Loyal to family and friends

[dennisramon]

I'm thinking of getting a new tattoo. Since some of you already helped me out with my previous one, I decided to ask a little help here again. I'm trying to translate the following sentence from English into Latin: "Loyal to family and friends".

Loyalty = Fidelitas
Family = Familia
Friends = Amici(tia?)

How can I get those three words to form the sentence that I want?

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

First question:

Who is loyal to family and friends?

Translations can be done much more quickly if there is a subject, or else it would be gibberish, especially if that translation would be stuck on your body.

 

[dennisramon]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

First question:

Who is loyal to family and friends?

Translations can be done much more quickly if there is a subject, or else it would be gibberish, especially if that translation would be stuck on your body.

Forgot to mention that. That would be me Makes it: "(I am) loyal to (my) family and (my) friends". I'm striving to find a translation that is as compact as it can be. Don't know if the additional words have any influence on that. But most important is that the meaning is correct, so that comes second of course.

 

[Matthaeus]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

FIDELIS·FAMILIAE·AMICISQVE

The possessive pronouns may be done away with.

 

[dennisramon]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

FIDELIS·FAMILIAE·AMICISQVE

The possessive pronouns may be done away with.

This does not affect what it means?

Few questions:

1. Is this the only way to translate this or do I have more options that mean the same? If so, can you give me some other options?
2. Why is FAMILIAE not written as FAMILIA and why is AMICISQVE not written as AMICI? Can you learn me a little more about the grammar behind it?

And last but not least, are there other forum members who can give their opinion on this sentence? Just a confirmation if this is the only way to translate this and it is correct, or any other suggestion would be welcome.

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

The reason is to confirm with the cases: familiae is used because it is of the dative and amicisque is used because it is of the dative, is plural, and the -que suffix also means "and". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin declension for details.

 

[Matthaeus]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

Fidelis takes an object in the dative; faithful to implies indirect object.

 

[Bitmap]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

just bloody learn Latin

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

I have to agree with Bitmap here. This should not be too difficult if you have a Latin textbook and a dictionary.

 

[Imber Ranae]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

FIDELIS·FAMILIAE·AMICISQVE

The possessive pronouns may be done away with.

This does not affect what it means?

Few questions:

1. Is this the only way to translate this or do I have more options that mean the same? If so, can you give me some other options?
2. Why is FAMILIAE not written as FAMILIA and why is AMICISQVE not written as AMICI? Can you learn me a little more about the grammar behind it?

And last but not least, are there other forum members who can give their opinion on this sentence? Just a confirmation if this is the only way to translate this and it is correct, or any other suggestion would be welcome.

We can all confirm that it is indeed a correct and acceptable Latin translation of the English phrase "loyal to family and friends", in case you still have any doubts. But if you're that interested in understanding the grammatical minutiae of the language you'd do better to pick up an introductory Latin textbook and study it yourself. It's not always so easy to explain to a layperson, especially when we don't know his level of familiarity with the grammatical terminology of inflected Indo-European languages.


In minuscules (lower-case letters) it would be fidelis familiae amicisque. You could also capitalize the first letter of each word, if you'd prefer. The dots between the letters in Mattheus' version just represent spaces; you don't have to use them and probably shouldn't if you aren't going with the all majuscules (upper-case letters) version .

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

I know of a good introductory Latin textbook that I am currently using for self study:Wheelock's Latin. It is only US$22 or CAN$26 and is sold in major bookstores, large university campus bookstores, or the Internet. In fact, it is among the most popular introductory Latin textbooks in the market. From my experience, I learned so much from the textbook and is not difficult to learn. Each chapter explains each of the basic concepts in Latin grammar with interesting tidbits at the end of each of the forty chapters. The textbook contains a link to its website, which contains other learning materials, as well as a spoken pronunciation guide. In addition, if vocabulary enrichment is needed, the most recent edition of The New College Latin-English Dictionary by Dr. John C. Traupman is very useful; I also use it all the time. It is up-to-date with translation for 21st century terms and is relatively inexpensive at US$5 or CAN$7.50 and is sold in major bookstores, large university campus bookstores, or the Internet. Free alternatives include the Latin wikibook, http://www.learnlangs.com/latin/, G.J. Adler's "A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language for Speaking and Writing Latin", the Latinum podcast that reads out Adler's textbook, or any other website is fine.

 

[Matthaeus]

Re: Translation: "Loyal to family and friends"

I can also add here that there is an abundance of digitalised books, pdf files, at http://books.google.com all relating to Latin grammar, pronunciation, composition, et cetera.