Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)

On Thursday, December 2, 2004, at 12:17 , Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 11:47:05PM +0100, Henrik Theiling wrote:
>>   1) Pater noster qui es in caelis.
>>      Our father, which art in heaven.
>>
>>      - Would it be appropriate to translate 'heaven' with 'divine world'
>> ?
>>      - Maybe 'divine transcendental world', but that might be redundant?
>
> Well, the words for "heaven" in natlangs - including "heaven" itself -
> all originally meant just "sky".
Yep - by suggesting "divine world" or "divine transcendental world" Henrik
is ceasing to be 'purely linguistic'.

Translating texts that large numbers of peoples hold to be religious has
its own difficulties. This is presumably why Muslims insist that any
translation of the Koran should retain the Arabic text as well, so the
original is there for comparison. If one paraphrases one is likely to be
moving into areas of interpretation & controversy. IMO it is best to keep
as close as possible to the original and as literal as you can without
doing violence to the language.

If you are translating from Latin means you are translating a translation,
  i.e. you are partaking in a "relay"  :)

The Greek has:
Pater he:mo:n ho  en tois ouranois
Father of-us  the in the skies.
"our Father in the skies"

Presumably Qthen|gai has a word for the 'blue stuff, usually covered with
clouds in these northern climes' above us. If it can be made plural, then
the translation is more literal.

[snip]
>> And now the main problem:
>>
>>   2) Sanctificetur nomen tuum.
>>      Hallowed be thy name.
>
> [snip definitions of "holy"]
>
>>        I found these quite enlightening, and I think the meaning of
>>        the above line would be
>>
>>          optative(be.reserved.from.profane.use(thy name))
>
> The Latin is expressing a desire, or perhaps a "third person imperative"
> . . . is that what an "optative" is?
The Latin is subjunctive which, among other things, can express a desire
or wish (optative) or can be used as a 3rd person imperative, which is
_not_ the same as the optative. In other words the Latin is ambiguous.

The Greek has:
hagiasthe:to:                             to  onoma sou.
made-holy-AORIST.PASSIVE-3SING.IMPERATIVE the name of-you

Greek, unlike Latin, has subjunctive, optative and imperative moods for
3rd person. I know this has been discussed before on this list, but
whatever is said, the simple fact is that the Greek is *imperative_*

'Aorist' BTW denotes _aspect_, not tense - it is the aspect that is
_unmarked_ with regard to duration, incompleteness or completeness etc. If
we use Esperanto as an example, we could say:
mi skribas - I write - present aorist
mi estas skribanta - I am writing - present imperfective
mi estas skribinta - I am having-written - present perfective
mi estas skribonta - I am going-to-write - present futuritive

(I am using Esperanto simply as an example of 'unmarked' aspect vis-a-vis
marked ones because it is a language widely known to members of the list)

> But if you use "profane", you run into question-begging, since "profane"
> is pretty much defined as "the opposite of holy/sacred".
Of course.
=============================================
> On Thursday, December 2, 2004, at 01:47 , John Cowan wrote:
>
> Henrik Theiling scripsit:
[snip]

>>      - How to translate 'to hallow'?  Again, it will be a derived
>>        word.  Probably from 'holy'.
>
> Indeed: specifically meaning 'let it be made holy': the Latin has an
> explicit morpheme _fic_ < _fac_ meaning 'make'.
...and so sort of does the Greek _as_, an allomorph of -az-

The Greek word is composed of four morphemes: hagi - as - the: - to:

hagi- lexical morpheme meaning "holy".

-as- an allomorph of -az- which is a formative morpheme whose use is to
derive verbs from nouns or adjectives, e.g. _dike:_ "justice" -->
_dikazein_ "to judge" (-ein is the present active infinitive suffix);
_eune:_ "bed" --> _eunazein_ "to put to bed" (passive: "to go to bed");
_skia:_ "shadow" --> skiazein_ "to shade, to darken"; _hygie:s_ "heathy"
(stem hygi-) --> hygiazein "to make healthy, to cure".
So _hagiazen_ "to make holy, to hallow"

-the:- grammatical morpheme denoting the passive voice of the aorist (i.e.
  unmarked) aspect.

-to: - grammatical morpheme, denoting 3rd person singular imperative.

_hagiasthe:to:_ most certainly does not express a wish - 'may your name be
made holy' 'I want your name to be made holy' etc. That is expressed in
Greek with the optative mood. The Greek has no-nonsense imperative: it is
to be made holy!

[snip]

> Note the overall pattern of the prayer, which is an invocation ("Our
> father in heaven") followed by seven petitions:
>
> 1) Hallowed be thy name
> 2) Thy kingdom come
> 3) Thy will be done on earth as in heaven
> 4) Give us this day our *** bread
> 5) Forgive us our debts/trespasses, as we forgive our debtors/
> 	those who trespass against us
> 6) Lead us not into temptation
> 7) Deliver us from evil
_ALL_ the verbs, except "lead", are imperatives in Greek. Not only
"hallowed be" but also "come", "be done", "give", "forgive" and "deliver"
are all aorist imperatives.

The only reason that "lead" is not is that it is negative. Even in the
Classical period, _me:_ (not) is rarely found with the 2nd pers. of the
aorist imperative & then only in verse. The normal construction was, as
here: _me_ + aorist subjunctive. However, in the context of the rest of
the prayer, it is clearly a negative imperative.

