Re: CHAT: Ave Maria

On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, BP Jonsson wrote:

>At 14:36 29.6.2000 -0400, Padraic Brown wrote:
>
>>God mother has connotations in English that "Mother of God"
>>doesn't: i.e., baptismal sponsor. Might make for a better
>>translation of Bogoroditsa / Theotokos.
>
>Swedish makes this distinction in a rather elegant way:
>"baptismal sponsor" is _gudmo(de)r_, while "Mother of God" is _gudsmoder_,
>i.e. with "god's" as the first element.
Sure, we can do that in English as well: God mother vs. God's mother
(with shift of accent from "god" to "mo"). We just happen to translate
theotokos as "Mother of God" usually.

Padraic.

>Unincidentally _gudsmor_ would
>look strange with the shortened form _mor_, while _gudmoder_ would look
>deliberately archaizing, but this difference is stylistic rather than
>semantic.  BTW there is also the form _gudamoder_, with the old gen.pl. =
>"gods'"; it would be applied to a figure like Hera.
>
>
>
>/BP
>--
>  B.Philip Jonsson  mailto:melroch@mail.com
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