Expert: Maria - 11/9/2006

Question
Hello :
I am interested in translate the next phrase from french into latin : "Il y a les vivants, les morts et les marins".
Thank you very much.

Answer
Hello,

Here is the translation of this maxim attributed to Anacharsis, a legendary Scythian philosopher who travelled from his homeland on the northern shores of the Black Sea to Athens in the early 6th century BC and was included in some ancient Greek lists as one of the Seven Wise Men:

“Sunt vivi, mortui et nautae”.

In fact SUNT means “Il y a”: VIVI means “les vivants”; MORTUI means “les morts”; ET means “et”; NAUTAE means “les marins”.

Such a maxim wants to point out that there are the living, the dead and those who are on the seas, in the sense that there are two definite categories- the living and  the dead- as well as a third category which is that of those who travel by water and therefore  risk  their  life, so that they are both living and dead, in a period of time  where to  travel by water in a vessel was very dangerous.

Best regards,
Maria