[Ansteorra] Latin Help

[Christie Ward]

Süren Ünegen asked:
>I am having a little problem trying to translate something in to Latin. The 
>phrase I am trying to translate is “First to fight loyal to the end” and I 
>am coming up with this “Primoris pugno fidelis ut terminu” Is the 
>translation anywhere close to where I need to be?

No, not really...

<Primoris> isn't actually a word, and if it was it would have to be a plural 
indirect object or the object of a preposition.

<Pugno> is "I fist-fight", the first person singular present form of the 
verb <pugnare>.  We have this word as a root in English "pugilist".  Latin 
can use it to mean other kinds of fighting, but the nuance is boxing.

<Ut> is either an adverb "how, in what way" or else a conjunction "as, 
although, when, in order that, etc."

<Terminu> isn't actually a word.  <Terminus> is "boundary, limit".


Latin is unlike a lot of English in that words change their forms to show 
how they're being used in a sentence.  It's tough to pick up a Latin 
dictionary and get a sentence built unless you know something about grammar. 
  The first step is to know what it is -- grammatically -- that you want to 
say in English, then you have to figure out how to take the words you've 
chosen from the dictionary and correctly put them in the proper forms for 
the part of grammar in which they're being used.

"First to fight loyal to the end" is really two separate sentences, and is 
unclear whether you're talking about one person or many.  "The first one to 
fight.  The loyal one to the end." or "The first ones to the fight. The 
loyal ones to the end."

In Latin, a lot of the extra words like "one" and "the" are just assumed.

The singular form would be something along the lines of "Primus proeliari. 
Fidelis ad finem."  If you're talking about a bunch of people, it would be 
"Primii proeliari. Fideles ad finem."


GLOSSARY
========

primus, -a, -um (adj) "first" -- <primus> "the first one"; "primii" "the 
first ones"

proelior, -ari, -atus sum (verb) "to battle, to fight"

fidelis, -e (adj) "faithful, loyal, trustworthy" -- <fidelis> "loyal one"; 
<fideles> "loyal ones"

finis, -is (m or f noun) "boundary, limit, end" -- <finem> accusative 
singular

ad (preposition requiring accusative object) "to"


::GUNNVOR::