# Latin translation help



## Androxine Vortex (Nov 22, 2014)

I'm looking for the Latin words for begging and end but as always with translation there are many words that come up. For beginning I'm finding translations as exordium, principium, initio

Any one here able to help me have an accurate translation? And I'm pretty sure et means and.


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## Tom (Nov 22, 2014)

I took a bit of Latin. The best translation of 'beginning' IMO, is _principium_. "End" would probably best be translated as _fine_. Yes, _et_ means "and", as in "Ora et labora" (Pray and work).

What do you need the Latin for? It might help if I knew the context, always useful when translating a foreign language.


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## Androxine Vortex (Nov 22, 2014)

There's a religious monastery and order in my story and they have a lot of Latin words (though it's not supposed to be Latin per say as in its not supposed be our actual world.) It's just a passage they recite,  indicating they are eternal.

I've also heard end is to be finem.

But when i looked up definition of principium, a lot of translations also said it was how to say principle. How does that work?


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## Duncan M (Nov 22, 2014)

H!
I could help you out, but it would be best if you could give an exact phrase to translate, as Latin uses many variations of any particular root word to indicate different parts of speech/places in a sentence, etc. For example, the root _auxil_ (help) can form a verb, a noun, or an adjective depending on the suffix.

If you wanted to just say 'We are eternal,' then it would be _Sumus aeternitates_ (pronounce: _Soomus eye-tare-nit-ah-taes_).


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## Androxine Vortex (Nov 22, 2014)

No i specifically want it to be, Beginning and End, so i guess it would read, Principium et Finem?


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## Tom (Nov 22, 2014)

Yes, I think that would be it. However, _finem_ wouldn't be capitalized, I don't think. Latin's capitalization rules are different than English. Or is that Spanish? It might be both, since Spanish is a Romance language (a language derived from Latin).


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## Duncan M (Nov 22, 2014)

_Principium et Finem_ works, but there are quite a few ways to say it (if your inner language nerd is interested). My personal favorite would be _Principium Terminusque_, where the -que is a kind of belated 'and.' 

In terms of capitalization, there would be no need to capitalize the finem, since the Romans only seemed to apply those with the beginnings of lines and proper nouns.


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## Tom (Nov 22, 2014)

Duncan M said:


> In terms of capitalization, there would be no need to capitalize the finem, since the Romans only seemed to apply those with the beginnings of lines and proper nouns.



Yes! I got something right for once! I'm studying too many languages at the same time; they're getting mixed up in my head. 

I'm taking Spanish and Latin as college courses, and I'm studying Irish Gaelic independently as a heritage project of sorts, and brushing up on my (very bad) German as well.


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## Androxine Vortex (Nov 22, 2014)

I think when it comes to preference, i just like the sound of using, et finem, and i didn't know about the capitalization thanks!

So both phrases have the same meaning but is one more formal or anything? I don't know too much about the language and i try to shoot for authenticity. It's like learning English, yes the words you're speaking make sense, but people may not say it that way or its very informal, slang etc.


I really appreciate the help! I also never heard of 'que' acting as 'and' before.


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## Duncan M (Nov 22, 2014)

Any time!

The -que thing I've only seen in particular instances, most notably the abbreviation _Senatus Populusque Romanum_ (Senate and People of Rome, or SPQR). I haven't read enough to really comment on the usage, so just go with whichever you prefer. Best of luck with your project.


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## N.S.Griffiths (Nov 27, 2014)

I haven't done Latin in many years (it was obligatory in my 'middle school'), but initio strikes me as more of a beginning word, whereas principio seems like it would mean beginning too but as in like 'first'. As I say, I could be wrong, but in Italian 'inizio' is begin and principio is primary, too, and they're still incredibly similar languages. 
 It might be worth typing both into Google translate and seeing which one is the most similar to what you want. Both Latin and Italian are very 'broad' languages, there can be like six different ways of saying the same meaning, so it might turn out that you don't actually need to worry which you use.
But yeah, definitely try to check somewhere. If you like i could try to find my old textbooks and check.


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## skip.knox (Nov 28, 2014)

Duncan has it right and his proposal is more appropriate. While there are plenty of exceptions, the "et" would more commonly be used to join two clauses, while "-que" is found more often joining a pair of words. It may sound more awkward to our ears, but Principium Terminusque would sound more natural to a Roman, especially if it's a stand-alone phrase like in a motto.


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## DeathtoTrite (Nov 28, 2014)

To be honest, from translating the Aeneid the -que is more common than et. As for end, fine is the only word I can recall immediately. Peto means "to beg, so Petens would mean begging.


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