What does the Est in Passage Watch 27-Est stand for?

mwagner626 said:

Latin:

He/she/it is.

So basically its "Passage watch 27 is [exists?]".

It is Passage Watch 27?

Typhon's flagship is called the Terminus Est, I always assumed it was the same kind of thing.

Well Terminus est can be roughly translated as:

You have arrived at your destination.

More accurately as the destination is [somewhere/exists]. A rather strange name, so typhon is better off without a translation.

(OTOH hand a friend told me about an anime where german is the language of magic. Too bad the basically say supermarket/watermelon/Honeymoon in german to make a fireball.....well along those lines. Just because its a different language supposedly makes it sound better or so.)

I think a lot of the original GW latin will be a little bit...eccentric. A lot of the GW guys would have been taught latin in the same sort of British schools where I learned it. I wouldn't call it a detailed grounding in the language, let's put it that way!

I can only really speak for myself, but I would say I had a fairly typical British education and I am appallingly bad at all foreign languages, alive or dead. I'm certainly not proud of it, but it's the truth.

However, my interpretation is that latin is only intended as an artistic approximation of High Gothic. The citizens of the Imperium are not speaking English, or German, or any current language: they speak Low Gothic, which is a totally unique language. Nor are they speaking latin when they speak High Gothic. The writers for 40k use latin to suggest the use of High Gothic, as Latin neatly creates the impression of gravitas and antiquity inherent in that (mythical) language.

EDIT: If I DID have any skill at languages, if I was translating 40k material into, say, Greek, I would probably use Ancient Greek to stand in for High Gothic in order to achieve the same effect.

FURTHER EDIT: And if you think about it, any eccentricities in the latin in 40k material could equally be explained by Imperial scribes with an imperfect command of High Gothic abusing the language in an attempt to look impressive!

Yes you can explain it away. But while "passage watch 27 est" is a pretty cool name, terminus est" only sounds cool.

So FFG thumbs up to whoever created that name, it has antiquity and military boredom at name generation rolled into one.

Heck im still waiting for the battleship "coke light". Itd be explainable by the same method.

Basically Low gothic can be whatever it wants to be; for us the reader it is English/German/(whatever your language is), and its ocrrectly translated just about every single time.

High Gothic is translated into Latin for us. Ahh yeah, "most" of the time they get it right.

Its the same problem with movies. I saw the Kings speech, and there is the scene where Hitler holds a speech. Well they gave it the original soundtrack. Which is really strange in Germany:

Hitler speaks/shouts in german.

Daughter aks her father (still german): Father what does he say?

Reply (still german): I dont know, but hes good at speeches.

Yeah not the most logical scene and only works if you, the viewer, makes this tiny jump.

Asking GW to do this tiny jump too.....yeah i know its pointless. People who lett Mr. Ward write codex fluff.........

If you put "Terminus Est" through the filter of my terrible latin education, it wrongly translates as "It is Death." Which is a cool name, and probably what the original author intended. It's always disappointing when the correct translation is so much more lame than the incorrect one!

Well death is "mors".

Oh well, the name was maybe conceived without internet.......

My latin is pretty bad, but its enough to employ the help of a dictionary and piece the garmmar together in some way.

Mors advenit. (Death has arrived). Yeah not quite as cool as terminus est; but at least one could switch on the brain without losing the thunder.

(Was just watching the new X-men on monday. "Nothing on radar and scanners." How many sensors do you have during the cuba crisis.....(infrared and low level light during the day?))

I thought it meant 'est' as in established.

again ppl useing that logic thing insted of thinking about the real reason this are named the way there are.

its sounds cool and in charater (for ships and ppl they do that kind of thing for both)

redhead22 said:

Ok Problem is people who actually know better simply dont hear a cool name.

I have forever etched into my brain:

Cue female voice from little navigation helper (whatever tomtom is called where you live): You have arrived at your destination. (Or This is the destination).

Voronesh said:

True. I have the solution, however: ignorance! Ignorance is bliss!

Lightbringer said:

Kind of ironic from someone named Lightbringer, no?

Hygric said:

Ha! Check out the latin translation of "Lightbringer," it's actually perfectly apt!

In this case, Terminus Est translates as 'This is the end (specifically the end of your journey)'.

Lightbringer said:

This is true - the fake latin that represents High Gothic is purely representative... however, as has been suggested in a few places, if you see actual (as in correct) Latin used to name something in 40k, there's a good chance that the object's name is actually Latin (rather than High Gothic), and thus much older than the Imperium.

