Oooh, this is frightening – my first post in GQ. Anyway, here’s my question. Does anyone know the Latin translation for the phrase “let the dead teach the living.” I saw it on a sign in my local hospital’s morgue, and now that I want to incorporate it into an essay for my writing seminar, I can’t remember it. Arrrggghhh! The fact that the only other foreign languages that I speak (in the loosest sense of the word) are Irish and German doesn’t help matters. Any ideas?
This isn’t so much about translation. There are too many ways the English phrase could be translated. But there is a semi-famous quotation in Latin: Mortui vivos docent, “The dead teach the living.” (Not “Let the dead teach the living”, which would be subjunctive doceant.)
Yeah, I confused the adjectival endings for the 1st/2d declension mortuus for third declension nouns in the dictionary. (I think vivos mught be an irregular, as well.)
Mortûi vivos doceant. Let the dead teach the living.
Anyway, here’s my question. Does anyone know the Latin translation for the phrase “let the dead teach the living.” I saw it on a sign in my local hospital’s morgue, and now that I want to incorporate it into an essay for my writing seminar, I can’t remember it. Arrrggghhh! The fact that the only other foreign languages that I speak (in the loosest sense of the word) are Irish and German doesn’t help matters. Any ideas?