How do I translate Lorem Ipsum into English?

Question

Lorem Ipsum is the dummy language used by printing/typesetting industry - although apparently it is not jibberish and actually has its roots in Latin. There are plenty of Lorem Ipsum generators online to translate INTO Lorem Ipsum but I can't find one to do it the other way around. Anyone know?

Answer 1

Lorem ipsum is part Latin and part gibberish. You could try translating it with a Latin to English translator, but the result will be fairly mangled. It might give you an idea what the original text (if the version you're translating is at all close to it) might have been about or what some of the words might mean, though. In more cases than not, there is no real underlying meaning because the text has been randomly generated to give the appearance and spacing of Latin, much as one might use a randomly generated English text to configure spacing instead.

For example, the Latin translation might be equivalent to something like this:

"Of the moors alcohol was thought incredulous. We are to know victorious mumblings have been. It is doubted that to have love make question. No being haves the blue turtles."

See what I mean?

Even when parts of Lorem ipsum make sense, it often uses the wrong case, so some words might be translatable, but the sentence meaning will be incoherent. In other cases, the words are simply gibberish or anglicisms made to look Latin by adding latin case endings.

If you're interested in the translation of the original text is based on, why not simply look up Cicero's "De Finibus " oration instead?

Answer 2

`Lorem ipsum dolor' is the first part of a nonsense paragraph sometimes used to demonstrate a font. It has been well established that if you write anything as a sample, people will spend more time reading the copy than looking at the font. The ``gibberish'' is sufficiently like ordinary text to demonstrate a font but doesn't distract the reader.

"Lorem ipsum is latin, slightly jumbled, the remnants of a passage from Cicero's _de Finibus_ 1.10.32, which begins 'Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit...' [There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain.]. [de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, written in 45 BC, is a treatise on the theory of ethics very popular in the Renaisance.]
"What I find remarkable is that this text has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since some printed in the 1500s took a galley of type and scambled it to make a type specemin book; it has survived not only four centuries of letter-by-letter resetting but even the leap into electronic typesetting, essentially unchanged except for an occational 'ing' or 'y' thrown in. It's ironic that when the then-understood Latin was scrambled, it became as incomprehensible as Greek; the phrase 'it's Greek to me' and 'greeking' have common semantic roots!"

Answer 3

Lorem ipsum is not really a latin phrase, it is rather a "fragment". It was part of a larger text ("dolorem ipsum"). Once upon a time an unknown man in the printing business used this text for creating blind text and it stuck. For the exact source, see the link.

Answer 4

i agree with maladymich, but i would like to add (and correct me if i'm wrong) i think Lorem Ipsum uses all the letters in the latin (english) alphabet in just that paragraph! i actually really like it...i'm a graphic designer and i actually incorporate it in my designs sometimes...lol!

Answer 5

Lorem Ipsum is LATIN.