Confused: which is the answer?

Semper voster would be better, because it is right, and semper tua would be worse because it is wrong.

"Semper tua" is not a translation of "forever yours".

Put simply, "tua" does not mean "yours", it means "your". It is the feminine singular form. Tua mater, your mother, tua vita, your life.

"Forever your" does not make sense in English, for the same reason that "semper tua" does not make sense in Latin.

I would disagree. I'm sorry but I don't see why "semper tua ero" shuld be wrong...

You can write "voster" only if you changed sex since you posted this.

Masculine, feminine, neutral are "voster, vostra, vostrum" in that order.

Otherwise "contrex" is correct.

Agreed. Apologies for the slip.

A woman would inscribe "semper vostra".

Contrex - it's great to see another latinist on this forum; so far the burden has fallen fairly exclusively on my good friend George in Massachusetts, with only very episodic (and alas, also very minor!) contributions by a few others, including me.

Be warned, however, some of the questions originate with posters who plan Latin mottoes for the purpose of... tattoos! Errors may be hard to correct

I would hardly describe myself thus; I studied Latin at school in England between the ages of 11 and 16. That was forty years ago. However I have kept up a very strong interest in Romance languages and dialects, French, Italian, Provençal, Spanish, Catalan mainly, and that has kept a feeling for Latin alive.

I hasten to say I'm no classicist by profession either - am actually a mathematician who learned ancient Greek in order to read the pre-Socratics and Euclid's "Elements" in the original, and Latin because when I was at school there was no choice!

I contend that tuus, tua, tuum, your (or thy) may be used
substantively as a pronoun, yours (or thine). This is used
with a singular owner. For plural owners, use vester, vestra, vestrum.

I stand by my original translation.

I agree with George.

The plural (preferred by both Contrex and me) is more formal than the singular - may even be considered archaic - but formality seems to me, at any rate, preferable in any permanent inscription.

Nice to see you again, George!

Beg to differ, George - the addressee, not the writer, determines whether plural or singular is used; surely one writer is always singular unless he's a king, as in "we the Queen of England...".

But the owner is the addressee.
If I say to you that I am forever yours,
then you, the addressee, are my owner.

Eeeek, George! I'm your owner?! Not I, bound by the 13th Amendment as I am

It's Friday p.m., have to finish my mathematical model by Monday p.m., so will wait to see what happens between now and then on the Latin front - good weekend to all.

Hi. I know I'm new, so you don't have to believe me xD

However, I'm currently a classics major in college, and Latin has been my primary academic interest since High School, and I fully intend to go on to graduate school in classics when the time comes. I'm also quite good at what I do. So maybe I can help clear this up:

George is right: "Semper tua (ero)" is correct, in this context, meaning "I will always be yours, me being female and you being one person" (the translation is exaggerated for clarity).



Erm, that's not quite right. When one uses "your" and "yours" in English depends only on its position in the sentence. Compare the following:

This is your book.

This book is yours.

*This is yours book.

*This book is your.

Examples marked with * are ungrammatical, unnatural English, not used by native speakers (except in jest, and grammar textbooks )

This distinction doesn't really exist in Latin. tuus/tua/tuum can mean both "your" and "yours."

So:

"Tua" means "belonging to the singular adressee" while "vestra" means "belonging to the multiple adressees." So, semper tua would be appropriate for a woman speaking to her husband/lover/fiancee, etc., while semper vestra would be appropriate for a mother speaking to her (multiple) children, or a daughter speaking to (both) her parents, or a female politician addressing her public, or something like that.

I hope that helps!

Hi qfwfq!
Welcome to A2K and especially to the Latin forum.
I hope you'll continue to share your expertise with us.

Thanks for the welcome, George.

Hope I can be helpful--I loooooooooove blathering about obscure grammatical constructions in dead languages.

Besides, having a...erm, poorly proofread tattoo is definitely ftl.

Welcome from me too, qfwfq. In order of your points:

1. Neither Contrex nor I dispute "semper tua ERO", only "semper tua" (sic) as originally suggested by George, though not by the other person here.

2. Since you know about typos and tattoos, you probably want to proofread your spelling of "vestra" (sic)

Thanks for the welcome. I've had a lot of fun here already.



The ero is not strictly necessary, just as in the English "Forever yours (sc. I will be or perhaps I am)." Esse quite often falls victim to ellipsis. It certainly makes things clearer, but to say that the phrase is incorrectly translated without it would be going too far.

Mostly I was trying to clear up the confusion about the difference between tuus and vester. The ero isn't really a big deal, since it works with or without. That's why I put it in parentheses.

Both you and contrex seemed to agree that the correct translation should use "vostra" instead of "tua." If we make the (reasonable) assumption that this inscription is being addressed to one person, tua is the correct choice.

EDIT: I just noticed the above post where you argue for the use of the "formal" plural. This amounts to the transference of usage found in other languages into Latin. I strongly prefer to avoid this, as Roman authors themselves, in a similar context, would use the singular (e.g., the poet Catullus when writing to his lover or to a dear friend). The use of vos for tu was limited to selections "addressed to one person as a representative of more than one, or with a collective noun in the sing." (taken from Lewis and Short's A Latin Dictionary, section II.B of the entry on tu). However, de gustibus non disputandum (sc. est ^_^ )--I'm sure that later Latin authors (i.e., non-native speakers who used Latin as the language of the Church or the intellectual elite) have made use of the poetic plural. It's simply my personal preference confine my Latin grammar and usage to follow the examples that native speakers themselves have provided.

Furthermore, as you say, this use of the plural is more formal. In Latin, as in many other Romance languages, the use of the singular is more familiar, which is to say, intimate. In this particular context, I think that intimacy would be preferred to formality.



Yes, I'm aware that you guys have been using vost-. If you look in a good Latin dictionary, you'll see that Roman authors used both. I use vest- because it's what I learned first, and also what I've seen in the vast majority of works that I've personally read.

But... There is no real difference... I mean, even in English when you say "forever yours" what you are really saying is "I will be forever yours". Implied verbs are widely used in latin, as in English, naturally



EDIT: of course qfwfq already said that....