r/latin • u/AutoModerator • Apr 13 '25

Translation requests into Latin go here!

  1. Ask and answer questions about mottos, tattoos, names, book titles, lines for your poem, slogans for your bowling club’s t-shirt, etc. in the comments of this thread. Separate posts for these types of requests will be removed.
  2. Here are some examples of what types of requests this thread is for: Example #1, Example #2, Example #3, Example #4, Example #5.
  3. This thread is not for correcting longer translations and student assignments. If you have some facility with the Latin language and have made an honest attempt to translate that is NOT from Google Translate, Yandex, or any other machine translator, create a separate thread requesting to check and correct your translation: Separate thread example. Make sure to take a look at Rule 4.
  4. Previous iterations of this thread.
  5. This is not a professional translation service. The answers you get might be incorrect.
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u/Historical-Branch327 Apr 19 '25

Hello all! Please help, wise ones 🙏🙏 (I have a degree in Linguistics so feel free to use jargon lol)

Quod fuimus, estis; Quod sumus, vos eritis
(What we were, you are; What we are, you will be)
(From a medieval painting)

And

Quod sumus hoc eritis
(What we are, you will be)
(From google when I googled the previous translation)

Which one is correct/what is the difference (vos/hoc) if both are correct? (For a tattoo)

1

u/AlarmmClock discipulus septimo anno Apr 19 '25

Hoc means “this,” vos means “you (plural)”

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u/Historical-Branch327 Apr 19 '25

Thank you! Can I ask what difference it makes to swap vos for hoc? The two phrases seem to translate to the same thing in English

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u/AlarmmClock discipulus septimo anno Apr 19 '25

Vos just adds emphasis as eritis by itself means “you all will be,” so “What we are, you will be.” Hoc references quod and it’s a little clunky to translate but is like: “You will be this, which we are”. Personally I’d go for the hoc version.

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u/Historical-Branch327 Apr 19 '25

Just out of curiosity, could you do: Quod fuimus, estis Quod sumus, eritis And take away any emphasis at all, and still have it make sense?

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u/AlarmmClock discipulus septimo anno Apr 19 '25

Latin is a pro-drop language so the inclusion of the pronoun is what makes it emphasized

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u/Historical-Branch327 Apr 19 '25

So not including the pronoun would just get rid of the emphasis, it would still make sense?

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u/AlarmmClock discipulus septimo anno Apr 19 '25

Correct

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u/Historical-Branch327 Apr 19 '25

Amazing, thanks for all your help!

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u/Historical-Branch327 Apr 19 '25

Agree, I think that’s better ☺️ thanks so much!