ahel comments on REQ: Latin translation for HPMOR - Less Wrong

13 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 August 2011 10:20AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (52)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 August 2011 11:27:45PM 4 points [-]

Thanks! Here for comparison is Google's translation:

Non habet soter salvator.
Vindex est dominus no,
nec mater nec pater,
modo nihil est.

If "Soter" or "Sotehr" means "savior", as I seem to recall from Aristoi, that might suit the meaning well; and if the first line makes sense grammatically, of which no clue hath I, it has a good ring. "Defensori" does sound closer to the intended meaning than "victori" or "vindex". And whether "modo nihil est" means at all the same thing as "modo nihilitas supera", I've likewise no clue but it sounds like the "above" part was left out. If it actually does convey the same meaning, it is more compact.

If this version works, it would have a powerful ring to it:

Non habet soter salvator.
Neque defensori dominus,
nec pater, nec mater,
modo nihil est.

But one suspects that what's actually needed is:

Non est salvatori salvator.
Neque defensori dominus,
nec pater, nec mater,
modo nihilitas supera.
Comment author: ahel 10 March 2012 01:52:09PM 1 point [-]

ehm , man: Soter is ancient greek and it was used by medieval erudite scholar, yes, but to refer, in a more or less cryptic way, only to Jchrist.