Help with Latin translation
March 2, 2011 8:14 AM   Subscribe

Language question (for a friend) - which is technically more correct in Latin?

From a friend who is doing some research -

For the phrase "I will fear no evil" (which is actually in Psalm 22 in the Vulgate Bible) - She has seen some translations that say "non timebo mala" and some that say "non timebo malum", both of which are supposedly the Vulgate text. She is aware that one is singular and one is plural, but does not know which one is technically more correct.

I mentioned to her that there are several people on AskMe who are skilled with languages, and offered to poke the hive. Thank you very much. :)
posted by librarianamy to Writing & Language (13 answers total)
 
Seems to me that malum, like evil, is a, let's call it, soft case of singulare tantum. Some people do talk of "evils", but strictly spoken evil is evil enough on its own. So malum is sufficient to describe how bad we have it, whereas mala is pretty darn extra bad indeed (but maybe not downright wrong).
posted by Namlit at 8:26 AM on March 2, 2011


The answer is that there's more than one Vulgate psalter and different ones have different spelling.
posted by Jahaza at 8:45 AM on March 2, 2011


I'll present cases for each of the three options: singular, plural, and it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter: I have a BA in Latin. I was told (and saw frequently) that, in Latin, the singular and plural interchange freely, often for metric reasons, but given the dominance of poetry as the definitive form of the written word, the weakness of the boundary between the two is pervasive. The two were also pronounced very similarly— the "m" at the end of words was extremely weak and only became weaker as time wore on.

Plural: It was probably preferred to be "mala"— "non timebo mala" is idiomatic, IIRC, for "evil things" but not for "apples," whereas if somebody had a fear of apples, "non timebo malum." The University of Chicago presents the definitive version as "mala," as do most of the other websites I looked for, although as somebody else noted there is no truly "definitive" version.

Singular: Another way to approach this is to look at the original Hebrew, which says "lo irah rah," "I shall not fear evil," singular. I don't understand Classical Hebrew too well so I couldn't tell you if "rahim" (rahot?) would be correct or idiomatic, but the literal translation supports "malum" instead of "mala." Also, obviously "malum" can mean "the evil man," i.e., the devil or something, whereas "mala" strictly means "evil things."
posted by Electrius at 8:49 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


I guess this is a case of textual variants in the Vulgate. I don't know if asking which is more correct is a useful question--correct in terms of what? If you mean in terms of what Jerome originally put, that's one question, probably impossible to answer, though you could track the variants in different editions and manuscripts and try to find information on possible motivations of editors for preferring one over the other. As a side issue, the Hebrew (which is numbered chapter 23, rather than 22) has " lo 'ira ra` ", with the word for 'evil' in a singular form.
posted by Paquda at 8:51 AM on March 2, 2011


If you mean in terms of what Jerome originally put, that's one question, probably impossible to answer, though you could track the variants in different editions and manuscripts and try to find information on possible motivations of editors for preferring one over the other.

And even Jerome wrote more than one psalter and his psalters are not the oldest Latin versions, so even if you determined what he wrote, that wouldn't settle it.
posted by Jahaza at 8:53 AM on March 2, 2011


Jerome's translation from the septuagint (the earlier Greek translation of the Psalms) has "non timebo mala." His translation from the Hebrew has "non timebo malum." The septuagint version is the one that was more frequently used in the liturgy & office, so if you want the one that's more widely accepted, that's the one to choose. Neither is "more correct" than the other, though.
posted by philokalia at 9:01 AM on March 2, 2011


Sorry, I see people answered before me already covering what I said. Also sorry to have said it's not a useful question--that was rude. And it it valid to find out which version is more widely accepted, as philokalia mentioned, or to try to identify one version as an obvious typo or corruption, that everybody would agree needs to be corrected.
posted by Paquda at 9:07 AM on March 2, 2011


In addition to working with different source texts, another part of Jerome's difficulty is that Latin didn't have a good word for the Psalms' abstract concept of "evil." Note that English uses a Germanic word for this concept, not a Latinate one.

Also: the neuter Latin noun malum = apple also exists, but it has a long "a". Malus, -a -um = bad has a short "a". Only beginning Latin students would misread the Psalm as having anything to do with apples.
posted by philokalia at 9:19 AM on March 2, 2011


The septuagint version is the one that was more frequently used in the liturgy & office, so if you want the one that's more widely accepted, that's the one to choose.

This seems to be corect. "Mala" is the choice in the Gradual for the Saturday after the Third Sunday in Lent in the 1621 Missal down through the 1962 Missal and also in the Nova Vulgata used in the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Liturgy.
posted by Jahaza at 9:21 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


> Also: the neuter Latin noun malum = apple also exists, but it has a long "a". Malus, -a -um = bad has a short "a". Only beginning Latin students would misread the Psalm as having anything to do with apples.

Huh? Latin does not show vowel length, except in school texts for beginners.
posted by languagehat at 1:23 PM on March 2, 2011


Languagehat, I think the point is that "malum" meaning "evil" and "malum" meaning apple/fruit/lemon/quince are written the same, making the sentence ambigious:

"Nam et si ambulavero in valle umbrae mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es."

But no one who had a general idea (beyond a beginner that is) of what's going on in that sentence whould translate it:

"Though I walk through the valley the shadow of death, I will not fear apples (or quince!)..."
posted by Jahaza at 2:22 PM on March 2, 2011


Formally ambigious that is.
posted by Jahaza at 2:23 PM on March 2, 2011


> I think the point is that "malum" meaning "evil" and "malum" meaning apple/fruit/lemon/quince are written the same, making the sentence ambiguous

Sure, but what does that have to do with vowel length?
posted by languagehat at 9:12 AM on March 3, 2011


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