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
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.
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
Always happy to help a fellow Tennessean – especially one from the “right” side of the state!
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.
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.
I have a question for you, Rhuiden; how do you make those macrons over the long vowels?
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
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.
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?
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/international/bylanguage/latin.html
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/keyboards/mackey.html
If you want to write macrons in a post, though, it’s a bit more complicated.