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Our Father, who art in Heaven..... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 21 13 November 2009 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The Lord's Prayer (a.k.a. "Our Father") has been mentioned in this forum several times recently. This thread is specifically about that prayer since there are many linguistically interesting things about it.
Some of the reasons it is interesting: --It is translated into almost all languages that exist in written form.. --Its' language is poetic and means something to many people. Lots of people have known it for a long time, in one or more languages. --In many languages it exists in both modern and archaic languages and people have different preferences. The archaic language can sometimes lead to confusion for modern people. --The Lords prayer can be used to compare languages to each other. If you have any interesting observations or questions about the Lord's Prayer (or any similar text) in English or any other language, then post here! Edited by cordelia0507 on 30 November 2009 at 1:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 2 of 21 13 November 2009 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I (Swedish) learnt the old version of this prayer in school when I was eight or nine years old and perhaps not the brightest pea.. The teacher was not interested and didn't bother to explain the background, as far as I remember. She just made the class memorise it for future reference.
The prayer is using very old language (not sure how old). As a result it is not really accessible to a modern reader, or a child...
The problem with this is that "VÅR" (OUR) can also mean SPRING! The word-order in the prayer is NOT the normal one (that would have been "Vår Fader" e.g. Our Father) In a country which has quite a lot of pagan traditions, it's not inconceiveable to think that there might be a "Father Spring" to pray to... So I believed for a few years that this "verse" was something to do with "Father Spring"... On the same line is also "helgat" --- in English "hallowed". Not a word that a child is likely to know! I associated it to "Helg" which means Weekend or Holiday. And on it went.... Suffice to say that this "verse" might have been about three drunk mice for all the sense it made to me... Clearly the teacher made a mistake in not explaining the context so that a normal kid like me could understood it... I am not sure that a modern version was available back then (ca 1985)... Now there is a modern version though. Should this type of material be modernised on a regular basis or do you prefer it in archaic language? Does anybody have similar experiences with "Our Father" or any other prayer of this type? Is this prayer in fact suitable for language comparisons, since you might be comparing "apples with pears" i.e. Old German with Modern Dutch or something...? Edited by cordelia0507 on 13 November 2009 at 10:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5967 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 21 14 November 2009 at 6:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually, the words of this prayer can provide a very good impression of how the English language has changed over the centuries. I have just seen in a book several versions of it, starting as an Old English form hardly recognizable as any form of English used today, and ending with present-day versions of the same text.
Here is a copy: Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum, Sí ðín nama gehálgod. Tó becume ðín rice. Gewurde ðín willa On eorþan swá swá on heofonum. Urne dægwhamlícan hlaf syle ús tódæg. And forgyf ús úre gyltas, Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendum. And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge, Ac álýs ús of yfele. Sóþlice. You can also see this here, with historical context: ancient worlds Germanic I think that there's a sound clip, but I didn't listen to it yet. I went to Catholic School for twelve years, and needless to say, there were a lot of prayers. We had to recite this one before our snacks and at lunchtime: PRAYER BEFORE MEALS Bless us Oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ, Our Lord. Amen We were supposed to become holy and express thanks with this, but when I hear it today, I just want a sandwich! Of course, NO DISRESPECT intended toward ANY religion or faith, or for any people practicing any one of them. Edited by meramarina on 14 November 2009 at 6:59am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 4 of 21 14 November 2009 at 8:05am | IP Logged | |||||
I prefer the archaic language. It's a bit like Shakespeare. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6659 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 5 of 21 16 November 2009 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My church uses a contemporary Bible translation and plenty of other prayers and rituals in contemporary language, but we still start the Lord's Prayer with "Our Father, who art in heaven...." It is a prayer that many of us have memorized with older language and so I guess that is why we have kept the older, more traditional version of the prayer.
In 1979, we switched to a new version of our prayer book with more contemporary and inclusive language. The new book provides options with more traditional language. Some Protestant churches include a line that says "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," while Anglican and Catholic churches render that as "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Both of those versions might seem a bit abstract or misleading to a very young child. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5924 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 6 of 21 23 November 2009 at 10:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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When I started learning Afrikaans I noticed that there are two Afrikaans translations of the Bible and therefore two versions of the Lord's Prayer.
