8

I need to create a family logo for the wedding of a Classics prof. I'd like the phrase to be "Music and Beer." I don't speak Latin and I'm getting strange results from Google translate depending on the wording of the phrase:

  • Beer and Music: ebrietate et musica
  • Music and Beer: Musica et in Bersabee

I can't show up to this wedding with bad Latin :-). What's the correct phrasing --- and is there a linguistic reason why the translations are diverging?

luchonacho
  • 12,354
  • 5
  • 34
  • 100
Hannah
  • 83
  • 2

1 Answers1

7

So, here is what I found for you. The "and" could be et or -que (there are other options but these are the most common), and "music" could be musica as you found. For "beer," you have two options, fermentum, which is a more general fermented drink, or cervisia, which is beer specifically. So here are the words put together into the phrase you requested. Choose whatever sounds/looks best to you:

  1. Musica et Fermenta
  2. Musica Fermentaque
  3. Musica et Cervisiae
  4. Musica Cervisiaeque

Sidenote: I made "beer" plural ("Music and Beers") because it makes sense in the context, but you could switch it to singular if you want. Fermenta becomes fermentum, and cervisiae becomes cervisia.

Source: Lewis and Short through Latin Lexicon

Edit: There should be no linguistic difference (except perhaps word order). Google Translate, as mentioned by @Nathaniel, is terrible at translating Latin, so it spits out random stuff. For instance, what you found means (roughly) "(You all) make drunk and music" and "music and in Beersheba (as in the city in Israel)" respectively.

Sam K
  • 3,998
  • 12
  • 27