Latin transliteration  “erotãte”.

Note that the “smooth breathing" is  the mark which indicates the absence of initial aspiration. It is written as an opening half moon on top of or to the left of an initial vowel or diphthong.  It looks like a comma.
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Hello,

Here’s the ancient Greek noun for the English word  “Reason” , i.e. rational faculty ( as in, ‘a life of reason’, or ‘the age of reason’):

-“Lógos” (masculine noun, 2nd.declension, nominative case) which means “reason” as a faculty of thinking and  reasoning.
It has however many other meanings according to the context.  For example: 'speech', 'phrase', 'discussion', 'account', 'story'.

There is also another word that can mean “reason”.
It is  “Noũs” (contract noun from ‘nóos’ which is a masculine noun, 2nd.declension, nominative case) which means also‘ mind’, ‘understanding’,‘ thought’,’ intellect’.


As for how “Lógos” and “Noũs”” are spelled in ancient Greek letters, I’m trying to write them, but I'm not sure you can read them and then I write each Greek letter in brackets so that you can see and copy the Greek characters at the sites I'll write below:

Λóγoς (lambda-omicron with the acute accent-gamma-omicron-sigma). Latin transliteration ‘lógos’.

Νoũς (nu-omicron-upsilon with the circumflex accent-sigma). Latin transliteration ‘noũs’.



As for the Latin phrase for "Question everything"  as an imperative like “Ask everything”, here it is

-“Omnia quaere” , if you are addressing to a 2nd.person singular (i.e. to one person).

-“Omnia quaerite”, if you are addressing to a 2nd.person plural (i.e. to two or  more person)

Latin verbs  in fact change their endings, according to the singular / plural.
Note that OMNIA( neuter, accusative plural of OMNIS) means “everything”, while QUAERE(2nd.person singular)/ QUAERITE (2nd.person plural of the verb QUAERO, 3rd.conjugation)means “question”, “ask”.

Latin word order can be different from English, as you can see.

Finally there is the  Archaic Latin (Old Latin) i.e. the earliest recorded Latin, found in inscriptions from the beginning of the seventh-sixth century BC not so far from the foundation of Rome in 753 BC; the Classical Latin , from the 2nd century BC to the early 2nd century AD; the Late Latin, from the 3rd.century AD to the 5th.century AD; the Medieval Latin from the 6th.century AD onwards.

Hope all is clear enough.
Best,
Maria
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See Greek alphabet at:
http://www.ibiblio.org/koine/greek/lessons/alphabet.html
http://www.dur.ac.uk/stat.web/greek.htm