Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Learning Latin with Pope Francis - June 23, 2014


To visit my archive of Latin Papal Tweets, go to my main page.

June 23, 2014





 christianun is a typo. It should have been christianum.

This is the first simple typo I've ever spotted in the Pope's Latin twitter feed. First off, we all know the Pope himself did not actually type this typo. And the Pope's professional Latinists working on this project are daily toiling to translate vastly more than just the public relations tool that is Twitter.

n and m are right next to each other on the keyboard. After this was typed, it was virtually invisible.  So let's give them a pass...

Having worked as an Arabic linguist at the Top Secret National Security Agency, I am going to admit that I performed typos in national level reports. Never a typo that compromised security. And nor is the typo christianun theologically significant!

errare est humanum...

Literal translation of the Latin: Let us pray to God for the communities of the Christian faithful situated in the Middle East, that they may continually persevere where once arose there the name Christian.

Here's how the Latin works.


Latin
English
Parsing
Grammar Points
Pro
For
Prep. + abl.
governs communitatibus
christifidelium
of the Christian faithful
gen. pl. masc. adj.
christifidelis, christifidelis; used as substantive
Deum
God
acc. sing. masc. noun
dir. obj. of deprecemur
deprecemur
let us pray

deprecor, deprecari, deprecatum; hortatory subjunctive
communitatibus
the communities
abl. pl. fem. noun
communitas, communitatis
Medio
the Middle
abl. sing. masc. adj.
medius, media, medium; modifies Oriente
in
in
Prep. + abl.
governs Oriente
Oriente
East
abl. sing. masc. noun
oriens, orientis
sitis
situated
abl. pl. fem. adj.
situs, sita, situm; modifies communitatibus
ut
in order that
conj.
governs result clause with subj. verb permaneant
ubi
where


nomen
the name
nom. sing. neut. noun

quondam
once


est
(is)
3rd pers. sing. pres. verb
sum, esse, fui; with exortum creates perf. tense of deponent verb
christianun (sic)
christian
acc. sing. adj.
christianus, christiana, christianum; modifies nomen; typo for christianum
exortum
arose
nom. sing. neut. past participle of deponent verb
exorior, exoriri, exortum
ibi
there


usque
continually


permaneant
may they persevere
3rd pers. pl. pres. act. subj. verb
permaneo, permanere, permansi, permansum
 

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