# Never one without the other



## Al Ienor

Topic:  "Never one without the other" in Latin
Added by Cagey, moderator 

Hi,

I have been trying to find how to say this in Latin, but since I'm merely starting by myself I have troubles coming up with a sentence. How would you translate that?

Thank you very much.


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## Pugnator

I'm not sure to have understood the meaning of the phrase but I would use "Nemo sine altro". Could you give us please a context so we can give you a more precise translation ?


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## Al Ienor

Well, the context itself is pretty abstract - but I'd say the closest context I could decypher would be that you'll never see person A without person B, as in these two in particular are always together, if that helps. In English, I guess you technically could develop it into something like "One never appears without the other". Thank you for your reply.


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## Pugnator

Al Ienor said:


> Well, the context itself is pretty abstract - but I'd say the closest context I could decypher would be that you'll never see person A without person B, as in these two in particular are always together, if that helps. In English, I guess you technically could develop it into something like "One never appears without the other". Thank you for your reply.


So mine is correct (Exist also the sentence "Nemo iudex sine Actore"), but I did an error. The ablative of alter is altero not altro. So the right translated sentence probably is *Nemo sine altero.*


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## Al Ienor

Very well. Thank you kindly 

Edit : should both of the subjects be feminine, shouldn't I use "altera" instead? Unsure about "nemo".


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## Eqmeliten

numquam hoc sine eo (illo, isto)


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## Pugnator

Al Ienor said:


> Very well. Thank you kindly
> 
> Edit : should both of the subjects be feminine, shouldn't I use "altera" instead? Unsure about "nemo".


Nemo, being an indefinite pronoun, is  ok for all the gender. In case of all subjects were femine you should put "altera" as you stated. In case one of the character is female and the other is male I'm not sure but I would put male "altero".


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## Scholiast

salvete amici!



Pugnator said:


> So the right translated sentence probably is *Nemo sine altero*



I don't think this works: "No-one without the other [of two]" (i.e. "nessuno senza l'altro") is what it appears to mean, which is certainly not what I understand by the OP's phrase. _*numquam* alter sine altero _might do the trick.

Σ


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## Pugnator

Scholiast said:


> salvete amici!
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think this works: "No-one without the other [of two]" (i.e. "nessuno senza l'altro") is what it appears to mean, which is certainly not what I understand by the OP's phrase. _*numquam* alter sine altero _might do the trick.
> 
> Σ


What's the point of say numquam alter ? Nemo include it'self the idea of an human being (it come from ne + homo) and alter is used for indicate the other of 2. Nemo was even used on translation in latin of Odyssey to indicate the famose episode with Polyphemus.  Anyway, I've found on a source a similiar sentence, with a different meaning and a different context that used the same construction of mine:
"Tam nemo sine altero bene vivit, quam nemo sine altero beate". This sentence is from a book dated 1696 and even if the thread sentence speak about a specifi person and the book one is more generic I think both are correct.


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## Eqmeliten

"Nemo" etc. is too absolute.  It loses the idea of a relationship between two subjects that is a necessary part of the original English.
For example, "nemo sine peccato" would work,  "no one is without sin" - "nessuno è senza peccato"
but "nemo sine altero" means, periphrastically, "there is no one who does't have somebody" "non c'è chi è senza nessuno" "nessuno è senza qualcuno"
which is quite different from "when one appears the other is with him" "Venit ille venit quoque ea,"  "Numquam ille sine ea"


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## Eqmeliten

Try getting to the Latin through the Italian:  "Mai l'uno senza l'altro/a."  "Nemo" is for generic non-pesonalized statements, which the original English is not.


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## Eqmeliten

Nemo sine altero bene vivit is correct and has meaning but it does address the same reality as the English "Never one without the other."


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## Eqmeliten

...but it does *not* address...


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## Pugnator

> but "nemo sine altero" means, periphrastically, "there is no one who does't have somebody" "non c'è chi è senza nessuno" "nessuno è senza qualcuno"


this sound pretty odd to me, because my dictionary explicitly say that alter is used ONLY when we are speaking about "the other of two", so this translation would not make very sense. In my translation we could even consider as implied the term "vir" or even "alter" so the  thread sentence would be understood clearly with the sentence "Nemo sine altero".


Eqmeliten said:


> "Nemo" is for generic non-pesonalized statements,


Now that I think about it is it pretty true, but as I've said above if there is a term next to it, it can have a more not-generic and personalized meaning. At example, here a sentence from a text:
 "quoniam et ipsi antea in reliquis indivisi erant, quando *alter nemo sine altero *vivere cupiebat, quorum unus...."
In this case nemo is correct because there is this alter. On my opinion it would be corrected also if there would be a "Vir" (Vir nemo) and we know that often the term "Vir" is implied. So, if we see from another prospective my sentence, although I committed an error on thinking about it, as a final product, is correct.


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## Scholiast

salvete de novo


Pugnator said:


> alter is used ONLY when we are speaking about "the other of two"


This is perfectly correct - which is why _alter_ is indeed appropriate in the context of the OP's wording, where "one..._the_ other" in English also requires two, and only two, entities (instead of "_an_other").


Pugnator said:


> "Tam nemo sine altero bene vivit, quam nemo sine altero beate". This sentence is from a book dated 1696


This, however, is not _ad rem_, partly because of the date, and more importantly because in an extended sense _alter_ can mean "[a] second" (cf. L&S s.v.: *2.* As a numeral = secundus, _the second_, _the next_, ό ἕτερος: “primo die, alter dies, tertius dies, deinde reliquis diebus etc.,” *Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 7*:...), which does not exclude a third...
Σ


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