God alone may judge me

[Anonymous]

Hey guys. I'm wanting to get a tattoo of god alone may judge me, and I've searched the site for a translation and i'm pretty confident about this one;

solus deus me judicet

However, on other sites i've seen the same translation but the j is replaced with an i like this;

solus deus me iudicet

Can you tell me what the difference is? If there is any at all?

Thanks,

Ceri

 

[cinefactus]

Re: quick question about god alone may judge me translation

The j is written to distinguish the consonantal i from a vowel i. The Romans did not have the letter j, they used i.

I think that the custom of writing j for i in this circumstance started in the last few hundred years, and modern books have gone back to using i.

So although iudicet is more historically accurate (at least from the point of view of a classicist or mediaevalist), they are both correct. I would personally not even notice the spelling difference unless I was looking for it.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: quick question about god alone may judge me translation

Brilliant. Thanks so much for this

 

[Chamaeleo]

Re: quick question about god alone may judge me translation

You could even have:

SÓLVS·DEVS·MÉ·IV́DICET

There is lots of info online about how our writing conventions have evolved.