Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Greetings all. Can anyone accurately translate this sentence into Latin please?

"In the absence of light, hell is revealed."

Thanks very much in advance, auto-translate sites are driving me insane.

Romanii Eunt Domus (sorry, had to...)

It's been a while since I spoke latin, but this should be pretty close.

Note that the word for hell varies with intended use, but **Infernus** or **infernum** should be pretty close to what you're looking for.


in absentia lux, īnfernus revelatur

It's probably a bit pig Latin, but how about "in lux nullus, infernus est" ?
Edit: perhaps more "in absentia lux, infernus est", perhaps...

Flinty wrote:Romanii Eunt Domus (sorry, had to...)

Does that mean The Romans Went Home?

crazysaneman wrote:Note that the word for hell varies with intended use, but **Infernus** or **infernum** should be pretty close to what you're looking for.

in absentia lux, īnfernus revelatur

Pilum wrote:It's probably a bit pig Latin, but how about "in lux nullus, infernus est" ?

Thanks very much everyone. From what I've seen of Latin, it's an incredibly complex language where concepts don't translate smoothly, and variations on the same word exist depending on the meaning of the sentence. It's so easy to write gibberish.

 NoPoet wrote:

Flinty wrote:Romanii Eunt Domus (sorry, had to...)

Does that mean The Romans Went Home?

Oh dear NoPoet, I fear your education has been sorely lacking... (Or I'm just an old fart. This is not exactly false) :

https://youtu.be/DdqXT9k-050

If it seems confusing, it's basically a pisstake of a certain old style of language teaching, invariably associated with Latin, Greek and essentially public/grammar schools.

I've never tried to get into Latin since 40K uses a kind of corrupted version of it, so accuracy hasn't been that important before.

That clip you linked to definitely sums up how hard it is to get right!

Google Translate does Latin...

 NoPoet wrote:
From what I've seen of Latin, it's an incredibly complex language where concepts don't translate smoothly, and variations on the same word exist depending on the meaning of the sentence. It's so easy to write gibberish.

I apologize if this isn't helpful, but given how much of 40K's faux-Latin is for effect while being totally wrong grammatically, I'd think it would be suitably on-brand to use an equally crude/wrong translation for your motto, if you can't find a precise translation.

Ghaz wrote:Google Translate does Latin...

NoPoet wrote:Thanks very much in advance, auto-translate sites are driving me insane.

My suspicion is that he tried that, and it wasn't turning out right even to someone who didn't know the language.

crazysaneman and Pilum seem to have the best guesses though!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pilum wrote:

 NoPoet wrote:

Flinty wrote:Romanii Eunt Domus (sorry, had to...)

Does that mean The Romans Went Home?

Oh dear NoPoet, I fear your education has been sorely lacking... (Or I'm just an old fart. This is not exactly false) :

https://youtu.be/DdqXT9k-050

If it seems confusing, it's basically a pisstake of a certain old style of language teaching, invariably associated with Latin, Greek and essentially public/grammar schools.

Quite literally the only Latin I know!

I quote like:

Lux perit, apparet infernum.

It’s a little more poetic than literally translating and keeps the same meaning.

Or even flip it a bit:

Lux perit, infernum apparet.

Probably something like

Absente Lumine; Infernum est revelatum

Tygre wrote:
Probably something like

Absente Lumine; Infernum est revelatum

Sentence structure is wrong at the end there for Latin.

Verbs at the end, per Cicero (who was himself known to take the piss out of Latin structure)

...ok, I'm curious. For the scrolls on the Junith Eruita flying pulpit of +4 heretic-burning, I put:
"Sanctimonialis et ballistae"
...as a probably horribly bastardised and incorrect way of approximating as closely as I could the phrase, "nuns with guns".

Tell me, how awful a person am I? (I'm aware that Latin probably doesn't have an exact match for the word guns...)

 JohnnyHell wrote:

Tygre wrote:
Probably something like

Absente Lumine; Infernum est revelatum

Sentence structure is wrong at the end there for Latin.

