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Re: Translation challenge: Fiat lingua

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Sunday, July 9, 2006, 6:14
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sai Emrys" <sai@...>


> On 7/8/06, Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote: >> Elsewhere (Zompist--where the same request was posted) I >> averred that it was a "performative" in Genesis: the utterance WAS the >> creation of light, i.e., "making itself true," expressed in this present >> subjunctive in the Vulgate, or as some have called it "cohortative." Is >> that the correct term? A command expressed in the third person. Let him >> be >> imprisoned! > [...] > > *nod* AFAIK this sort of performative - that is, the speaking of it > makes it so, like wedding pronouncements, oaths, magic incantations,
Tehhyn! And she struck him with the sapling and said: "Be a wolf and have the mind of a man." And so was he changed. Source/analog to Bisclavret, too lazy to go look up the title.
> etc - is implemented in widely differing ways, even within one > language let alone between. (E.g. "I now pronounce you..."; "... So > mote it be", "I swear...", etc). It seems obvious (as posted earlier) > that God would need no permission, nor plurality, just a performative > act itself, but it might be expressed that way anyway in some > languages.
Perhaps. Except that I don't think that "permission" is expressed in the L. verb "fiat." It's the subjunctive of the semideponent fio, fiere, "be made." The "permission" remark was made on Zompist by I forget who. "Let there be" in English is not a permission-asking idiom either, really.
> Which, of course, is part of why it's a neat thing linguisticallly, > and why it makes for a decent translation *challenge* (in addition to > being useful to have for the conference propoganda ;-)). > > This is I think a rather well-discussed subject both theologically and > linguistically - the former because of the whole "in the beginning was > the word", and the earlier notions that God was identical to (in some > sense) sound or vibration;
God's word is identical to the thing itself. There's a host of patristic identifications of word and referent. Word IS creation. Also the incarnation in John.
> the latter because performatives are rather > unusual in that they THEMSELVES make a change in the world, rather > than merely describing one or asking for one. Fun!
:) Indeed! Sally Vo kalalya ilid imralin lis teuim jane. "The gods do not speak the language of mortals."

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Sai Emrys <sai@...>