# This is our house.



## Celtiberian

Hi,

I'm creating a logo for a supporting association of my sports team and the motto that I wish to translate in latin is: *This is our house*. I found *Est Nostrum Domus* to be similar but don't know if it's accurate.

Can someone tell me if that's accurate if not, give me the exact translation.

Thank You all.
C.


----------



## brian

Hi and welcome!

Can you explain exactly what you mean by "This is our house"? Does "this" refer to something specific, e.g. _This is my shirt_ ("This" = demonstrative pronoun), or is it just pointing out something (like a grammatical placeholder like "there (is)"), e.g. _This is the first time that..._ ?

I'll show you what I mean:

1) _You've already seen my car and my boat. *This* is my house. And this is my dog, Jack._ <-- acting more like a pronoun, where "this" literally refers to some _thing_.

2) _You can't come in here. This is MY house!_ <-- not so much a pronoun.

I guess maybe they are grammatically the same... I can't really explain the difference. But the sense is different, and so they might be rendered differently in Latin.


----------



## Lero

Hi!
An accurate translation should be "Haec est domus nostra" (Haec=this; i used "nostra" because "domus" is a female noun). But I'm not really sure; if you can wait until tomorrow, I'll ask my teacher if it's right


----------



## Celtiberian

*brian8733

*The "*This*" is referred to our arena. Like _our_ arena is _our_ house.  
*
Lero*

I can wait for tomorrow. 

Thanks alot for the help guys. Very appreciated.


----------



## brian

So the idea is as if you (or you all) are saying to your opponents: _This (arena) is OUR house!_ As in, we own/control this arena. Right?


----------



## biscortina

Good point, brian!

My suggestion:
"This is OUR house": if you want to emphasize the "_owner_" of the house, I'd suggest you to use this expression:* Haec est nostrae domus.* (genitivus)
Or maybe "domicilium"which means something like "residence, home":
*Hoc est nostri domicilii.*


----------



## Fred_C

biscortina said:


> Good point, brian!
> 
> My suggestion:
> "This is OUR house": if you want to emphasize the "_owner_" of the house, I'd suggest you to use this expression:* Haec est nostrae domus.* (genitivus)
> Or maybe "domicilium"which means something like "residence, home":
> *Hoc est nostri domicilii.*


 Hi,
I am afraid you are confused between the owner and the owned thing, aren't you?
The genitive case is used to express the owner.


----------



## Joca

Well, I would say:

*Hic sumus domi.*

Which means: We are at home here.


----------



## Starfrown

brian8733 said:


> I guess maybe they are grammatically the same... I can't really explain the difference. But the sense is different, and so they might be rendered differently in Latin.


You seem to be talking about the difference between the strong and weak demonstrative. In English, I think "this" and "that" may be either strong or weak. In Latin, _hic,haec,hoc_, _iste,ista,istud_, and _ille,illa,illud_ were almost always strong. _is,ea,id_, on the other hand, was always weak. We must therefore be careful when translating the English demonstratives into Latin.


----------



## brian

I actually had a few ideas in mind, e.g. whether to use _haec_ or _ista_ or even _ecce_. In any case, I would say something like this:

*Haec harena domus nostra est.* = "This arena is our home."

The problem with _Haec est domus nostra_ is that, technically, it could also mean "This house is ours," which is slightly different.


----------



## Lero

I agree with brian; another correct  sentence should be "Ecce domus nostra", (ecce means something like "there\here is" - in Italian "ecco"; I'm sorry but I don't know how to explain it better in English) which translate more efficacely the meaning of "our" in that motto.
Anyway, I can't understand the difference between "This house is ours" and "This is our house", as, in this particular phrase we want to translate, they would express the same idea.


----------



## brian

Lero, _ecce domus nostra_ (like _ecco casa nostra / ecco la nostra casa_) isn't quite right, in my opinion. _Ecce_ is used to present something, show the existence of something, etc., like Nietzsche's _Ecce Homo_--"Here is man," as if the book were a presentation of mankind.

_This house is ours_ <-- implies sort of literally that the arena is a "house"
_This is our (OUR) house_ <-- implies figuratively that the arena is a (our) "house"

Just my opinion though. It should also be said that _Haec est domus nostra_ principally means the latter, not the former, so there's really no problem. But I prefer to explicitly say _Haec harena domus nostra est_... it sounds more Latin to me.


----------



## Lero

thank you for your explanation, brian; in fact, _ecce_ sound more like a presentation. A better translation maybe would be _hic est domus nostra_, where hic is the stative adverb meaning "here". Right? Besides, as this sentence would be a motto, I think it has to be the shortest possible, to be more effective.


----------



## Celtiberian

brian8733 said:


> So the idea is as if you (or you all) are saying to your opponents: _This (arena) is OUR house!_ As in, we own/control this arena. Right?



Bullseye! That's exactly what I mean.


----------



## loco44

Lero said:


> thank you for your explanation, brian; in fact, _ecce_ sound more like a presentation. A better translation maybe would be _hic est domus nostra_, where hic is the stative adverb meaning "here". Right? Besides, as this sentence would be a motto, I think it has to be the shortest possible, to be more effective.



I agree: a motto should be as short as possible, and many of them are dropping the _sum_ verb.
Therefore _hic domus nostra_ should be the best choice.


----------



## brian

loco44 said:


> I agree: a motto should be as short as possible, and many of them are dropping the _sum_ verb.
> Therefore _hic domus nostra_ should be the best choice.



You mean _haec_, not _hic_; otherwise, it means "Here is our house."

I still stand by *haec harena domus nostra est.*


----------



## loco44

You're correct.


----------



## loco44

... You're correct about Haec: _Haec domus nostra_


----------



## Stoicorum_simia

Joca said:


> Well, I would say:
> 
> *Hic sumus domi.*
> 
> Which means: We are at home here.


 
This is surely the best and most idiomatic version to convey what Celtiberian had in mind. You often have to change things quite a bit to convey the same meaning in Latin, and this is particularly true of very short phrases like mottoes. Just think how odd many of them sound when translated literally into English, or most other modern languages.


----------



## brian

I don't like _Hic sumus domi_ because the meaning is ambiguous. It could simply mean, for example, "We feel at home here / This feels like home to us." Not very powerful for a sports team motto.

You could also leave out the _est_ in my suggestion and say: *Haec harena domus nostra. *That sounds pretty good too.

You could also say *Domini (hujus) harenae sumus* = "We are the masters of the (this) arena," which is the main idea you're looking for.


----------



## loco44

Not quite. _Hic sumus domi_ sounds like a motto, without any misunderstanding about translation; it's a statement: _here is our territory, our place, our home.
_
As you knew, the Romans, in Africa and Asia, one step outside their borders were using to say: _hic sunt leones_ (here there're the lions, unknown land). In reverse, one step back, they were at home, on their territory, they were in Rome.
Even today, playing any sport game, in Italy we still saying that the team playing in his own town _is playing at home_; there isn't any guest team, the opponents are lions.


----------



## Celtiberian

brian8733 said:


> I don't like _Hic sumus domi_ because the meaning is ambiguous. It could simply mean, for example, "We feel at home here / This feels like home to us." Not very powerful for a sports team motto.
> 
> You could also leave out the _est_ in my suggestion and say: *Haec harena domus nostra. *That sounds pretty good too.
> 
> You could also say *Domini (hujus) harenae sumus* = "We are the masters of the (this) arena," which is the main idea you're looking for.



Is it possible to just use *Haec domus nostra*? Will that still be eligible?


----------

