You were born and I was reborn

[Jesssss]

"You were born and I was reborn"

You referring to my two daughters
I referring to me as a mother

I may use this in a few different ways, including a tattoo and/or wall print - not sure yet, I just love the sentiment. From what little I know of Latin, I believe there can be a few different ways to express the idea of being reborn but I'm not sure of the nuances behind those expressions.

Appreciate all your help!

 

[Pacifica]

Vos natae estis et ego renata sum.

 

[Iacobinus]

Out of your curiosity, as you asked for different ways to express the idea of being reborn, here are some of those I can think about:
renasci, "to be born again" (renata "reborn");
regenerari, "to be brought again to life" (regenerata "brought again to life");
resurgere, "to arise again" (resurrecta "arisen again");
resuscitare, "to wake up again" (resuscitata "woke up again");
revivere, "to relive" (revicta "relived")...
&c.

The choice of Pacifica, renata, is the one who makes most sense, considering the sentence.

 

[Pacifica]

resurgere, "to arise again" (resurrecta "arisen again");

revivere, "to relive" (revicta "relived")...

Those are ungrammatical. Latin perfect participles are passive unless they come from deponent verbs. Here the verbs are intransitive so they can't become passive except in impersonal passive constructions. Resurrecta for example would mean, not "having risen again" (active meaning) but "having been risen again (by someone or something)" (passive meaning), which doesn't make any sense; that's why it doesn't exist.

 

[Iacobinus]

Sorry, I don't understand what you intend to mean: those verbs infinitives are at the active voice, and their passive perfect participles (p.p.p.) is passive. None of them uses the so-called deponent voice.

Resurrecta obviously means "(having been) risen again", as it is a p.p.p.... which makes perfect sense: someone or something who raises again the resurrectos is generally the mighty of God, but it might be, in our case, the motherhood of two daughters.

E.g.: a morte resurrectum fuerit..., "he will have been risen again from death".

 

[Pacifica]

Let me explain in more detail:

In Latin, the subject of a passive verb can only be what would have been the direct object of the same verb in the active voice. For example:

Active voice: Caesarem occiderunt = "They killed Caesar."
Caesarem is the direct object. You can turn the sentence into the passive, and Caesar will then become the subject:
Caesar occisus est = "Caesar was killed."

Now, some verbs are intransitive. Intransitive means that they don't take a direct object. Since they don't take a direct object, they can't have a subject in the passive, either. Resurgo, "to rise again", is an intransitive verb. You can't say Caesarem resurgo, "I rise Caesar again" (that makes sense in neither Latin nor English). Therefore you can't say Caesar resurrectus est, either.

The only situation in which an intransitive verb can turn passive is in an impersonal passive construction. That's what you've got in cum enim a morte resurrectum fuerit. For an explanation of the impersonal passive, see section 5. here.

 

[Pacifica]

None of them uses the so-called deponent voice.

Renasci is deponent. That's why the perfect participle of that verb makes sense here; although the verb is intransitive, it's deponent so the participle has an active meaning.

Resurrecta obviously means "(having been) risen again", as it is a p.p.p.... which makes perfect sense: someone or something who raises again the resurrectos is generally God, but it might be, in our case, the motherhood of two daughters.

Resurgo means "to rise again", not "to raise again". There is a difference between "rise" (intransitive) and "raise" (transitive).

 

[Iacobinus]

Thank you very much for your time. I know what are transitive and intransitive verbs, my incomprehension isn't there.

What I don't get is why "(having been) risen again" would make no sense in English or in Latin, either in itself, or applied to the ask of the original poster.

 

[Pacifica]

What I don't get is why "(having been) risen again" would make no sense in English or in Latin, either in itself, or applied to the ask of the original poster.

Resurgere/rising again is something you just do, without any object (resurgo, "I rise again", period); it isn't something you do to someone else (you don't say illum mortuum resurgam, "I'll rise that dead guy again"). Therefore, it can't be done (passive) to someone, either. The dead guy can't resurgi; that doesn't make sense (he can only resurgere).

 

[Pacifica]

Maybe what's confusing you is the active use that's made of some past participles in English and French. In French you can say "je suis venu", and in (archaic) English you can say "I am come". However, those sentences mean that you have come (active), not that you've been come by someone/someone has come you (passive, and nonsensical). Such usages don't happen in Latin (you can't say ventus sum (with ventus as a participle)) because Latin perfect participles are strictly passive (or middle), except in deponent verbs (and a very few other exceptions).

 

[Iacobinus]

In fact, my problem I feel after some thought, is certainly that in French, most verbs with an intransitive use, also have transitive uses...
So I fail to clearly conceive the problem, albeit I now think I start to get what you meant.

 

[syntaxianus]

Vos natae estis et ego renata sum.

Pacifica's version is a perfect parallel and may be just what you want, but consider that there may be some advantage in using the ambiguity of the ablative absolute.

vobis natis renata ego sum

Literally: You having been born, I was reborn.

It could be understood as

in your being born I was reborn
by your being born I was reborn
because you were born, I was reborn
It was when you were born that I was reborn.

Shorter, for tattoo purposes:

vobis natis, renata ego

(sum is implied).