I am a church organist in a very traditional Catholic church. I want to write an Easter card to my pastor in Latin. Can anyone translate the following: "Thank you for bringing Latin to O Little Town of Hicksville and may every church on earth have mass in Latin. I hope the Russian sweets will help bring Russian Latin mass."
Thank you for any help!
An apt occasion indeed to express your gratitude for the return of the "dead language," when Christians at Easter celebrate the triumph of life over death ...
I'm not trying to translate "O Little Town of Hicksville," because it's an English hymn, and (a) I believe in translation the allusion would not be recognizable anymore (or at least too obscure an allusion), and (b) leaving the English title untranslated in the text would also not give a good effect. So I went with “to our little town [of Hicksville]” (I'm partial to leaving out the name).
I also added a little flourish. My suggestion would be:
Gratias tibi ago quod linguam Latinam in parvum vicum nostrum [Hicksville] induxisti. Celebretur, Deo benigne fortunante, missa Latina olim in toto orbe. Spero cuppediola Russica et te delectatura et fortasse missam Russico-Latinam nobis adlatura esse.
... which means:
I thank you for bringing Latin to our little town [of Hicksville]. May it, with God's kind blessing, one day be celebrated in the whole world. I hope you will enjoy the Russian delicacies and they will perhaps bring us Russian-Latin mass.
Without my additions you would have:
Gratias tibi ago quod linguam Latinam in parvum vicum nostrum [Hicksville] induxisti. Celebretur missa Latina olim in toto orbe. Spero cuppediola Russica missam Russico-Latinam nobis adlatura esse.
I thank you for bringing Latin to our little town [of Hicksville]. May it one day be celebrated in the whole world. I hope they will bring us Russian-Latin mass.
