Qualis Vita Finista
It appears on a coat of arms dating backing a few hundred years to my Scottish ancestry. Thus far I have translated “qualis” to mean “the kind of” and “vita” translates to “life”. No luck with “finista”, although I assume it relates to forever or the end. I have no Latin background whatsoever but I know that in certain cases words can take on different meanings in different contexts. Any ideas?
Well, I don’t speak Latin either, but I did a Google search for the phrase and came up with exactly one web page, which didn’t bother to translate it. However, various web pages did refer to Qualis vita, finis ita, which is translated, “As was his life, such was his death” or “As life has been, so shall its end be”.
The words “fini ita” seem to have been garbled into “finista.” “Finista” means nothing, but “finis ita” means “so too the end.”
Literally, it means “at the end as in life.” I infer that it means something like “we exemplify honor in both life AND death.”