6

"Which came first, the chicken or the egg" is a common idiom in English. It's used when you want to describe a paradoxical situation where it's ambiguous which of two related things came first.

How would this best be expressed in Latin?

My initial thought is something like:

Utrum primum fuit: pullus aut ovum?

Is sum the right verb? Should it possibly be something like venio, or even the two together: Utrum primum esse veni?

Adam
  • 8,520
  • 3
  • 20
  • 76

1 Answers1

12

Well, you can just use the formulation of Macrobius:

Ovumne prius fuerit, an gallina

Ovumne prius exstiterit, an gallina

enter image description here

Luc
  • 2,332
  • 16
  • 30
  • You can refer to this question for the grammatical point that gives a correct answer: https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/2781/where-to-put-the-enclitic-ne – Luc Feb 21 '22 at 14:56