Pathetic Mistranslations

Aurifex

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
England
Couldn't they be daring to defend by means of their fatherland - a risk all to win all strategy?
Certainly; and the list of absurdly improbable interpretations could be extended still further:
We dare, O country of ours, to defend.
We dare, O fatherland, to defend our things.
We dare to defend our ancestral things.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
You forgot "we dare, O our things, to defend ancestral things", "we dare, O ancestral things, to defend our things" and "we dare, O our things, to defend by means of fatherland".

Edit: And "we dare, we as ancestral things, to defend our things".
 

limetrees

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
they could also be defending their patronymics - maybe some new birth-cert legislation is coming in
 

Iohannes Aurum

Technicus Auxiliarius

  • Technicus Auxiliarius

Location:
Torontum, Ontario, Canada
How can 2K Games screw up with the translations?

Civilization is under 2K Games' portfolio and yet its Latin is good.
 

Numarius

Active Member

Location:
PA, USA
How can 2K Games screw up with the translations?

Civilization is under 2K Games' portfolio and yet its Latin is good.
Both were published by 2K but created by different studios. So 2K doesn't have anything really to do with the development, they just get the game out there. At least I believe that is how it works. But the fact that someone in a game design team can't find a place to provide accurate translations is beyond me. Hell, just a quick search on the Google will give you this place, and I'm sure we could all have caught that little mistake.
 

LVXORD

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Australia
ROME II was finally released today. QUO USQUE PRO ROMA IBIS? (The Us despite being capitalised were not Vs) It's meant to mean How far will you go for Rome? Whilst at a first glance, it looks grammatically correct but there seems to be something 'off putting'. Maybe it's too idiomatic?
 

Aurifex

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
England
Pro Roma is not very classical perhaps, but can pass muster, especially if Roma is meant as a personification.
"How far will you go?" surely calls for something like quid audebis or quid non audebis?
 

LVXORD

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Australia
Pro Roma is not very classical perhaps, but can pass muster, especially if Roma is meant as a personification.
"How far will you go?" surely calls for something like quid audebis or quid non audebis?
Yes, I thought the same too. ibo feels too literal.
 

Iohannes Aurum

Technicus Auxiliarius

  • Technicus Auxiliarius

Location:
Torontum, Ontario, Canada
There is Formare veneficius est formare fatum. It is the motto of the League of Legends's lore newsletter.


We expect Riot Games to do better Latin, especially given how much money it makes from tournaments and people buying champions, skins, experience boosters, and influence point boosters.

Is it me or is it that Demacia and Noxus must have very bad Latin education?
 

LVXORD

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Australia
Oh dear...! Few care for Latin in the video game industry... :(
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Someone asked us the translation of these on another forum:

"Primoris gravis ex occasus"
"Ut curator et protego"
"Caveo noster morsus"

(Thank god there were also three other ones that made sense.)

I have no idea what the first one is supposed to mean.

By chance the second one could mean "as a keeper/superviser/curator I protect too" but I rather think they meant something like "to care and protect", don't you think?

With the third one they certainly meant "beware of our bite".

In fact her first post was with these phrases (+ the three correct ones), each one followed by a french translation and an interrogation mark, and she was asking if it was correct. I thought she was actually trying to translate from French to Latin and not doing very well! Then she told me it was the contrary, from Latin to French... and gave the links.

Edit: And here, while I was googling primoris gravis ex occasus to see if I could find its intended meaning somewhere, I found:

"Omnis vestri substructio es servus ad nobis."
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Someone on another forum came to get the translation of this which he heard in a metal song: futura nostra per nobis scriptum est. The intended sense, "our future is written by us", is rather clear, but how wrong.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
ROME II was finally released today. QUO USQUE PRO ROMA IBIS? (The Us despite being capitalised were not Vs) It's meant to mean How far will you go for Rome? Whilst at a first glance, it looks grammatically correct but there seems to be something 'off putting'. Maybe it's too idiomatic?
It seems like the verb "progredi" could have done the trick there.

Et hic autem Chilo, praestabilis homo sapientiae, quonam usque contra legem contraque ius debuerit pro amico progredi dubitavit...

Gellius, Noctes Atticae, book 1.
 

LVXORD

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Australia
Tumblr used Google Translate!!! Why?! It looked so good except for the mistranslation...
 

Abbatiſſæ Scriptor

Senex

  • Civis Illustris

Pieces of this puzzle have certainly gone miſſing, but it is obviouſly the motto of a family of hereditary hoarders who have loſt all their belongings (along with moſt of their Latin) in the hopeless meſſes that they have made of their houſes.
'Where do we find (anything that has diſſapear'd) into our houſes?'
 
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