Num veritas amicitiam laedit?

Num is a question particle that introduces a yes/no question and usually suggests that the speaker expects the answer no.

So Num veritas amicitiam laedit? is not just a neutral Does truth harm friendship? It has a nuance more like:

• Surely truth does not harm friendship?
• Truth doesn’t harm friendship, does it?

This is one of the most important things to notice in the sentence.

Veritas is in the nominative case, which is the case normally used for the subject of a sentence.

Here, veritas means truth, and it is the thing doing the action of laedit.

So grammatically:

• veritas = truth = subject
• laedit = harms
• amicitiam = friendship = object

The ending -am shows that amicitiam is accusative singular.

The accusative case is often used for the direct object, meaning the person or thing directly affected by the verb.

So in this sentence:

• amicitia = friendship
• amicitiam = friendship as the direct object

Since truth is doing the harming, and friendship is what is being harmed, amicitiam must be in the accusative.

Laedit is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood

It comes from the verb laedo, laedere, meaning to hurt, injure, harm.

Because the subject is veritas (truth, singular), the verb is also singular:

• veritas laedit = truth harms

Latin usually does not need a separate helping verb like English does in questions.

English says:

• Does truth harm friendship?

Latin can simply say:

• Veritas amicitiam laedit?

and add num to show that it is a question with an expected negative answer:

• Num veritas amicitiam laedit?

The information that English often expresses with helper words is usually built into Latin through verb endings and particles.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the case endings show what each word is doing.

Putting the verb at the end is very common in Latin, especially in straightforward prose.

So:

• Num veritas amicitiam laedit?

is perfectly normal.

A different order could also be possible, for example:

• Num amicitiam veritas laedit?

That might shift the emphasis a little, but the endings still show that:

• veritas is the subject
• amicitiam is the object

Sometimes, yes.

If you translate very naturally into English, you may simply say:

• Does truth harm friendship?

But if you want to show the force of num, it is better to translate it with some negative expectation, such as:

• Surely truth does not harm friendship?
• Truth does not harm friendship, does it?

So num often adds a nuance that English may or may not express directly, depending on how literal you want to be.

Most likely it expresses a general idea.

The present tense in Latin can be used for:

• an action happening now
• a general statement
• something habitually true

Here it most naturally sounds like a general statement:

• Does truth harm friendship?
• or rather, with num, Surely truth does not harm friendship?

So the sentence is probably not about one specific moment, but about the general relationship between truth and friendship.

They belong to different declensions:

• veritas, veritatis = 3rd declension
• amicitia, amicitiae = 1st declension

That is why their forms look different:

• veritas = nominative singular
• amicitiam = accusative singular

A learner often notices that truth does not end the same way as friendship, and the reason is simply that they belong to different noun patterns.

In a common restored Classical pronunciation, it would sound approximately like:

noom WAY-ree-tahs ah-mee-KEE-tee-ahm LYE-det

A few useful points:

• v is pronounced like English w
• c is always hard, but there is no c here
• ae would sound like ai in aisle, but there is no ae here either
• ti in amicitiam is still pronounced clearly as tee
• num has a u like oo in put or rule, depending on how narrowly you pronounce it

If you are learning Ecclesiastical pronunciation, it will sound somewhat different, especially v.

Yes. Laedo can mean hurt, injure, wound, offend, or damage, depending on context.

So laedit here could suggest:

• physical harm in some contexts
• emotional hurt
• damage to a relationship
• offense or injury in a broader sense

In this sentence, since the object is amicitiam (friendship), the sense is probably damages or harms rather than literal physical injury.