Translation Question

[Rhuiden]

I am translating the paragraph at the end of Ch 8 (p. 54) and am having trouble with one sentence. I would appreciate the help of someone who is smarter than me.

SI FORTŪNĀS ET AGRŌS VĪTĀSQUE POPULĪ NOSTRĪ SINE BELLŌ DĒFENDERE POTERIMUS

My translation attempt is terrible, I am not able to see how the "AGRŌS VĪTĀSQUE" fit. - We will be able to defend our people without war if fortunes and fields and lives

I know i am missing something obvious but I just can't seem to get it. Thanks in advance for your help.

Rhuiden

[edonnelly]

Maybe this will help:

(1) Consider that "FORTŪNĀS ET AGRŌS VĪTĀSQUE" are all direct objects

(2) Consider that "POPULĪ NOSTRĪ" is not a direct object

and

(3) I believe there is probably more to this sentence. That is, we have the "If..." part but the "then" part is missing.

[Rhuiden]

I feel quite stupid now. For some reason I was trying to connect the "si fortunas et agros vitasque" as a complete clause. I also was reading "populi nostri" to be the direct object even though it is obviously genitive 2nd declension.

Yes, there is a "then" part to the sentence but I only listed the first part. I had gone over that sentence many times and still did not get it. My new translations makes much better sense: If we can defend the fortunes and fields and lives of our people without war

Thanks for your help,

Rhuiden

[edonnelly]

Always happy to help a fellow Tennessean -- especially one from the "right" side of the state!

[Rhuiden]

LOL. I am "right" in so many ways. You have to watch those people in the "left" part of the state. You probably have quite a few of those in your area as well.

Anyway, thanks again for the help.

Rhuiden


PS. Are you a Vols fan? I have football fever bad...can't wait for the season to begin.

[edonnelly]

I'm a Vandy guy, so it's hard to get too excited about the Vols. Of course, it's also hard to get too excited about the 'Dores... But, go Titans.

[Lucus Eques]

I have a question for you, Rhuiden; how do you make those macrons over the long vowels?

[Rhuiden]

I actually just figured it out myself recently and was trying it out with my post. I typed the post in MS Word then copied and pasted into my post.

To add the macrons in Word, just insert a symbol. For example (AGRŌS), I would type AGR, then insert the symbol for the O with the macron. I probably won't do that very often because of the multiple steps. I do not know of a way to do it here on textkit other than pasting it from somewhere else.

Rhuiden

[Lucus Eques]

Ah, I see. Well that stinks I was hoping it was like a font or something. Anyone have a better idea for adding macrons? whether it's a font that only some can use and read or universal? Especially if it's fast and relatively simple. I use a mac.

[Lucus Eques]

Never mind! I figured it out! Yay OSX! If anyone has a mac and wants to know how, let me know.

[Feles in silva]

Never mind! I figured it out! Yay OSX! If anyone has a mac and wants to know how, let me know.

I have Panther. How is it done?

[Lucus Eques]

Salue, Feles! Go to System Preferences, then to International, and then to "Input" something or "Keyboards" (should be the tab furthest to the right). There you have a list of potential keyboards you can activate. You're looking for "Latin Extended" or "USA Extended." Activate that, and then go to a program like TextEdit. In your computer's menu bar, possibly under an American flag (if you have an American computer), you'll see the "[Ae] USA Extended" keyboard. Then switch to it. Much like making an accute accent by alt+e and then a vowel, type alt+a and then any vowel, and there you go, instant macrons.

These were very helpful:

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/inte ... latin.html
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/inte ... ackey.html

If you want to write macrons in a post, though, it's a bit more complicated.