We found each other

Latin Learning Latin
1

I am thinking about how to correctly say “We found each other” in Latin, but for it to have the meaning like two people found themselves in the whole big world and have a special bond (eg. love). Like they finally found each other. Like two kindred spirits met together in the whole big world (what are the odds, right?).
On the other hand, I would like the Latin phrase as short, but as accurate as possible.

This is one of the problems where literal meaning can be different from the intended meaning. The goal is to have a phrase that won’t be misinterpreted, while still having deeper meaning.
Besides, having those words in Latin will obviously strengthen the intention because… well it’s Latin, it’s what it does. Latin makes everything seem more meaningful, and even written all-caps it doesn’t look like a threat or yelling, in contrast to every Russian sentence written in Cyrillic :slight_smile:

Now jokes aside, so far I was thinking of:

  1. Invenimus nos (like: we found us? ourselves?)

  2. Ipsi invenimus (but this sounds more like we found ourselves inside / we know who we are now / we found our meaning, path)

  3. Invenimus invicem (like: we found each other / we found each other together “alone” / each of us found the other / we both were looking for each other and we finally did / we mutually discover ourselves?)

I personally like INVENIMVS INVICEM the most, but I’m not sure if it’s really the most accurate for the meaning I want to include there.

In other words: Could a Latin-speaking person tell “invenimus invicem” to the person he loves (a girlfriend or wife etc.)? Would this be correct in Ancient Rome to say in a relationship?

Then, as a proof for correctness of the above, could an observer (someone outside) say about some two people fallen in love: “Invenerunt invicem!” (“They found each other!”, meaning "They truly found one another […in the whole big world, falling in love])?

Any thoughts on this will be appreciated! Can’t sleep because of it for days…

Thanks,
Bat

2

Hi, if you try to convert the English words individually, you might get stuck; instead, have a think about what the sentence actually means. Here it probably means, literally, ‘each of the two of us found the other’, or something like that, which is a distributive reciprocal construction (i.e. each of the two ‘X’-ed the other): note that this is distributive and so takes a singular verb, not plural, just like in English: we use ‘each of the two’ with a singular verb, but ‘both of the two’ with a plural one.

Perhaps therefore have a look at how Cicero used the reciprocal distributive construction uterque + alterum in his work to his son on duties, sec. 1.4, which may give you the clue you need for the construction:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0048%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D4

Also check out the LS dictionary, uterque, under items A.3 (you’d need uterque nostrum) and B.3.b (for the reciprocal construction of uterque + a case of alter):

https://logeion.uchicago.edu/uterque

(invicem was not really used in a reciprocal sense in golden age Latin prose, only later.)

invenio might be the right verb for you, but always consider what other options are available, e.g. a slightly different sense with nanciscor, or (if you need the form of alter to work regardless of gender, e.g. if a man and woman found each other) you could use a verb construction of ‘meeting’ that takes the dative (for alterī is the same for all genders).

You’d need to then have a think about how you add the idea ‘at last’ (Cicero kicks off his second Catiline speech with this idea), ‘by the design of the gods’ (Caesar has a great way of saying this in 1.12.6 of the Gallic wars), ‘destined’ etc., as these all mean different things and so are all expressed in different ways.

Cheers, Chad