Help in Latin translation

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CutlerB

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In hope that there are some here who can translate correctly into Latin, I ask for help in translating something into Latin.

Either “Only one Church is (or was) founded by Christ” or “Christ founded only one Church”.

Since I dropped out of the Latin class after a year for reasons that were not final, my very limited knowledge of the language is based on stuff I could find on the Internet, but applying it is another issue.

I did, however, give it ago and came up with these suggestions, which are probably all wrong, which you will kindly forgive. 🙂

"Only one Church was founded by Christ"
“Sola una Ecclesia fundabatur a Iesu Christe”

"Christ founded only one Church"
“Christus fundabat sola una Ecclesia”

Translations that go along the same lines as the two versions I gave but don’t match exactly, are of course also welcome. I’d just like it to sound nice. 🙂

Thanks, and please forgive my pitiful attempts at Latin. 😊
 
CutlerB said:
I did, however, give it ago and came up with these suggestions, which are probably all wrong, which you will kindly forgive. 🙂

"Only one Church was founded by Christ"
“Sola una Ecclesia fundabatur a Iesu Christe”

"Christ founded only one Church"
“Christus fundabat sola una Ecclesia”
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Except for the past tense instead of the perfect tense, I can’t say they are bad translations but do they convey the same English nuance? 🙂

Something in Latin doesn’t mean it’s necessarily thought up or written in Latin. (Like the Roman Canon or Vatican II, for example.) But you know that.
 
Sorry to change the subject, but I noticed you refer to yourself as a “papist.” Forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you kind of insulting yourself? I always thought “papist” was a derogatory term for Catholics.
 
ProVobis said:
Except for the past tense instead of the perfect tense, I can’t say they are bad translations but do they convey the same English nuance? 🙂

Something in Latin doesn’t mean it’s necessarily thought up or written in Latin. (Like the Roman Canon or Vatican II, for example.) But you know that.
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Indeed nuances are important, but I couldn’t say whether they are in the Latin 🤷

You mean you would use the perfect tense (fundavit) for the second sentence?
 
andyklein said:
Sorry to change the subject, but I noticed you refer to yourself as a “papist.” Forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you kind of insulting yourself? I always thought “papist” was a derogatory term for Catholics.
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I know it was. 🙂 I use the term to “reclaim” it, if you will, to turn them Anglicans on their heads. 🙂
 
ProVobis said:
hazcompat has it (almost) right in post #3.
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And what’s the “almost”? 🙂

I don’t trust Google translate for Latin at all (except for very simple things such as the meaning of words) since it already often gets other languages wrong.

“Fundata est ecclesia Christi una”

“Ecclesia Christi unicam condidit”

To my knowledge “Christi” is genitive case which indicates possession. I remember from Latin classes that the ablative (Iesu Christe), apart from also being the invocation, is the case used for conveying the meaning of “through/by someone/something”. That’s why I used it in my translation.

Could the above two Latin sentences be translated back into English, so I know what they mean exactly? They seem quite different. 🤷
 
CutlerB said:
And what’s the “almost”? 🙂
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Because there’s no such thing as a perfect translation?

Take for example something simple as “Dominus vobiscum.” If translated from “The Lord be with you” you’d have “Dominus sit vobiscum.” And then who determined “dominus” means exactly “lord”? Where’s the etymological connection? To be fair, though, the connection isn’t that clear in the Spanish (“senor”) or Polish (Pan) either.
 
Fundata est ecclesia Christi una" Founded is church Christ one

“Ecclesia Christi unicam condidit” Church Christ single created

transliteration

Peace
 
CutlerB said:
In hope that there are some here who can translate correctly into Latin, I ask for help in translating something into Latin.

Either “Only one Church is (or was) founded by Christ” or “Christ founded only one Church”.

Since I dropped out of the Latin class after a year for reasons that were not final, my very limited knowledge of the language is based on stuff I could find on the Internet, but applying it is another issue.

I did, however, give it ago and came up with these suggestions, which are probably all wrong, which you will kindly forgive. 🙂

"Only one Church was founded by Christ"
“Sola una Ecclesia fundabatur a Iesu Christe”

"Christ founded only one Church"
“Christus fundabat sola una Ecclesia”

Translations that go along the same lines as the two versions I gave but don’t match exactly, are of course also welcome. I’d just like it to sound nice. 🙂

Thanks, and please forgive my pitiful attempts at Latin. 😊
Click to expand...
The perfect would be better than the imperfect. The imperfect, which you are using, means “was founding” or “used to found.” The perfect would be

“Una sola Ecclesia a Iesu Christo [that’s your other grammatical mistake–Christe is the vocative, and you want ablative) fundata est.”

Or “Iesus Christus unam solam Ecclesiam fudit.”

However, “fundo” isn’t a good word choice here. It’s a “false friend”–it means something like “to pour out” (it’s the word used when speaking of Jesus “shedding His blood,” fo rinstance).

The word you want, I think, is “constituo.”

So to express your rmeaning you should say

“Una sola Ecclesia a Iesu Christo constituta est,” or
“Iesus Christus unam solam Ecclesiam constituit.”

The word order is a matter of style, not grammar, by the way–I used the word order that “felt right” to me. Your word order conveyed the meaning fine.

