I want to write a motto for self-control: Don't be a slave!
Google Translate translated that to: "Ne fiat servus".
I do not know whether that is correct, or whether I should write "servis" insead.
So, What would be a better translation?
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1 Answer
First of all, Google Translate is horrible with Latin and should not be trusted at all. It fails here, too. I would translate "Ne fiat servus" as "May he not become a slave". It is a reasonable wish for a third party, but not what you wanted to express.
There is a simple way to say "don't X" in Latin: just say noli X, where X is an infinitive form of a verb. The verb "to be" is esse, so "don't be" would be noli esse. Then we need to add the slave, and it should be in the singular nominative form servus. (Servis would be plural dative of ablative.) This construction is attested in classical Latin; see this question for details.
This leads to: Noli esse servus.
answered Mar 6, 2019 at 13:18
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1Somehow I would expect something more compact than noli esse, but I can't think what. Noli servare would not mean the same thing. Mar 7, 2019 at 0:03
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1@ColinFine Noli servare is a good option! Can you give that as a separate answer? I am always happy to see a number of answers proposing different approaches.– Joonas Ilmavirta ♦Mar 7, 2019 at 7:28
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1@JoonasIlmavirta Thank you so much for this detailed answer, yes, even though I do not know Latin, I sensed that something is wrong with Google translate... Best +1 !– SmootQMar 7, 2019 at 10:13
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@JoonasIlmavirta: the reason I did not give noli servare as a separate answer is that I'm not sure it fits. In English "do not serve" and "do not be a servant" (never mind "a slave") are rather different, and I don't know whether that difference carries over into Latin or not. Mar 7, 2019 at 16:08
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2022 update: Google Translate is much better at Latin now, and it suggests almost the same translation as you did: “Noli servus esse!”– user11274Jul 12, 2022 at 19:52