> And in some versions, not the oldest ones, a doxology:
>
> For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever
Yep and an 'embolism' may come between the end of the prayer and the
doxology. Such embolisms & doxologies were generally added when the prayer
was used in Christian worship. In some later manuscripts, the doxolgy got
added, but it wasn't there in the oldest ones. Also it is only Matthew's
Gospel that has the version given above by John. The older manuscripts of
Luke have a rather shortened version.

> Finally:
>
> _Amen_, which means 'let it be so' but is usually untranslated.
Well, yes - the word is Hebrew, and it is left untranslated in Greek!

>
> *** The Greek word _epiousion_ here is problematic: it's not the usual
> word for 'daily', and appears only once outside the Lord's Prayer.
Yes - the word is extremely rare. But there can be no real doubt that it
is derived from 'epi' (preposition = "on" in a very wide range of meanings)
  plus iont- the stem of the present participle of the irrgular verb
_ienai_ "to go, to come" (depending on direction of movement) and the
formative suffixes -io-n (the last is the accusative singular). The
adjective _epiousios_ is thought by most to be derived from _epiousa: (he:
mera:)_ "the coming day". That is: "give us bread for the coming day" -
whether that is today or tomorrow will depend up whether the prayer is
said in the morning or the evening  :)

> Pre-Vulgate translations rendered it as _quotidianem_ 'daily';
_quotidianum_

> the Vulgate uses this form in Luke, but in Matthew uses the calque
> _supersubstantialem_.  Modern English versions usually use _daily_
> in both places.
Yes, by the time Jerome revised the existing Latin versions to produce the
Vulgate, the petition had become very much associated with the eucharist
and several people had argued that this rare word _epiousios_ was in fact
derived from _epi_ + ont-, the stem of the present participle of "to be" -
'the bread which has a being beyond being'. Linguistically, in fact, this
is untenable: epi+ont- would become epont-. But Jerome was not sure - so
he 'hedged his bets' so to speak and adopted the 'new' translation in
Matthew but retained the older one in Luke. More to the point, church
liturgy, which both in the East & in the West has always used the Matthew
version, retained "quotidianum" as it still does to the present day.
==============================================

On Thursday, December 2, 2004, at 02:42 , Henrik Theiling wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Mark wrote:
[snip]

>>>          optative(be.reserved.from.profane.use(thy name))
>>
>> The Latin is expressing a desire, or perhaps a "third person imperative"
>> . . . is that what an "optative" is?
>
> Yes, desire, but not imperative.  Humans are not in the position of
> using imperative here, I think.
You may think so, but the writers of the Gospels clearly did not agree. In
both Matthew & Luke there is no ambiguity: it is the imperative. Desire
was expressed by the optative mood in Greek.

> It seems quite different from 'let
> there be light', where the imperative would be appropriate. :-)
Not in the Greek scriptures it ain't. Indeed the very *same* verb is used
in the Septuagint version of Genesis 1:3 as in the the 3rd petition of the
Lord's Prayer:
genethe:to: pho:s - "Let there be light"
genethe:to: to thele:ma sou - "Your will be done"

_genthe:to:_ is that aorist imperative again! It is derived from the verb
_gignesthai_ "to come into being, to be produced, to be made". The root of
this verb is -gn- ~ -gen- ~ -gon- (ablaut grades).

>> But if you use "profane", you run into question-begging, since "profane"
>> is pretty much defined as "the opposite of holy/sacred".
>
> Ah, right! :-)  I did not notice.  Thanks!
>
> But anyway, my current translation is 'cannot-be-used-malevolently'
> (with an axiomatic negation particle).
Umm - it seems to me that you have strayed way beyond the bounds of purely
linguistic considerations here!

If Qthen|gai is so 'modern' that it is entirely secular and has no concept
of 'the divine' at all then clearly you have problems! But if there is a
way of expressing 'the divine' or divinity, then surely some phase closer
to the _hagios_ is possible?

>  This one does not have this
> problem, but 'holy' seems to imply that it shall not even be used
> benevolently for non-divine purposes whatsoever.
Quite - _hagios_ meant "devoted to the gods", "set apart for the gods" -
it was rather like the Polynesian word 'tapu' ("taboo").

> Maybe 'we shall not
> curse with thy name.'  With 'curse' being a variable like 'bread' is
> one for 'food' that many translations have.
Is that so? Then those that have "food" are paraphrases, not translations.
  The Greek word _artos_ meant no more and no less than 'bread' or 'loaf
[of bread]'. I have checked and can find no examples of it meaning
anything else.

> Hmm...  Not very satisfactory.
Indeed, not.

[snip]
> John wrote:
[snip]
>
>> *** The Greek word _epiousion_ here is problematic
>
> Oh, if that's the only problem! :-)  I have a lot of problems with the
> vocative + first two lines.
		:-)

>> it's not the usual word for 'daily', and appears only once outside
>> the Lord's Prayer.
>
> Where?
Sammelbuch griechisher Urkunden aus Âgtpten 5224.20. The Sammelbuch was a
publication of papyrological texts; it was produced between 1913 and 1934,
  I believe. It was published originally in Strassburg, then later in
Berlin, Leipzig & Heidelberg. I think 5224 comes in the 2nd volume.

>  Is it known what exactly it means?
Not with 100% certainty. But the general opinion is "for the coming day"
(see above). It is probably a matter of choice whether you translate:
ton arton he:mo:n ton epiousion
the bread of-us   the   ???       (the definite article is repeated if the
adjective follows the noun)
as: "our daily bread"
or as: "our bread for the coming day"

> Is it important for the
> message of that line?  I thought I understood that line...
Did you? Good luck with the translation    ;)

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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