# Romanes eunt domus - en français



## EMB11

Bonjour! This is my first thread on the forum, so please be kind .

After watching Life of Brian, I was inspired to take Brian's role and test my grammar using his sentence "Romanes eunt domus" which, after being corrected on his grammar, is suppose to mean "Romans go home".

So here is my attempt.

1. Romain aller maison - Would be Brian's first attempt.
2. Romains allez á la maison - Is my corrected version.
or
3. Romains rentrez á la maison - Second version.



Not sure which (if any) of my two version is correct. My reasoning is as follows:

The verb is affirmative imperative and masculine.
The noun is plural.
Any help on this would be welcomed. After many years of forgetting my French, I am self-learning it. Thanks.


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## chamyto

Hello, EMB11, and welcome to the forum.

I would probably translated it as "Romans , allez à la maison" , but I am not sure that it confers the same meaning as the original. It seems to me that it could be understood as "Romans get out of here and go home" .


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## EMB11

Hello chamyto, thank you for your welcome and reply. So you would translate it as my first attempt? Can I invite a native French speaker to verify/correct this please. Thanks.


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## chamyto

EMB11 said:


> Hello chamyto, thank you for your welcome and reply. So you would translate it as my first attempt? Can I invite a native French speaker to verify/correct this please. Thanks.


 
 Yes , I would translated as your first attempt .
Let´s wait for natives´ responses.


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## Tazzler

Isn't "eunt" third person plural present and not an imperative? In that case I think that it'd be "les Romains rentrent chez soi."


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## Midtiti

If it's the imperative (I don't do latin), while speaking to the Romans : "_Romains, rentrez chez vous !_" would be what I'd say.
If it is present : "_Les Romains rentrent chez eux._"

_À la maison_ usually means at home, speaking of our own house.


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## Zoë Rose

This was a a satirical look at Latin declinations

Romanes eunt domus; Romans go to the home of = 3rd person plural present indicative.

Romani ite domum!; Romans go home, =  imperative mood

Romains dégagez!


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## itka

S'il s'agit d'inciter, avec force, les Romains à rentrer chez eux, la phrase qui serait normalement attendue en bon français serait : _"Romains, go home !"_


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## Grop

Midtiti said:


> "_Romains, rentrez chez vous !_" would be what I'd say.



C'est aussi ce que je dirais.

(Au passage, traduire _home_ par _domus_, dans ce contexte, était sans doute déjà une blague).


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## EMB11

Midtiti said:


> If it's the imperative (I don't do latin), while speaking to the Romans : "_Romains, rentrez chez vous !_" would be what I'd say.
> If it is present : "_Les Romains rentrent chez eux._"
> 
> _À la maison_ usually means at home, speaking of our own house.


 
Merci. I would be using the imperative, as it is a request/order. If it is a imperative is it not strictly,

_Romains, rentrez chez-vous !_

_?_


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## Grop

Non, il y aurait un tiret dans _barrez-vous_ par exemple (où _vous_ suit directement le verbe), mais pas dans _rentrez chez vous_.


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## linguos

Zoë Rose said:


> This was a a satirical look at Latin declinations
> 
> Romanes eunt domus; Romans go to the home of = 3rd person plural present indicative.
> 
> Romani ite domum!; Romans go home, =  imperative mood
> 
> Romains dégagez!


_
Romani_ is the plural nominative and vocative of _Romanus_. Is _Romanes _even a Latin word, or is just a bad way of saying "Romans" in our beloved language? 

In the second case, shouldn't "Romanes eunt domus" be translated as "[Some] people called Romanes go homes/the house/of the home (with domus being the plural accusative or the singular nominative or the singular genitive)?

Also, I believe _Romains, rentrez chez vous! _was just the way it was translated in the French version of the movie. However, I have yet to find what was the translation of the first_, _incorrect sentence (the one made by Brian) like...
____________________________________________________________

Edit: *EMB11*, according to some French subtitles for the film, found on the Internet, it was like that:



> 353
> 00:24:28,900 --> 00:24:32,000
> *"Gens appellé romans,
> ils vont la maison"?*
> 
> 354
> 00:24:32,100 --> 00:24:34,300
> Ca veut dire *"Romains, rentrez chez vous"*.
> 
> 355
> 00:24:34,300 --> 00:24:38,500
> Non, c'est inexact.
> Quel est le latin de "Romain"?


So, it would appear that "Romanes eunt domus" would be "Gens appellé romans, ils vont la maison" and, as many have already mentioned it in this thread, "Romans go home!" would be "Romains, rentrez chez vous !".

Nevertheless, I would like to ask the natives to tell us whether this source can actually be trusted.


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## CapnPrep

The scene is available with French subtitles on YouTube ("Monty Python La vie de Brian - le cours de latin") and the dialogue is as follows:


> C'est quoi, ça ? (What's this then?)
> "_Romanes eunt domus_" ? ("_Romanes eunt domus_"?)
> "Ceux qui s'appellent Romanes, rentrent maison" ? ("People called Romanes, they go the house"?)


I guess this is the "official", commercially released version. They also translate/transcribe _annus_ and _anni_ as _anus _and _ani_, which makes the joke a bit too obvious…


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## EMB11

Grop said:


> Non, il y aurait un tiret dans _barrez-vous_ par exemple (où _vous_ suit directement le verbe), mais pas dans _rentrez chez vous_.


 
Merci. Je pense je comprendre.


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## Fred_C

Bonjour.

Il n'est pas sûr que les gens qui ont écrits les sous-titres français de ce film aient eu quelques notions de latin. (même si ce n'est pas impossible) Ils ont peut-être simplement traduit les dialogues anglais.
Il s'agit d'un dialogue assez difficile à traduire, puisqu'il marque les difficultés d'un anglophone face à diverses caractéristiques de la langue latine qui n'existent pas en anglais (différence entre impératif et présent, différence dans la conjugaison entre la troisième et la deuxième personne du pluriel,) qui ne posent pas de problème à un francophone, pour qui les différences entre "vous allez", "allez", et "ils vont" sont absolument triviales.

 Pour Grop : Non, je ne pense pas que le fait de traduire "home" par "domus" ait été considéré comme une plaisanterie par les auteurs du film : Contrairement à n'importe quelle autre langue, le latin n'est pas vraiment considéré comme une langue avec des idiomatismes, ce qui a pour fâcheuse conséquence de faire prendre à ceux qui l'étudient la mauvaise habitude ingénue de tout traduire un peu mot à mot, sans se soucier de savoir si le thème latin sera compréhensible.


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## nagyonzizi

Hi!

I admit I had no time to read over all the posts, but would like to add:
"Romanes" looks like a plural, but is incorrectly declined, so I couldn't give a good French form. ("les Romainx" ??)
"eunt" is indicative (as some of you already stated) thus means: "(ils) vont ...". 
And "domus" here stands in nominative singular, so means "maison/logement" and as a nominative cannot mean "chez-soi".
So the incorrect sentence could be "Les Romainx vont maison."

Romains dégagez (lit. "allez a la maison")! is the best translation of the corrected expression "Romani ite domum!".


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