I'm building a website about prime numbers, and I want to put the following sentence: "playing with prime numbers" in Latin in the subtitle of the main page. Google Translate translation is: "ludens primum cum numero", but I'm not sure if it is correct. I guess it should be:"ludens cum prima numeri" .
If, as I believe, the sentence stands as the theme of the website you should use the infinitive ludere instead of the participle ludens. The latter means "who plays/is playing".
As for "with prime numbers", it is an adverb of means and in Latin (for inanimate objects) this is expressed by the simple ablative, which gives numeris primis.
All in all: Numeris primis ludere. Note that in principle you could put ludere first, but this seems more natural.
answered Jan 24 at 19:29
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1Is "primis" the correct adjective in Latin, though? After all, its primary meaning is "first", so it's at best ambiguous. I'd prefer an adjective meaning "irreducible". – C Monsour Jan 24 at 21:33
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5@CMonsour: It is the one which has been historically used. Euler wrote De Numeris Primis valde Magnis for example. – Vincenzo Oliva Jan 24 at 21:37
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1On the other hand, I just verified that Gauss used "primis", so I guess that is best after all. – C Monsour Jan 24 at 21:49
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2@CMonsour: Yes, as I said: Gauss, Euler and every other mathematician who wrote about primes in Latin. – Vincenzo Oliva Jan 24 at 21:51
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1@tony: It is a hanging infinitive, and the action itself of playing is the subject - the corresponding verb is simply implied. Just like you can think of the subtitle "Playing with prime numbers" as a truncation of "The theme of this website is playing with prime numbers". – Vincenzo Oliva Jan 28 at 19:43