Ladegard said:

Exitus

Finis

Conclusio

Est.

(Thats the "end", the writer in question was close, but simply not close enough.)

Its like saying coke cant swim.

Lightbringer said:

Hello

bringer of light
daystar
morning star
planet Venus
And in Latin, name that every one has heard ones, Lucifer

You could say that GW has rummaged every language in the world and gobbled together language that doesn't exist yet. Yes thay use Latin, German, Greek, English and mostly every language know now a days. And you have to remember some old places and empire names that florished in Ancient Terra long before Emperor came to the picture. And if they didn't find word from any language they used some Prime word and then made their own.

Sorry if I have butchered english grammar like Ork Mek trying to fit 2cm bolt to 0,5cm hole. But hey if it doesn't fit use brute force.

Strange though that GW doesnt use the same methog for Low gothic, which is always a perfectly understandable (not more since mistakes of grammar abound)?

Because it wouldnt make a good [sellable] story. Most people dont understand latin, so you can sell halfbaked latin though.

Beware this is the company that sold RPGs with YOU fighting the evil necromancer Kugelschreiber. Yeah never too hot when someone picks your language to sound all mysterious.

Just playing devils advocate here.

I always felt, like others upthread, that faux Latin was just a rough approximation of High Gothic, so as to not fall into a pit of "thees" "thous" and "forasumches." There's something about dipping into that high register that can come across as needlessly campy or elevated. It was pretty interesting, though slightly confusing at the time, when Ian Watson used actual grammatically-correct Latin. Re-reading the Inquisition War after taking a self-guided Latin course for unrelated reasons, and it all suddenly made sense.

And interesting variation of this occurs in much of Dan Abnett's work, where he attempts to represent an older version of Low Gothic by using a kind of kludged together and simplified Old and Middle English. The most prominent example is Ezrah Night from Gaunt's Ghosts, but there were a few scattered examples throughout Eisenhorn and Ravenor, I just can't presently recall.

One to take into account are cultural differences between the era when High Gothic was used and the contemporary (in the 40k setting) times when Low Gothic is the de-facto language of choice.

Now i am no linguist, but from my experience of foreign languages you cannot always get a direct a translation due to cultural or even technological differences. Take for example Japanese - a lot of modern Japanese words are purely words the Americans used for things the Japanese had never encountered before. This has led to the popular term 'Engrish' which while usually used derisively is actually a fairly apt term for what it is.

Also there's nothing in the background of the 40k-verse to definitely state that High Gothic is classical Roman Latin, in fact it may be modern schoolboy Latin, or some future (to us here in 2011) generation's Latin yet to be born.

As such i never feel particularly inclined to critique Games Workshop's use of Latin for High Gothic, despite having a grammar school Latin education. If anything it has allowed me to read the general meaning behind the terms they use instead of the literal translation. For example, Terminus or Terminal is a word with negative connotations, so is likely meant to invoke a feeling of dread in those that hear it - something like "[This ship] Is Death/the End".

Yet which never stops them from doing correct English for Low Gothic.

But do not forget Occam's Razor.

That's a neat take on it, Kasatka.

Actually, CthonicProteus, you raise a good point, too - the Abnettverse use of "olde worlde" style low gothic. And that reminds me of the recent Badab War books, which mention how the Carcharadons chapter all seem to speak an antique form of High Gothic...and I believe there's another reference in the same books to a chronicle of early chapters being written in an obsucre form of High Gothic which was fashionable in the Terran courts at the time.

All this suggests to me an extremely complex linguistic heritage for both high and low gothic; which makes sense given the complexity of the Imperium.

It also suggests distinct linguistic "phases" for each language. In the same way that English has had Old English, Chaucer's middle English and modern English. You can SORT of tell what Chaucer's saying, but the gulf of time and linguistic development make the translation tricky. So when Chaucer says:-

This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle,And God it woot, that it is litel wonder; Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder. For, pardee, ye han ofte tyme herd telle

In modern English would be:-

This friar boasts that he knows hell,
And God knows that it is little wonder;
Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.
For, by God, you have ofttimes heard tell

So Kasatka's approach rings true here; if both languages have developed over huge periods of time among millions of different worlds, who is to say that one High Gothic translation makes any more or less sense than any other?

Cheers for that Lightbringer