Ut pater dicit, veritas amicitiam servat.

Here ut means as or just as.

So Ut pater dicit means as father says or just as the father says.

This is a very common use of ut. In other sentences, ut can also mean things like so that, when, or although, but here it is simply introducing a comparison or reference: as X says.

Latin word order is much freer than English word order because the endings show the grammatical roles.

English strongly depends on position:

• the father says
• subject first, verb second

Latin does not need to keep that exact order. Pater dicit, dicit pater, and even other arrangements can often be understood because pater is nominative and dicit is the verb.

Here ut pater dicit is a perfectly natural Latin order.

Pater is nominative singular.

It is the subject of dicit, so it is the person doing the saying. In dictionary form, pater is already nominative singular, meaning father.

Even though some Latin nouns change a lot in different cases, pater keeps this form in the nominative singular.

Because veritas is a third-declension noun, not a first- or second-declension noun.

Its nominative singular form is veritas, meaning truth. So in this sentence, veritas is the subject of servat.

A beginner may expect subjects to look like puella or dominus, but many Latin subjects do not. Third-declension nouns often have very different nominative endings, and -tas is a common one.

Because amicitiam is accusative singular.

It is the direct object of servat, so it receives the action:

• veritas = the subject, doing the action
• servat = preserves / keeps
• amicitiam = friendship, the thing being preserved

The basic noun is amicitia. In the accusative singular, it becomes amicitiam.

The noun endings tell you.

• veritas is nominative singular, so it is the subject
• amicitiam is accusative singular, so it is the object
• servat is third person singular, so it matches a singular subject

That means veritas is the one doing the action of servat.

English depends heavily on word order for this, but Latin often shows it through endings instead.

Both dicit and servat are present tense, third person singular, active voice.

• dicit = he says / she says / it says
• servat = he preserves / she preserves / it preserves

Because the subjects are singular:

• pater dicit = father says
• veritas servat = truth preserves

Latin often uses the present tense in straightforward general statements like this.

Because Latin normally does not have articles.

So:

• pater can mean father, a father, or the father
• veritas can mean truth or the truth
• amicitiam can mean friendship or the friendship

The context tells you which is most natural in translation. English usually requires an article or some other determiner, but Latin often leaves that unstated.

Yes. It is a subordinate clause with its own subject and verb:

• pater = subject
• dicit = verb

It functions adverbially, telling us the sense of as father says.

The main clause is:

• veritas amicitiam servat

So the whole sentence has:

• subordinate clause: Ut pater dicit
• main clause: veritas amicitiam servat

The comma helps modern readers see the division between the subordinate clause and the main clause:

• Ut pater dicit,
• veritas amicitiam servat.

In ancient Latin writing, punctuation was not used in the same standardized way that modern editions use it now. So the comma is mainly an editorial aid, not something built into the grammar itself.

Yes, it could, depending on context.

Latin often leaves possessive words unstated when they are obvious. So pater might mean:

• father
• the father
• my father
• sometimes even our father, depending on the context

If Latin wanted to be explicit, it could say pater meus for my father. But very often the simple noun is enough.

Yes. Servo, servare can mean save, preserve, keep, maintain, or protect, depending on context.

In a sentence like this, preserves or maintains is often the most natural English choice, because the idea is that truth keeps friendship intact.

So veritas amicitiam servat has the sense that truth sustains or preserves friendship, not merely that it physically keeps it somewhere.