Re: Translation challenge: Fiat lingua

----- Original Message -----
From: "And Rosta" <and.rosta@...>


> What does "fiat lingua" literally mean in Latin? In other words, what
> meaning does matrix clause present subjunctive express? Desideration? Or
> more generally irrealis?
>
> And what does mainstream exegesis hold the textual meaning of "fiat lux"
> in Genesis to be? Does the act of wishing bring into being what is wished
> for? Or is the element of wishing lost, so that the illocutionary
> (perlocutionary) function is simply that of making itself true. And if so,
> is that at all part of the sentence meaning?
Well, exactly.  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!

Teonaht has a cohortative, but it expresses desideration:  "Let him labor!"
(aistalt!) would wish or command from afar, but not perform.  For legal and
ceremonial purposes, the cohortative "be" is used:  "for him be
imprisonment!"  Rinder umffahor palt!  A pronouncement of a judge.  Or
better: Rinder syf palt: "be guilt for/on him!"  So I read "fiat lingua" as
a performative: "be language!"  A distortion of the original Latin.

> And lastly, does the translation challenge wish us to translate the
> literal meaning of the Latin, or to produce an analogue of how "fiat lux"
> in Genesis would be translated?
Good question.  What is the original Hebrew?  What is the Greek
(Pentateuch)?

Sally

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