Boinkie's Blog

Universalis

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Just a little musing on language.
While the conference on "submission" was being held, one of the speakers was a minister who spent his whole life in upper middle class Conneticut and came to Manila to teach Philippinos how to be Christians...(except for the smelly squatters, he likes manila...guess he never read about Dives and Lazarus)...

So there they were talking about the bible, and he said the King James version was the only translation to use, and it was a gift to God's people...
duh...Guess non English speakers don't qualify as God's people.
So of course, I interrupted and pointed out that even in the USA, people don't understand that translation, and they may misunderstand it, because words have changed meaning...and then I pointed out the famous line: "Suffer the little children to come unto me"...

Well, shortly afterward I left, since I have a sharp tongue and was wearing out my welcome...
But when I pointed out that line, it came to mind the line in LOTR where Aragon is with the king of the dead...
"the dead do not suffer the living to pass"..." you WILL suffer me"...grab throat, pull out sword...oh you're the king, duh..

So maybe I am wrong: Kids who saw LOTR might understand that word now.

Ironically, when I looked it up in the book, it was not there. Actually, Eowyn said it to Aragon, and he said the second line back to her.

As Shippey points out, the language and emotions and mind set of Rohan is that of Anglo saxons, and the language used is deliberately antique to mirror the ideas and culture.

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