Expert: Maria - 12/9/2007

Question
what would the phrase "death before dishonor" look like written in latin?

Answer
Hello,

First of all I have to tell you that the Latin alphabet is  even now the alphabet of Western Civilization , i.e. the standard script of the languages of most of Europe and  those areas settled by Europeans (America, Australia), with a few exceptions like the Greek alphabet  used in Greece and  the Cyrillic  alphabet (Russia, e.g.).

As for the translation of the phrase “Death before dishonour”, in Latin we can say:

1-"Mors potius quam dedecus"

2-"Mors potius quam ignominia"

3-“Mors ante dedecus ”.

4-“Ante ignominiam mors”

All these sentences are correct, of course.

Best,
Maria
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-Death = MORS (nominative case, 3rd.declension).

-before = POTIUS QUAM / ANTE (preposition which takes the accusative case).

-dishonour = DEDECUS(nominative / accusative of DEDECUS, neuter noun, 3rd.declension) / IGNOMINIA ( nominative) / IGNOMINIAM (accusative of IGNOMINIA, feminine noun, 1st.declension)  

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