Latin help - "excellence through diversity"?

Factual Questions
1

I am helping to found a new student group, and they want to use “excellence through diversity” as their motto. As the closest thing to a Latin scholar available, I was volunteered to translate it.

I know which words I want to use: praestantia and diversitas. However, I have absolutely no idea how to form this phrase. I assume I can’t just use the nominative forms, as in “praestantia per diversitas”. I have a vague idea I might need to use the accusative form, but that doesn’t sound quite right either.

I *don’t *want to use the ad astra idiom that’s so popular in mottoes. We’re not the Air Force.

2

I’d have said “Excellentia Per Differentias,” which would mean “Excellence Through Differences”

If you replaced “Per” with “Propter,” you’d get Excellence BECAUSE OF Differences.

In any case, you’re right- the preposition PER calls for the accusative case. So, the accusative would be “Per Diversitatem.”

Or “Propter Diversitatem.”

3

Thanks! I’ll put the propter formation to the membership too, and let them pick.

4

You can use ‘Excelsior’ which is ‘ever upwards.’

If one uses the ‘ablative of means’ for deversitas, then it would be: Excelsior diversitate*.

If you want the plural ‘differences’, it would be Excelsior diversitatibus.

*pronounced dih - ver’ - sih - tah’ - tay, and not dih - ver’ - sih - tayt

5

When I was reading this thread earlier, I thought, “why per rather than the ablative of means”? To my ear, per is slightly better if it’s just a two-noun phrase with no further context*, for clarity, but any Latin experts know?

*Especially since diversitas can mean “disagreement”

6

Actually, that was deliberate. One of the group’s main objectives is to sponsor a series of debates on cultural-legal issues.

7

Out of interest, is this a serious motto, or is it slightly ironic? One student group I was involved in founding had the motto “Diem Perdidi”
Er, which I just googled and I found out it didn’t mean what the person who made it told us it meant, heck it’s not even the same language. The bitch!

8

It’s a bit of a joke, really. The group’s “real” motto is much longer:

[QUOTE=Thurgood Marshall]
In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.
[/QUOTE]

We just needed something short and pithy to go on the logo.