Expert: Maria - 3/26/2005

Question
Hi Maria,

Could you please translate the following sentence into latin (for a script that I'm writing).

"May God have mercy on my soul."

Thank you in advance.

Daniel.

Answer
Hi Daniel,

here's the translation you need:

“Meae  misereatur animae  Deus”.

Note that:
-MEAE (genitive) is ‘on my';
-MISEREATUR is ‘may have mercy';
-ANIMAE (genitive)is ‘soul';  
-DEUS (nominative) is ‘God'.

Moreover note that word order in Latin differs from languages like English as declension by case means that word order can be variable in Latin, since a reader or listener can discern the case of a word. Therefore it is not necessary to adhere to a strictly defined order.

All the best
Maria