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i need help please - translating to latin

Posted: January 15th, 2007, 3:44 pm
by firsty
any latinphiles out there?

for the title of an upcoming work, i've selected a working title, "anno terrorium," to express 2001 in a similar way that the year 0 is expressed in latin terms: AD, anno domini, which means, in the year of "our" lord.

by doing my own half-ass but time consuming research, i came up with terrorium to express: "our terror," because the term should refer to 2001 as "the year of our terror," in the same way that AD is a demarcation for "year of our our lord."

but i dont know latin, and so i'm asking for your help in verifying or revising that phrase. it doesnt need to refer to "terrorism" specifically, but can refer to "fear" or other synonyms in a way which denotes hysteria, fear, nightmares, worry, etc - the problem is that "terrorism" really doesnt have a latin noun. obviously.

thanks for any help you can provide.

Posted: January 15th, 2007, 4:08 pm
by Doreen Peri

Posted: January 15th, 2007, 7:00 pm
by firsty
with that site, i get the word, which is helpful, but it doesnt translate what amounts to a latin idiom, and it doesnt have the different suffixes necessary - for instance, when i put in, "our terror," i get the same list back as i when i enter, "terror".

Posted: January 15th, 2007, 8:39 pm
by Doreen Peri
Oh ok. Sorry it didn't help. Hopefully there's some Latin buffs around here.

They don't even teach it in school any more so I wouldn't have a clue where to go find a translator if I were you.

All the best.

Posted: January 15th, 2007, 9:12 pm
by bohonato
I know two people who majored in Latin, so I can see if I can get in contact with either of them.

Posted: January 16th, 2007, 5:52 am
by panta rhei
anno terroris
in the year of terror

(terror is a latin word, and terroris is its genitive case, as domini is the genitive case of dominus = lord)

Posted: January 16th, 2007, 6:05 am
by panta rhei
oh, and if you wanna say
"the year of our terror" (without the 'in'), it'd be "annus terroris nostri"

noster means "our" in the masculine form (and terror is masculine, who'd have guessed it...), and nostri is its genitive case.

annus means year in the nominative case, and anno is its ablative case, a case which is used in connection with words like "in", "on", "with", and so on, or whenever an indication of place, time, manner, circumstance, etc. is needed.

(at least i'd say so... my latin is 20 unused years old, but that's what i remember from the basic grammatical structures).

Posted: January 16th, 2007, 1:37 pm
by firsty
thanks! anno terroris is pretty close to what i got, too. i cant recall how i got to "terrorium".

another friend offered up, "In Anno Nostri formidilosi". how does that sound?

this is hard. fecking dead languages.

Posted: January 16th, 2007, 5:28 pm
by Anonymous-one
the year of our terror.
Ab annus ab nostras terroris.

What do you Think ? Personally i think it's good enough to be
carved in stone.

A-One
:wink:

Posted: January 16th, 2007, 6:18 pm
by panta rhei
@firsty:

"In Anno Nostri formidilosi" -- you don't need the 'in' to express "in the year"; the ablative case (anno) is enough in this case.
formidolosus is an adjective, and that doesn't make sense here; maybe your friend meant the noun "formido":, fright, fear.
nostri (genitive case of 'our') should stand after the noun it refers to.

"anno formidinis nostri" -- in the year of our fear / fright.

but if you want to refer to "anno domini"*, as well as to the word terror, i think anno terroris (in the year of terror) would express that better and more clearly.

(* which just means "in the year of the lord", and not "in the year of our lord"; the "our" is just an english translation thing).

@pierre:

"Ab annus ab nostras terroris" -- what does the "ab" stand for here? to me, it doesn't make sense (or maybe i'm just missing something).

plus, "ab" would require the ablative case (anno). as for "noster", it must be singular genitive masculine (nostri), as it is referring to terroris, which is singular genitic masculine as well.


.. very interesting. i hadn't been thinking about latin for a very long time. i wish i'd remember more...

Posted: January 16th, 2007, 6:25 pm
by stilltrucking
My high school latin 50 years ago, I can't say much about the Latin, looks good sounds good, worthy of a stone carving

The image of a tombstone maybe fifty years from now
a forgotten deserted untended grave in a dark corner of cemetary.
G. W. Bush died in the year of our terror MMCVII

Yes I like it too
carved in stone
yes
I like the image
eidetic

Posted: January 17th, 2007, 4:39 pm
by firsty
y'all are great! thank you intensely.

i think i'm going to go with "anno terroris". not only do i trust panta implicitly (not that i dont trust everyone), but i appreciate and i think i understand the explanation and it best fits what i'm trying to convey. also, it's the most straightforward, and this is for a title of something, so i need something straightforward. i did kind of get freaked out by that other suggestion i mentioned. :)

now, if i can just get myself to WRITE the fucking thing.

Posted: January 18th, 2007, 10:47 am
by singlemalt
if you really want to sell the book, why don't you call it the "southbeach terrorist diet" or "terrorism soup for the soul" or something like that.

diets and self-help, baby. that's what sells.

Posted: January 18th, 2007, 11:02 am
by tarbaby
Selling the truth?
I'll buy it.

Posted: January 18th, 2007, 4:44 pm
by firsty
how to win friends and influence terrorists.

i'm a terrorist, you're a terrorist, we're all ok.

a tale of two terrorists.

maybe i'll just make a catalog of slimming outfits to be worn over chest bombs for the spring.