# Bicycles are a vehicle for change



## mateus33

Hello!

I'm an artist working on a large painting, wich includes the phrase "bicycles are a vehicle for change" in 4 different languages, one of them being latin.

Since I don't speak latin, I would like to ask you guys for help on this.

"Bicycles are a vehicle for change".

How would you translate it to Latin?

Thanks! And i'll make sure to post an image of the finished piece once it's done 

Best,

MK


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## Fred_C

«Birota est vehiculum mutationis»


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## mateus33

Fred_C said:


> «Birota est vehiculum mutationis»



DD Awseom! I'm guessing "birota" would be "two/double wheel"? Thank you Fred.


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## Scholiast

Greetings, I love this question, and indeed Fred_C's answer (#2).

Neither in French idiom nor in Spanish am I sufficiently fluent to know whether the word "vehicle" (or its derivatives) has such a nicely pointed ambiguity as it does in English - for us Anglophones it means either (a) a means of transport; or (b) a means [abstract] by which something else may display itself or prove its worth.

In classical Latin, a _vehiculum_ is purely a means of transport (L&S s.v.). And I feel uneasy with Fred_C's "mutationis". But you could pun in Latin with "birota vehiculum progrediundi", where _progredior_ and its conjugated forms lead to e.g. Engl. "progress".

So this would mean both: (a) "a vehicle for [forward] motion" (in the physical sense); and (b) in the more abstract sense "a means for development/change/progress"

Best of luck


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## Kevin Beach

The Vatican, which is the only place where Latin is used as a daily means of communication, regularly creates new words to express concepts that the Romans never dreamed of.

Many decades ago, they created _birota_ for bicycle, so at least you can rest assured that it is a genuine Latin word, even if modern.


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## Fred_C

Salve, Scholiasta,
Quidquid id est, non intellexi quid significaret «vehicle for change», sed pigrior fui quam ut rogarem… Quam ob rem verbatim verba in latinum converti.


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## Scholiast

salve tu quoque, Friderice. spero me rem - idioma, dico, istud Anglicum, "vehicle" in sensu abstracto - quantulumcumque clariorem reddidisse.


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## wandle

Fortasse potest sensus ille anceps hoc modo reddi:
Perhaps the double meaning can be conveyed like this:
Birota non solum ad locos sed etiam ad mores mutandos facit.
A bicycle makes not only for change of place but also for change of practice.


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## Fred_C

wandle said:


> Birota non solum ad locos sed etiam ad mores mutandos facit.
> A bicycle makes not only for change of place but also for change of practice.



At…
verba illa “to make for” constituunt phrasin peculiarem admodum linguæ anglicæ, cujus significatio translatione verbatim facta latine omnino non reddi potest : Equidem non intellexeram antequam sententiam tuam anglicam legerem, et significationem in lexico anglico quærerem.


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## wandle

Vide sis Lewis & Short s.v. II D
Ad aliquid, alicui, or absol., to be good or of use for any thing;
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=facio


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## Scholiast

salvete iterum!

quod wandle (#8) scripsit:



> Birota non solum ad locos sed etiam ad mores mutandos facit



irrepraehensibile est.

opus esset tamen modo dicendi cum breviore tum acutiore, quo melius epigrammatice exprimi possit sententia illa cuius lineam sequimur.


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## Fred_C

wandle said:


> Vide sis Lewis & Short s.v. II D
> Ad aliquid, alicui, or absol., to be good or of use for any thing;
> http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=facio



Optime !
Gratias vobis duobus ago, quod me docuistis ! Da mihi veniam, Wandle, quod te suspicatus sum !


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## wandle

Gratias, Friderice. Nihil nocet.


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