Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)

Henrik Theiling scripsit:

>      - Would it be appropriate to translate 'heaven' with 'divine world'?
>      - Maybe 'divine transcendental world', but that might be redundant?
The words _caelum_ and _heaven_ (OE _heofon_) originally meant simply
'sky'; the other connotations they've acquired since then are accretions
(which in the case of _heaven_ have almost pushed out the original
meaning).

>      - 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'.

>          optative(be.reserved.from.profane.use(thy name))
I think you've nailed this one.

> Thoughts?  Corrections?  Help!
You're doing fine.

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

And in some versions, not the oldest ones, a doxology:

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever

Finally:

_Amen_, which means 'let it be so' but is usually untranslated.

*** The Greek word _epiousion_ here is problematic: it's not the usual
word for 'daily', and appears only once outside the Lord's Prayer.
Pre-Vulgate translations rendered it as _quotidianem_ 'daily'; the
Vulgate uses this form in Luke, but in Matthew uses the calque
_supersubstantialem_.  Modern English versions usually use _daily_
in both places.

--
John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
I must confess that I have very little notion of what [s. 4 of the British
Trade Marks Act, 1938] is intended to convey, and particularly the sentence
of 253 words, as I make them, which constitutes sub-section 1.  I doubt if
the entire statute book could be successfully searched for a sentence of
equal length which is of more fuliginous obscurity. --MacKinnon LJ, 1940