(Mis) Using Latin for Spells

One skill I have gained in the years since I've visited this site in the past is the skill of translating Latin. As such, when I see it in the wild I am both excited and critical. After 4 years of being the best Latin student at my school, as well as achieving a perfect score on a nationally standardized exam, I know when I'm looking at poor translations. So, after a story I read last night presented me with some Latin, my brain jumped into action. It was a good attempt, don't get me wrong the author surprised me with some of the grammatical constructions used, but the little things proved to me that there was a lack of attention to detail on that front. This can reflect poorly in a number of ways, so before people fall to the same follies, let me tell you the tips and tricks for using Latin for your 'Old Ponish' artifacts and spells, as well as why the effort should be put in.

Let's get this out of the way: LATIN DOES NOT WORK LIKE OTHER LANGUAGES

English sentence structure is based on the order of words (which I hope people on a writing website would understand). Subject positioned at the front, verb placed after, direct object is next. Things like indirect objects and prepositional phrases have indicating words (to, for, of, and all of your favorite prepositions), and because of this nouns and basic sentence structure in English is really not too complex, especially when considering parts of speech. For example, a simple sentence for English standards:

"I kick my friend's ball onto the road with my feet."

Let's take an adventure down the road to translating this sentence to Latin.

1) Parts of speech for nouns are bound to word endings
Let's take a lovely Latin word amicus (friend) for this example. Anyone who has taken a romance language introductory course is bound to remember conjugating verbs, and if you, reader, haven't, then fret not. Parts of speech in Latin fall into five broader categories (referred to as 'cases'), and these cases are part of determining the ending of the noun. The other component is whether the noun is singular or plural ('number'). There are 5 families of nouns ('declensions'), and those declensions also have variations. Since each variation has 10 endings (each case has an ending for singular and plural nouns), and in total there are 11 variations... yep there are 110 different endings verbs can have. There are patterns and repetitions, and hell I could list them all right here, but this blog is long enough already.
In this case, "friend's" (or "of [my] friend") is in the genitive case because it shows possession. This noun is in the 2nd declension, and the associated ending is -i. So we have the ending, we know the word... but where do we put the two together? When looking up Latin vocabulary, it is necessary to see the genitive case form of the noun. The genitive form will reveal the root of the noun from which all endings will be placed, as well as reveal the declension of the noun (if not known prior). For example, when I look up the word 'friend' in a proper Latin dictionary, the entry appears (most likely) as follows: amicus, amici. The first form you see is the nominative case (which is used for basic subjects) then the genitive. So, for our purposes, we translate "friend's" as amici.
Congratulations! You now have your noun! Now just do that a few more times...
The reason I bring this up at all is because often I see things like "friendus appearus!" when people want to poke fun at Latin, and it really is more complicated than that. The biggest problem, however, is my first "Do Not" of Latin usage. Google Translate is the worst possible source, often the vocabulary they come up with is lackluster at best and losing the meaning of the word at worst. If you really want to look up some Latin, I suggest this website right here.
DO NOT USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE!

2) Sentence structure rules
Since parts of speech are determined by the forms the words take, sentence structure has a couple of interesting twists. One thing most people don't know about Latin is that most of the old things we translate did not have much, if any, punctuation. Although things get hairy in poetry, the understanding is that verbs come at the end of clauses, and everything else is placed in front of it somewhat haphazardly. This is where creative liberties could often be taken for Latin speakers, because the displacement of certain words could build tension and leave people guessing. This does not have the same effect in modern day, however. Especially if we have a simple sentence and are portraying the sentence to audiences that might not have the background in Latin, sticking to a sentence structure similar to English is often the way to go.
If the sentence is complex and, say, has a subordinating clause built in, the translating gets weird, but follow the general pattern of verb in the back, conjunction (or relative pronoun) in the front, and everything it needs lies between them. These are not to be taken lightly, however, because often subjunctive forms and subordinating clauses have specific rules for their specific usages, unlike English which simply uses prepositions and basic verb forms (with helping words) for a myriad of subordinating clause types. All of these things, on top of potential vocabulary meanings lost in translation, lead me to my second point. If you haven't touched Latin before, you will most likely slip up on something. I slip up on translations all the time, and the only reason I made it through AP Latin as a sane human being was because I had a great friend to study with. Checking with others, as with English, is the best way to catch those slipups.
GET OTHERS TO CHECK YOUR TRANSLATIONS!

Alright, this blog is taking longer than I intended. Let's cut to the chase about our example sentence:

"mei amici pilam in viam peditibus offendo"

The biggest takeaway from this is peditibus, which uses a preposition in english (with my feet) but in Latin is a lone word in its special construction (which displays the means by which the action was done). Often there are a lack of prepositions in Latin, and showing nuanced grammar is too complicated to throw a few words in google translate for. But why does that matter?

• It reflects poorly on the author.
  Really, for those who know what they're looking for, it proves that the author is not putting in time on those little details that can make the story special, and can break immersion. It opened my eyes to more of the mistakes the author was making in the story beyond the Latin, as well as sent me to the comment section to try and help out in a conversation about the Latin.
• It prevents people who are interested from learning.
  Like with the previous point, those who are seeing Latin for the first time will have their immersion broken trying to understand broken Latin. It could shut down the interest of using Latin for their own stories or for their own learning in general.
• Good Latin helps create unique stories.
  The strong use of Latin can be a fun, interactive, and unique part of your story. Harry Potter is the best example of this, obviously, but finding ways to 'build spells' and use Latin to guide narrative themes is an opportunity to use different pieces of storytelling. Using it for incantations, story tension, and other things that I'm sure smarter people can think outside the box with. It is a tool, like other story tools, and using it well will help the story.
• Perpetuates the "dead language" narrative of Latin.
  "Who cares about Latin, it's a dead language anyways." Everyone has heard it, and it makes me so upset when people write off Latin because of that. Just because people don't speak it doesn't mean it deserves to be at the bottom of the barrel in terms of language. It is rich and interesting and fulfilling in its own ways, and it doesn't need to be spoken to be powerful in literature.

I do not have plans to use Latin in any stories I have cooking up, just saw the opportunity and took it. Alright I've said my piece, hopefully this can be a resource for those looking to use Latin in the future. Catch you guys on the Flipside.
~Techno Flare
/)