Actually, Latin has no required structure. There are conventions lots of authors used, but the endings of the words told you where in the sentence the word would go. So you could re-arrange all of it for dramatic effect or comedy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Super Ready wrote:
...ok, I'm curious. For the scrolls on the Junith Eruita flying pulpit of +4 heretic-burning, I put:
"Sanctimonialis et ballistae"
...as a probably horribly bastardised and incorrect way of approximating as closely as I could the phrase, "nuns with guns".

Tell me, how awful a person am I? (I'm aware that Latin probably doesn't have an exact match for the word guns...)

I only learned ancient Roman Latin, not church Latin, so I don't really know a word for 'nun' or 'gun', but you probably want 'cum' instead of 'et' ('et' is more like an 'and').

I studied Latin. I’d have swapped it to ‘revelatum est’ at the end based on the conventions I learnt, and it scans better for poetic reasons you allude to. Or use the ‘est’ in the middle. YMMV.

Shouldn't ablativus absolutus be used for light part of the sentance to under pin the fact that this happens and is imporant.

Plus for non alive and non countable things like light or darkness shouldn't we use inopia/inopiae to describe the void or lack of something?

We aren't treating light as just rays here, but something more like philosophical light, same with the darkness.

And AbAbs is very good to for delivering stuff like "In Diokleklecja time" or "Durning the life of Nero".

There is this sentence from Horatio for example which means . Stars escape, when the sun comes.

Sole oriente fugiunt stellae.

luce absente, inferi inveniuntur


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Literally, light being absent, hell is found

Thanks for all the replies everyone. Wow, it looks like you can say the same thing many ways in Latin. I'm struggling to choose as they all sound amazing!

I want a second, very simple sentence. I want to say "I am both". The idea of duality is very important to my story. As an example, the villain is effectively split into two minds, one benign, the other malicious. The creature identifies itself as "Geminae" which I gather means "twins".

Latin searches and auto-translate are frustrating. I want to use "ego ambo" as "ambo" supposedly translates into English as "both". But when I look up the meaning of ambo, it apparently means a part of a church!

I am tempted to just say "ego geminae" for consistency and simplicity. What do people think?

 NoPoet wrote:
Thanks for all the replies everyone. Wow, it looks like you can say the same thing many ways in Latin. I'm struggling to choose as they all sound amazing!

I want a second, very simple sentence. I want to say "I am both". The idea of duality is very important to my story. As an example, the villain is effectively split into two minds, one benign, the other malicious. The creature identifies itself as "Geminae" which I gather means "twins".

Latin searches and auto-translate are frustrating. I want to use "ego ambo" as "ambo" supposedly translates into English as "both". But when I look up the meaning of ambo, it apparently means a part of a church!

I am tempted to just say "ego geminae" for consistency and simplicity. What do people think?

Hey, how do you feel about playing against a Cobra and a handful of harlequins ?



Love your conversions man, coolest army I have seen in a long time !.

Wish I could help with the Latin, but I have no idea.

Thanks mate but you might have me mixed up with someone else!

 NoPoet wrote:
Thanks mate but you might have me mixed up with someone else!

definitely possible, but your concept really resonates with a beautiful concept I saw at a tournament a while ago lol.

Google 40k Split Minds.

Gorgeous concept. If yours is anywhere similar. Love it !. and even if it isn't close, I am sure its also cool XD .

The Latin translation of the sentence "In the absence of light, hell is revealed" would be:

"In lumine absentia, infernus revelatur."

Please note that Latin word order is flexible, so alternative arrangements of the words are possible. However, the translation provided above reflects a common word order in Latin sentences.

Nulla lux, aperit infernum. I would go with this, but it all depends what ever form you want to use. There is peasent talk, and there is the specific use of cases. A dativus qualitatis would underline the quality of the lack of light being linked to hell, and ablativus absolutus would in my opinion be the best to use. But I am not very good or even mid at making sentances in it.

This is three years old...