Cives legem sanctam servant.

Because cives is in the nominative plural, the case normally used for the subject.

The noun is civis = citizen. Its nominative plural is cives = citizens.

Also, the verb servant is third person plural (they preserve / they keep / they observe), so it matches a plural subject like cives.

Because legem is the accusative singular of lex (law).

The accusative case is commonly used for the direct object, the thing receiving the action. In this sentence, the citizens are doing something to the law: they observe / keep it. So legem is in the accusative.

Basic forms:

• lex = law (nominative singular)
• legem = law (accusative singular)

Because sanctam is an adjective describing legem, and Latin adjectives must agree with the nouns they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

So if legem is:

• feminine
• singular
• accusative

then sanctam must also be:

• feminine
• singular
• accusative

That is why you get legem sanctam = the sacred law.

Servant is:

• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood
• third person plural

It comes from servo, servare, which can mean to save, preserve, keep, observe, maintain.

So servant means they keep, they preserve, or in this context very naturally, they observe.

Not in meaning here. In this sentence, servant is a verb, not a noun.

An English speaker may instinctively see servant and think of the word servant, but in Latin it is simply the form they keep / preserve / observe.

So:

• Latin servant = they preserve / observe
• English servant = a person who serves

They only happen to look alike.

Because Classical Latin has no definite article like English the, and no indefinite article like a/an either.

So:

• cives can mean citizens or the citizens
• legem sanctam can mean a sacred law or the sacred law

The exact sense depends on context. In many textbook translations, English adds the because it sounds natural.

Yes. Latin word order is much freer than English word order because the endings show each word’s role.

So these could all mean essentially the same thing:

• Cives legem sanctam servant.
• Legem sanctam cives servant.
• Sanctam legem servant cives.

The endings still tell you:

• cives = subject
• legem sanctam = object phrase
• servant = verb

That said, word order can affect emphasis and style.

Because cives means citizens, and it can refer to:

• men,
• women,
• or a mixed group,

depending on context.

The singular civis is a third-declension noun that can refer to a citizen without necessarily specifying sex. So an English speaker should not assume cives means male citizens only unless the context makes that clear.

Sanctam comes from sanctus, sancta, sanctum and often means:

• sacred
• holy
• sanctioned
• inviolable

In a phrase like legem sanctam, the sense is often something like a sacred law or a law held as inviolable.

The exact English word depends on context:

• religious context: holy or sacred
• legal or formal context: inviolable or sanctioned

Good question, because cives can indeed be either nominative plural or accusative plural in form.

You decide from the sentence structure:

• servant needs a subject: they preserve
• legem is clearly accusative singular, so it already looks like the direct object
• therefore cives is best understood as the subject, so it is nominative plural

This is very common in Latin: sometimes a form could be more than one case, and you use the rest of the sentence to work out which one it is.

Yes, but it usually does not need to be.

Since servant already means they keep/observe, Latin normally leaves the subject pronoun unstated unless it is needed for emphasis or contrast.

So:

• servant = they keep
• ei servant or illi servant could be used if you wanted emphasis like they keep it

In this sentence, cives already gives the subject, so no extra pronoun is needed.

A common Classical pronunciation would be roughly:

KEE-wehs LEH-gem SAHNK-tam SEHR-want

A few useful points:

• c is always hard, like k
• v is pronounced like an English w in reconstructed Classical pronunciation
• g is always hard, as in go
• sanctam has the nc sound as written

So cives sounds like kee-wes, not like English sives.