Re: Translation challenge: Fiat lingua

On 7/8/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> The Greek clearly has no sense of desideration or of wishing, otherwise
> the optative mood would be used. It is unambiguously jussive.
Are you sure of that?

I thought that use of the optative mood was fairly variable in Greek,
especially in later times. (I seem to recall a quote along the lines
of "Scribes thought they knew how to use the optative correctly when
writing Attic Greek. Some were even correct.")

I don't know whether the optative was used in the language of the
Septuagint, or whether its absence in this particular translation is
significant. Do you know?

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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