Expert: Maria - 10/1/2007

Question
Hello Maria,
You are awesome. I have been waiting to ask you a question. My high school latin is failing me badly.

I want to translate "out of darkness you bring light".
I have "ex obsurum or obscuritas vos addo lux lucis". Is this correct?

You help would be greatly appreciated!


Answer
Hello Tara,

thanks for your kind words.

So, here’s the correct translation of “Out of darkness you bring light”, if you are addressing to a 2nd.person singular:

-“Ex tenebris lucem fers” or with a different word order: ”Lucem ex tenebris fers”.
But also:
-“Ex obscuritate lucem fers” or with a different word order: ”Lucem ex obscuritate fers”.

If on the contrary you are addressing to a 2nd.person plural, you must say:

-“Ex tenebris lucem fertis” or with a different word order: ”Lucem ex tenebris fertis”.
But also:
-“Ex obscuritate lucem fertis” or with a different word order: ”Lucem ex obscuritate fertis”.

See below for grammatical analysis.

All the best,
Maria
______________________________________________
-Out of = EX (preposition which takes the ablative case)

-darkness = TENEBRIS (ablative plural  of TENEBRA, 1st.declension) or OBSCURITATE (ablative of OBSCURITAS, 3rd.declension).

-you bring = FERS (2nd.person singular of the verb  FERO, I bring. I suppose in fact you want to use the 2nd.person singular. Otherwise you should say FERTIS which is the 2nd.person plural)

-light = LUCEM (accusative case of LUX, 3rd.declension).

As you can see, Latin word order can be variable.

With regard to your translation, I’m sorry, but it is absolutely wrong as Latin is an inflected language with five declensions, six cases,four conjugations, many irregular verbs, a complex syntax, etc.