1933-53 Vertaling Onse Vader wat in die hemele is, laat u Naam geheilig word; laat u koninkryk kom; laat u wil geskied, soos in die hemel net so ook op die aarde; gee ons vandag ons daaglikse brood; en vergeef ons ons skulde, soos ons ook ons skuldenaars vergewe; en lei ons nie in versoeking nie, maar verlos ons van die Bose. Want aan U behoort die koninkryk en die krag en die heerlikheid tot in ewigheid. Amen. Matthéüs 6:9-13 1983 Vertaling Ons Vader wat in die hemel is, laat u Naam geheilig word; laat u koninkryk kom; laat u wil ook op die aarde geskied, net soos in die hemel. Gee ons vandag ons daaglikse brood; en vergeef ons ons oortredings soos ons ook dié vergewe wat teen ons oortree; en laat ons nie in versoeking kom nie maar verlos ons van die Bose. Matthéüs 6:9-13 There are some notable differences in word order and in the choices of words used in the translations. First example: 1933-53 version reads, "laat u koninkryk kom; laat u wil geskied, soos in die hemel net so ook op die aarde" versus 1983 version which reads "laat u koninkryk kom; laat u wil ook op die aarde geskied, net soos in die hemel. Literally translated the 33-53 version could read something like "let your kingdom come, let your will happen, as in the heaven, just so also on the earth". The 1983 version might literally be "let your kingdom come, let your will also on the earth happen, just like in the heaven. The meaning of the line is not changed significantly, but I still wonder why the word order was changed? The earlier translation is not unclear to me nor does it appear to be particularly archaic. There are a few words that could cause slight confusion; such as the word "wil" usually means "want" in English and "geskied" could also mean "chance", "occur", or "befall". These are not as confusing as the examples given in Swedish, but they were confusing to me.
My next example is similar to what SamD mentioned in English. First the 1933-53 version reads, "en vergeef ons ons skulde, soos ons ook ons skuldenaars vergewe". In English this is "and forgive us our debts, as we also our debtors forgive". The more current version renders it as, "en vergeef ons ons oortredings soos ons ook dié vergewe wat teen ons oortree". Literally translated this is "and forgive us our transgressions as we also those forgive who against us transgress". The earlier translation appears to render this line more clearly and would be the one I prefer. I found the words "oortredings" and "oortee" to be troublesome to translate because they can also be translated respectively as "infringement" and "infringe" or as "contravention" and contravention" etc,. Another example of where I think that the earlier translation is clearer is the line which reads "en lei ons nie in versoeking nie" or literally in English "and lead us not in temptation not". The newer version reads "en laat ons nie in versoeking kom nie" or in English "and let us not in temptation come not". Lastly, I've never understood why the more recent translation excludes the line "Want aan U behoort die koninkryk en die krag en die heerlikheid tot in ewigheid. Amen." I'm not translating that one into English but in the KJV it would read "For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen". Then again more modern translations in English also exclude this line so maybe an older source text has been found which also excludes it. Edited by mick33 on 23 November 2009 at 10:46am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 7 of 21 23 November 2009 at 10:27am | IP Logged | |||||
Perhaps the newer translation was made directly from the Greek and either attempts to preserve the word order more closely or attempts to provide a more natural word order based directly on the original meaning. I know that in Japanese, the most common older translation was based on an English translation, while the newest translation (commissioned by the Vatican) was redone directly from Greek and has rather different wording as a result.
I believe this line is controversial and doesn't exist in many old manuscripts. Most of the last chapter of Mark is in a similar boat and probably shouldn't be in the Bible. This is a change that would make sense if the old Afrikaans Bible were translated from an existing Dutch Bible or the KJV, and the new translation came from Greek sources. Edited by Captain Haddock on 23 November 2009 at 1:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5924 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 8 of 21 23 November 2009 at 10:43am | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful |
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