Re: Translation challenge: Fiat lingua

----- 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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