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Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Thursday, December 2, 2004, 1:47
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