Guild Wars 2

As the topic says it, Rata Novus is wrong: it should either be Rata Nova or Ratus Novus. Rata and novus are both Latin words. “Rata” means “certain / established”, and “novus” means “new” (for reference, “Rata Sum” means “I am certain”). Rata Sum works because rata is an adjective and sum is a verb. However, rata and novus are both adjectives, and thus should use the same endings -a or -us.

Now, according to the wiki, Rata Novus is an anagram for “our savant” and Rata Sum for “mursaat”, But from what I’ve heard, Anet hasn’t confirmed this. So I think that Ratae Novi name should be fixed as it sounds disharmonious.

One important thing: asura are not Romans.

There is not even that much Ancient Roman about them, outside of names – unlike the charr, for example. If anything, they are Mesoamerican, or perhaps Greek.

They do not necessarily need to use proper Latin.

Do they speak Latin in Tyria, like, at all? It’s news to me if they do.

With that logic then the human city of, “Ebonhawke” should be “Ebon Hawk” because in Star Wars it’s a ship and it’s two words and it doesn’t have an “e” at the end and it’s a reference in game to that ship. Most of this stuff is reference or relating to certain things. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, OP.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Do they speak Latin in Tyria, like, at all? It’s news to me if they do.

GW has a lot of Latin influenced stuff: Charr have Latin influenced names as well as the titans in GW1. Some of the elder dragons’ names (like Primordus, from primordium, meaning “the origin”) are taken from Latin. Asuras have that too, like Rata Sum and some golem names (m.o.x, v.o.x, n.o.x).

I’m not saying that Tyrians speak Latin, but the games have a lot of Latin words in them.

Odeboy.1243:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Do they speak Latin in Tyria, like, at all? It’s news to me if they do.

GW has a lot of Latin influenced stuff: Charr have Latin influenced names as well as the titans in GW1. Some of the elder dragons’ names (like Primordus, from primordium, meaning “the origin”) are taken from Latin. Asuras have that too, like Rata Sum and some golem names (m.o.x, v.o.x, n.o.x).

I’m not saying that Tyrians speak Latin, but the games have a lot of Latin words in them.

No doubt.

But that doesn’t mean Rata Novus is more than glancingly Latin. At best it’s probably only “Latin flavored”

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Odeboy.1243:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Do they speak Latin in Tyria, like, at all? It’s news to me if they do.

GW has a lot of Latin influenced stuff: Charr have Latin influenced names as well as the titans in GW1. Some of the elder dragons’ names (like Primordus, from primordium, meaning “the origin”) are taken from Latin. Asuras have that too, like Rata Sum and some golem names (m.o.x, v.o.x, n.o.x).

I’m not saying that Tyrians speak Latin, but the games have a lot of Latin words in them.

No doubt.

But that doesn’t mean Rata Novus is more than glancingly Latin. At best it’s probably only “Latin flavored”

Indeed. It’s not game breaking or anything, just makes me sigh when I’m playing in tangled depths and the notices about meta event’s progress pops up.

Odeboy.1243:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Odeboy.1243:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Do they speak Latin in Tyria, like, at all? It’s news to me if they do.

GW has a lot of Latin influenced stuff: Charr have Latin influenced names as well as the titans in GW1. Some of the elder dragons’ names (like Primordus, from primordium, meaning “the origin”) are taken from Latin. Asuras have that too, like Rata Sum and some golem names (m.o.x, v.o.x, n.o.x).

I’m not saying that Tyrians speak Latin, but the games have a lot of Latin words in them.

No doubt.

But that doesn’t mean Rata Novus is more than glancingly Latin. At best it’s probably only “Latin flavored”

Indeed. It’s not game breaking or anything, just makes me sigh when I’m playing in tangled depths and the notices about meta event’s progress pops up.

Yah, I can see that.

It might have been that they wanted the anagram, to match Rata Sum having an anagram, and so went with the Latin flavored version.

Latin just sounds cool for fantasy names. Doesn’t mean the writers are going to aim for total accuracy.

Labjax.2465:

Latin just sounds cool for fantasy names. Doesn’t mean the writers are going to aim for total accuracy.

Latin is derived from the language of the Ancients anyway.

Are you sure??? about the meaning of “certain”

certain is securus in latin. Also even if latin is very near to ancient hellenic my mother language, the word certain-securus is not originated by us. We have the word Banjo or Bainw and today we have Bebaios in modern greek. (the forum does not support hellenic letters, so I cannot type you the originals, that is why I did in latin form)

Latin is a mixture of arabic, babylonians, ancient hellenic and many more… The word securus entered my language vocabulary during dark ages (as ’sigouros"… We had Benjw or Bainw instead (means, i am certain moving forwrd)… it gives a movement forward…

I search in latin vocabulary what RATA means and it gives me nothing, only relative words like rats…

here is one link https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ratus#Latin

Oyranos.9750:

Are you sure??? about the meaning of “certain”

certain is securus in latin. Also even if latin is very near to ancient hellenic my mother language, the word certain-securus is not originated by us. We have the word Banjo or Bainw and today we have Bebaios in modern greek. (the forum does not support hellenic letters, so I cannot type you the originals, that is why I did in latin form)

Latin is a mixture of arabic, babylonians, ancient hellenic and many more… The word securus entered my language vocabulary during dark ages (as ’sigouros"… We had Benjw or Bainw instead (means, i am certain moving forwrd)… it gives a movement forward…

I search in latin vocabulary what RATA means and it gives me nothing, only relative words like rats…

here is one link https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ratus#Latin

The very link that you provided mentions that “ratus” means “certain”. Look below in the adjective section for it. “Rat” on the other hand, is “rattus” in Latin. People tend to mix words like that when speaking Latin. Another very common example is that people expect “malus” to mean bad in Latin, even though it means “apple tree”. “Male” is “bad” in Latin.

But since Latin is an old language, it has a smaller vocabulary than most modern languages. Hence why some words have multiple translations

As far as I know “Rata” is the asurian word for “City”. Therefore the term is not wrong. Even if asurian takes his style out of latin that does not mean that every asurian word has an latin word as counterpart.

I get what yoi mean. However, I rather believe that the ‘Rata’ in the names of Asuran dwellings like Rata Sum, Rata Novus or Rata Pten is the same languge as ‘bookah’.

I’m pretty sure that whoever is responsible for this kind of thing isn’t bothered with preserving the veracity of the sources they pull from. Otherwise ‘Jormag’ and ‘Jotun’ would be pronounced ‘yormag’ and ‘yotun’, seing as how the Nordic and Icelandic influences on Norn culture and that whole part of Tyria are so apparent (Jotun is just the anglicized form the of name of the Frost Giants from Norse myth). I should say, it bugs me every time I hear someone pronounce a hard ‘J’ in one of those words though, so I sympathise with your frustration. It just doesn’t seem like the people doing that stuff are interested in preserving that level of detail (also, if it is an anagram, I guess you let grammar slide sometimes to make those things work.)