Theologically, I think the statement is trite, because practically no one disagrees with it. The question is rather how that one Church is to be defined and how various ecclesiastical organizations are related to it. One of the basic mistakes Catholics make is to think that Protestants regard their ecclesial bodies as something analogous to what Catholics believe the Catholic Church to be. Few if any Protestants do so, although most Protestants regard the Catholic Church as something like a Protestant denomination, which perpetuates the confusion.

Also, you made the right choice in “giving it a go.” One of the reasons Latin isn’t widely used is that people are afraid to make mistakes. As with any language, it’s better to charge ahead and make mistakes (which everyone except maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Foster_(Latinist)”]Fr. Reginald Foster probably will do, at this point in linguistic history)

Edwin
 
CutlerB said:
And what’s the “almost”? 🙂

I don’t trust Google translate for Latin at all (except for very simple things such as the meaning of words) since it already often gets other languages wrong.

“Fundata est ecclesia Christi una”
Click to expand...
One church of Christ has been poured out
“Ecclesia Christi unicam condidit”
Click to expand...
The Church of Christ founded/created one single woman :eek:
To my knowledge “Christi” is genitive case which indicates possession. I remember from Latin classes that the ablative (Iesu Christe), apart from also being the invocation, is the case used for conveying the meaning of “through/by someone/something”. That’s why I used it in my translation.
Click to expand...
On “Christe,” you made the opposite mistake from the one most folks make. People often assume that all masculine nouns are second declension, especially if they end in “us” (when in fact there are four other declensions, three of which have plenty of masculine nouns, and one of which always ends in “us” in the nominative singular). You, on the other hand, are treating “Christus” (second declension) as if it were third declension (or fifth, for that matter). The second declension goes like this
Nom: Christus
Voc: Christe
Acc: Christum
Gen: Christi
Dative/ablative: Christo

Oh, and both “condo” and “instituo” (suggested by other posters) are fine choices.I just looked up Lumen Gentium, to see which word it used, and it uses “constituo” (in sect. 2–I didn’t read on to see if other terms are used later).

Also, on further thought, I think that “unica” is better than “una sola.” Google translate got that one right, I think (if that’s where you got it from).

Edwin
 
CutlerB said:
And what’s the “almost”? 🙂

I don’t trust Google translate for Latin at all (except for very simple things such as the meaning of words) since it already often gets other languages wrong.

“Fundata est ecclesia Christi una”
Click to expand...
One church of Christ has been poured out
“Ecclesia Christi unicam condidit”
Click to expand...
The Church of Christ founded/created one single woman :eek:
To my knowledge “Christi” is genitive case which indicates possession. I remember from Latin classes that the ablative (Iesu Christe), apart from also being the invocation, is the case used for conveying the meaning of “through/by someone/something”. That’s why I used it in my translation.
Click to expand...
On “Christe,” you made the opposite mistake from the one most folks make. People often assume that all masculine nouns are second declension, especially if they end in “us” (when in fact there are four other declensions, three of which have plenty of masculine nouns, and one of which always ends in “us” in the nominative singular). You, on the other hand, are treating “Christus” (second declension) as if it were third declension (or fifth, for that matter). The second declension goes like this
Nom: Christus
Voc: Christe
Acc: Christum
Gen: Christi
Dative/ablative: Christo

Edwin
 
“Christus ecclesiam solam unam condidit.”

Or

“Ecclesia sola una a Christo condita est.”

That’s my translation as a current third year latin student.
 
Contarini said:
One church of Christ has been poured out

The Church of Christ founded/created one single woman :eek:

On “Christe,” you made the opposite mistake from the one most folks make. People often assume that all masculine nouns are second declension, especially if they end in “us” (when in fact there are four other declensions, three of which have plenty of masculine nouns, and one of which always ends in “us” in the nominative singular). You, on the other hand, are treating “Christus” (second declension) as if it were third declension (or fifth, for that matter). The second declension goes like this
Nom: Christus
Voc: Christe
Acc: Christum
Gen: Christi
Dative/ablative: Christo

Oh, and both “condo” and “instituo” (suggested by other posters) are fine choices.I just looked up Lumen Gentium, to see which word it used, and it uses “constituo” (in sect. 2–I didn’t read on to see if other terms are used later).

Also, on further thought, I think that “unica” is better than “una sola.” Google translate got that one right, I think (if that’s where you got it from).

Edwin
Click to expand...
That’s how you know I dropped out after one year with horrible grades! 😃 Thanks for explaining this to me, though “first/second/third/etc. declension” doesn’t tell me anything as a German since they are named differently here. We have them named by the letters they end in, like a-Deklination, u-Deklination, konsonantische Deklination, etc. 🤷
 
I take it from what you said that this is the correspondence:

1st = A-declension
2nd = O-declension
3rd = Consonant-declension
4th = U-declension
5th = E-declension

Is that correct? I guess you also have to throw the “Jesus” declension in there too. 😛
 
QNDNNDQDCE said:
I take it from what you said that this is the correspondence:

1st = A-declension
2nd = O-declension
3rd = Consonant-declension
4th = U-declension
5th = E-declension

Is that correct? I guess you also have to throw the “Jesus” declension in there too. 😛
Click to expand...
There was no correspondence between the ones I listed in the order with the ones you did. I have no idea which one is which. 🤷
 
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