a query for Latin Gurus !

[sinhakumara]

Dear friends, If I were to paraphrase a bit in Latin.... " VIRGO DIOS DIC MIHI.." Would it correctly translate as.....The God's virgins (vestal virgins) tell me / have told me..... ? My latin is pretty basic , hence some help from all my friends...!
sinhakumara.

[Screwdog]

Hello there,

Virgo dios dic mihi unfortunately doesn't mean much in Latin as far as I can see. Virgo, a nominative singular noun, has a hard time agreeing with dic, which is 2nd singular imperative in form. I suppose it could work if virgo is vocative.

If you're looking for "The god's virgins tell me/have told me...," you might be looking for something like: Virgines dei mihi dicunt/dixerunt. Note that here the number of the subject (virgines) is in agreement with the number of the verb (dicunt/dixerunt).

Good luck!

[furrykef]

The Latin doesn't really make sense to me and certainly doesn't match the translation. "Dios" isn't, as far as I know, a valid form of the word "deus" (god), though it does happen to be the Spanish equivalent. "Virgō" is singular, not plural, so it'd have to be one virgin. And "dīc" is an imperative: "Tell me!"

I think what you want is this:
Virginēs deī mihi dīcunt... -- The god's virgins tell me...
Virginēs deī mihi dīcēbant... -- The god's virgins were telling me...
Virginēs deī mihi dīxērunt... -- The god's virgins told / have told me...

If you want "gods" to be plural, change "deī" to "deōrum".

While we're at it, don't forget that the verb dīcere works a bit differently from how we use "tell" in English. In particular, you have to use it with an infinitive. (I think Late Latin and Medieval Latin sometimes use a more English-like construction, but Classical Latin does not.) For example, to say "He tells me I am wise", you have to say, "Mihi dīcit mē esse sapientem" -- literally "To me he says me to be wise".

[Polyfloisbos]

Pauca enim addere licet furrykef verbis, dicendum autem credo vocabulum Dios, quod auribus Latinum non invenitur, genitivum singularem fieri lingua Graeca, e nomine Zeus. In Anglicum vero si sententiam transferre conamur tuam, praebebitur Say to me, virgin,....

Provided that furrykef answer is yet enough complete, I'd say the word Dios -a non-Latin noun for sure- must have been taken erroneously from the Greek genitive singulare of Zeus. So, trying to translate your sentence into English, it would be something like Say to me, virgin,....

[sinhakumara]

you have explained it beautifully ! Thanks mate ! sinhakumara.