tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jul 29 06:19:43 1996

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Re: Words for God

ghitlh charghwI':
***Long and petty tirade on the insignificance of the question deleted.***


     And having said that, I am new to Klingon, but this is an old question
that had been thrashed out and done with before any of us were born.  It
shouldn't need a prolonged discussion, just one person familiar with the *long*
history of Bible translation.  I am fairly familiar with the languages of the
Bible.  The names for God in there, like the names for everybody else, were
*words* that actually *meant* something and they can be translated directly.

Elohim = HoswI'pu' -- powerful one, plural

El Shaddai = qumchu'wI' -- God Almighty (leaving the 'God' alone)

Jehovah = meaning uncertain, the prevailing theory is that it means "I am", the
implication being that God is the only one who can make an independent claim to
exist since everybody else was created by Him.  For translations of "I am", see
the "I think, therefore I am" thread.  The correct transliteration would be
<yaHve'>

Christ = wIvwI' -- this is not quite right, since it should be "chosen one", not
"he who chooses" but i haven't unraveled the mysteries of passive voice yet.
Grammarians?

Lord = the words for this in both Old Testament (Adonai) and New Testament
(Kurie) merely mean a ruler or master and neither word was used exclusively
for deity. A similar usage is found in modern Spanish (Senor). -- pIn'a'

     All these are title and descriptions, not proper names or untranslatable
words.  Usages like *God* should not be necessary.  There are several other
names for God in the Bible.  I'll post some translations if anyone gives a crap.
Let me know.
     As for charghwI''s other example, the lack of a word for God in Cherokee,
the Bible *has* been translated into Cherokee, and many other languages lacking
the abstract concepts so basic to the Biblical text.  The usual usage is "great
spirit" or "greatest spirit" or "father of all" or something like that.  My
dictionary hasn't arrived yet, so i don't know if we even *have* superlatives,
but that would be the way to go.

taDI'oS vIq, Linguist to the Masses

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