Expert: Maria - 3/4/2009

Question
Hi Maria!

I resently bought an album with opening track named as 'Not all who wander are lost'. Tried to google it and found that J.R.R. Tolkien had said 'Not all those that wander are lost'. I also found some translation but don't how accurate these are:  Non omnes vagantes amissi sunt
           non omnes deerrant qui vagant
           non omnes vagantes deerrant

I really like those since I'm a bit of a wanderer myself. Would really appreciate if you could translate those sentences into latin since I like the 'sound' it has. Thanks for the help!

Jussi

Answer
Hello,

Both “Not all who wander are lost” and "Not all those that wander are lost” translate correctly as follows:

-“Non omnes deerrant qui vagantur”
Or:
-“Non omnes vagantes deerrant”.

See below for grammatical analysis.

Best regards,
Maria
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-Not = NON

-all (those) = OMNES (nominative plural of OMNIS)

-who (that) wander = QUI  (relative pronoun meaning “who/ those”) VAGANTUR (present indicative, 3rd.person plural of the deponent verb VAGOR, I wander) / or VAGANTES (nominative plural, present participle of VAGOR)

-are lost = DEERRANT (from DEERRO, I am lost ).

Note that  VAGANT in “Non omnes deerrant qui vagant” is wrong simply because the verb VAGO does not exist, while there is VAGOR, deponent verb, i.e. a verb having passive voice forms and an active meaning.

As for “Non omnes vagantes amissi sunt”, the verb AMISSI SUNT (passive of AMITTO) is wrong as the verb AMITTO means “I send away/ I dismiss/ I lose something”.

Hope all is clear enough.