Expert: Maria - 1/27/2007

Question
hi i was wondering if there were any accented letters or any difference from plain spelling in the phrase nosce te ipsum (know thy self). thanks

Answer
Hello,

in Latin we do not have any accents on the letters as in Latin the accent is related to the quantity of a vowel.

In fact  when people spoke Latin, they put a stress accent on the third syllable from the end of a word, but if the second from the end was long, they put the accent there. This is the so-called "Rule of the Antepenult" which reads :”Accent goes on the Antepenult, but if Penult is long, put it there”.

Anyway, if you want to know where the Romans put the accent  when they pronounced “Nosce te ipsum”,  I could write : “Nòsce tè ìpsum” as in NOSCE the stress stands on the O; in TE the stress stands on the E; in IPSUM the stress stands on the I.

Finally we can say also “Cognòsce tè ìpsum’, besides “Nosce te ipsum”( Know thyself) which is the Latin translation of an ancient  Greek sentence(see below). which was on the pediment of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece.

Best regards,
Maria
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In ancient Greek the sentence was “Gnothi sauton”, where 'Know' is GNOTHI with the accent on the O and 'Thyself' is SAUTON with the accent on the O.

As for “Nosce ( cognosce) te ipsum”, NOSCE is ‘know’ and TE is 'thy' and IPSUM is ‘self’.