Hi and help for translation!

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi guys!

It’s me again,

I just had a question; I’m preparing an Epigraph for an essay and I want it to be a latin translation of one of my favorite quotations ever: it is the 7th postulate of the tractatus logicus-philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein, and I wanted help to translate it because I cannot even figure out how to start…This is the sentence.

  1. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, davon muß man schweigen.

  2. Ce dont on ne peut parler, il faut le taire.

  3. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

  4. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

So, thanx very much for in advance helping me translate this! :smiley: :smiley:

2

Maybe:

de quo loqui non possumus, non loquendum

(about which we cannot speak, [that thing] must not be spoken)

David

3

Or maybe:

quod verbis committi non potest, silentio praetermitti oportet.

(what cannot be entrusted to words, it is right for that to be passed by in silence]

David

4

not sure if this works:

cuius non potest loquere huius est tacendum

5

Kasper:

I think you’ll need loqui, the deponent infinitive. Also, I’m pretty sure it’s more common to use loqui de for “talk about” instead of the genitive. Perhaps the genitive is possible?

-David

6

Ugh. :blush: “loqui” of course!! Perseus seems to indicate it needs accusative

7

Hi Hammurabi,

J’espere que ton dissertation est alle bien! I just had another idea for this translation. I got it while reading a proverb at Laura’s fantastic Latin site:

Alia dicenda, alia reticenda.
Some things are to be said, others are to be kept quiet.
The Latin alia…alia… construction is very handy for making proverbs! Here are some others: Alia dicunt, alia faciunt; Alia dantur, alia negantur, etc.

Maybe this, the shortest so far: quae dici non possunt reticenda

[that] which can’t be said must be kept silent

Best,

David

8

Ea de quibus loqui non possumus, silentio transeunda sunt.

Well, it’s also one of my favourite quotes. This is a possibility to say it. The things about which we can not talk, have to be passed in silence. I thought about silentio transire like in the first chapters of Sallust’s De coniuratione Catilinae, but there are a lot of other solutions to say it!

9

here is my attempt at a shorter version though this may be ambiguous without a context

nefandis tacendum

Actually the version
“De quo nihil dici potest, hoc tacendum est?.Seems the most authentic it appears in several places on the web :e.g. here
http://www.alcuinus.net/lutetia/opera/acroases/facultas_loquendi.php

…Wittgenstein asserit se in hoc libro omnia dixisse scripsisseque quae dici scribique possint. Nec tamen asserit omnes interrogationes a se expletas fuisse: nam, ut nos monet, demus etiam omnes possibiles interrogationes responsionem aliquam invenisse, permanerent tamen confusiones nostrae: nam istae confusiones non sunt confusiones quae in logica rationeve placari possint. Ei sententia, datur ergo aliquid mystici. Hoc est vero quod dici non potest , quia tantum ostendi potest. Talis ostensio erit ergo muta ostensio, ita ut in ea ad silentium denique reddeamus. Itaque ultima sententia libri ita se habet: “De quo nihil dici potest, hoc tacendum est?. Concludit ergo Wittgenstein facultatem loquendi omnia attingere non posse. Hic patet eam etiam maxime esse impotentem pro iis quae nobis maxime intersunt…

http://www.alcuinus.net/lutetia/opera/acroases/facultas_loquendi.php

10

nefandis would suggest things that shouldn’t be spoken, wouldn’t it?–not things that can’t be uttered. (Also, what case? I think you’d need some sort of preposition (like de), since taceo doesn’t take the dative or ablative.)

Thanks, Philip, for the very illustrative quote about Wittgenstein!

David

PS - Moerus, I’ve skimmed over parts of Sallusti Bellum Iugurthinum, but it’s been too long. I should look at it again. I’ll keep an eye out for silentio transire.