Expert: Maria Date: 6/21/2008 Subject: latin phrase
Question hello..
I am trying to find a translation for this quote
'it is not the flesh and blood but the heart which makes us family'
but as it is quite long I am finding this difficult.. any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.
your faithfully
sarah jones
Answer Hello,
Here's the literal translation of this quote:
“Nec caro nec sanguis nos familiam faciunt, sed cor”.
I think however that the best translations sound as follows:
-“Non sanguinis ordo, sed amoris vincula nos familiam faciunt”
-“Non vincula carnis et sanguinis nos familiam faciunt,sed amor“.
All the above translations are correct, of course, and then you can choose the one you like better.
See below for grammatical analysis.
Best regards,
Maria
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Note that in “Nec caro nec sanguis nos familiam faciunt, sed cor”:
-it is not….and = NEC…NEC
-the flesh = CARO (nominative feminine, 3rd.declension)
-blood = SANGUIS (nominative masculine, 3rd.declension)
-but = SED
-the heart = COR ((nominative neuter, 3rd.declension)
-which makes = FACIUNT (3rd.person plural of FACIO, agreed with the plural subject “ caro ….sanguis”).
-us = NOS (accusative case)
-family'= FAMILIAM (accusative of FAMILIA, 1st.declension)
In “Non sanguinis ordo, sed amoris vincula nos familiam faciunt” note that:
-NON SANGUINIS ORDO corresponds to “it is not the flesh and blood”
-SED AMORIS VINCULA corresponds to “but the heart which”
-NOS FAMILIAM FACIUNT corresponds to “makes us family”
Finally in “Non vincula carnis et sanguinis nos familiam faciunt, sed amor“:
-NON VINCULA CARNIS ET SANGUINIS corresponds to “it is not the flesh and blood”
-NOS FAMILIAM FACIUNT corresponds to “makes us family”
-SED AMOR corresponds to “but the heart”.
As you can see, Latin word order can be different from English just because Latin is an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings, not by the order of the words.
