There is an English motto “Ready, Aye, Ready” that has been translated into Latin as “Parati Vero Parati”. It seems to me that this might be a direct literal translation that wouldn’t make syntactic sense in Latin. Can any of our Latin experts assist?
I’m not sure the English version makes syntactic sense, either. What’s it supposed to mean?
I would have thought that the English was a strong way of saying “I am ready” or “We are ready” (depending on the context).
Ready Aye Ready is the motto of the Royal Canadian Navy and I believe it means Always Ready.
I think that sums it up well.
The English depends on punctuation.
Ready, Aye, Ready: Ready, yeah, ready
Ready, Aye Ready: Ready, always ready
I think it’s supposed to be the second.
“Parātī” is, more or less, “ready,” in the sense of “prepared,” with an under stood [sumus] [we are].
So “Parati vero parati” is more or less “Ready, yeah, ready,” but I’d go with “semper parati,” or more conventionally “Semper paratus” (singular).
In other words, just like the U.S. Coast Guard. :dubious:
That said, the motto of the Royal Canadian Navy is, canonically, “Parati Vero Parati”. I don’t think they’re looking for any help getting the Latin right.
As far as I can see, this is correct. Their motto is not “Ready aye ready”, it’s “Parati vero parati”. “Ready aye ready” is the English translation of their motto. Of course, it may be that the Latin motto originated by translating the preexisting English phrase, but the Latin version is the official motto.
But as you noted, “parati vero parati” is closest to the first. “Parati” is “prepared (plural)” and “vero” is “in truth, certainly”, so I’d translate “parati vero parati” as “(we are) ready, certainly (we are) ready”.
You’re right. Aye meaning ‘yeah’ is pronounced /aI/. It comes from a Middle English contraction of the phrase “ah, yea.”
Aye meaning ‘forever’ is pronounced /eI/. Its origin goes back to Proto-Germanic *aiwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *eyu- 'long time, lifetime, from *ey- ‘vital force, life, age’. Few people except those who read really old books would be aware that they’re two different words. Because the second meaning hasn’t been used since “aye” 
and it isn’t found any later than Early Modern English, unless an author is affectedly imitating that style like Pynchon did in Mason & Dixon or Clarke in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and her other writings.
For those wondering, the Latin phrase has only been the official motto of the Royal Canadian Navy for a few months. It was adopted to avoid having the motto in both English and French on the RCN badge.
What was the French version?
The phrase goes back quite a way in Canadian political discourse and, somewhat embarrassingly, orginally represented an affirmation of Canada’s willingness to fight Britain’s wars. Wilfred Laurier was leader of the opposition when the First World War broke out in 1914; the Prime Minister of the day, Borden, announced that Canada would support the UK in the war, and Laurier endorsed this in fulsome terms, saying:
“It will be seen by the world that Canada, a daughter of old England, intends to stand by her in this great conflict. When the call goes out, our answer goes out at once, ‘Ready, aye ready.’”
For quite a while, I think, the phrase was associated with a kind of mindless Empire loyalism, and it began to fade a bit as that stance became increasingly unfashionable. It has since been rehabilitated as a phrase indicating commitment by an individual or organisation to Canada, or to the public good, rather than Canada’s commitment to the UK.
For a while “Pret oui pret” was used but it turns out that this literal translation is actually gibberish. It was then changed to “Toujours la, toujours pret”.
Canada’s bilingual, aye, bilingual.
Perhaps they should be.
I don’t know much French, but it seems to me that “Pret oui pret” is translating (or attempting to translate) Dr. Drake’s first meaning “ready, yeah, ready”, while “Toujours la, toujours pret” is translating the second meaning, “ready, always ready”. And now the Latin motto is using the first meaning again. I wonder if there’s confusion even within the RCN about what “ready aye ready” means.
There certainly appears to be.
If you take aye to mean ‘yeah’ then the Latin “Parati, vero parati” (Ready, really ready) corresponds.
If you take it to mean ‘forever’ then it’s “Parati, semper parati” (Ready, ever ready).
Now if they would just make up their minds which it is.
I would think that in the naval context, the “yes, ready” meaning would be the appropriate one, because of the naval practice that the subordinate repeats the superior’s order as a way of confirmation:
“Hard aport!”
“Aye, hard aport!”
Was Wilfred Laurier the originator of the phrase? Today “aye” meaning “forever” is an archaic, nearly obsolete usage, surviving (AFAIK) only in the rare set phrase “for aye”. So one question would be, was it equally archaic in 1914 Canada? If so, it seems likely that Laurier meant it in the naval, “yeah” sense.
But the original context has to do with Charles Napier) and the Napier clan motto. Note the death notice (1860) has the “forever” punctuation, which makes more sense as a motto.
On the other hand, the song (1856) seems to support the naval “aye”.
So both readings go way back, and I still think semper is a better translation of the Scots, but vero seems to be the way the navy has understood it since before Confederation.