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S. D. Kleyner
TRANSLATING THE GREEK ACTIVE WITH THE GOTHIC PASSIVE1
В статье рассматриваются 12 случаев перевода греческих глаголов в активном залоге на готский язык при помощи пассивных форм. Все эти переводы безусловно являются окказионализмами, результатами конкретных переводческих решений. Тем не менее, такие решения позволяют увидеть возможности готского языка, и сделать вывод о различии и сходстве между синтетическим и перифрастическим пассивами готского языка при передаче глаголов с медиальной семантикой.
Ключевые слова: готский язык, древнегреческий язык, активный залог, синтетический пассив, перифрастический пассив.
0. Introduction
Gothic has two kinds of passive: the synthetic passive (mediopassive, as it is regularly referred to (Ferraresi 2005:98, Gukhman 1998:174, Lehmann 1994: 36, etc), and the periphrastic passive formed with two 'auxiliaries', wesan 'to be' and wairpan'to become'. The difference between the two passives and the emergence of the periphrasis is a matter of discussion; a popular viewpoint (Abraham 1992) suggests that the mediopassive was too ambiguous to convey an exact meaning, and was on its way to being replaced by reflexives on the one hand and the periphrastic passive on the other. Another viewpoint (Drinka 2011) sees the Gothic Bible as a slavish translation that borrows heavily from Greek, and thus, among other things, periphrastic passives become more grammaticalized.
In this paper, we are interested in the instances when a passive Gothic verb or phrase translates an active Greek verb. Given the nature of the Gothic text, this phenomenon should be rare and should not be systematic; rather, it is every time a translator's decision - but such decisions show what's possible in a language. These cases may provide a better understanding of the difference (or similarities) between the two passives; perhaps, the synthetic passive
1 This research has been carried out with the financial support of PrH® (Project № 14-04-00394). I am ever thankful to S. Ivanov for his comments and interest.
is used to translate the Greek active voice more frequently, or one of the passives limits itself to certain verbs only.
1. The Data
In all, there are 7 such instances for the synthetic passive, and 6 for the periphrastic passive. There are 264 synthetic passive cases in total, as well as 311 cases of all periphrastic passives, so synthetic passive may be slightly better suited for this function, but the statistics isn't large enough to make such a claim.
Synthetic passive:
Luke 6:38
CA gibaid, jah gibada izwis, mitads goda jah ufarfulla jah gawigana jah ufargutana gibada in barm izwarana; ^izai auk samon mitadjon ^izaiei mitid mitada izwis.
SiSoxs, Kai SoO^osxav upiv: psxpov Ka^ov nsmsapsvov asaa^supsvov unspsKxuvvopsvov 8roaouaiv sk; tov ko^tcov uprov: ro yap psxpro psxpsixs dvivpsxpnO^osxav upiv.
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Luke 6:21
CA audagai jus gredagans nu, unte sadai wair^i^. audagai jus gretandans nu, unte ufhlohjanda.
paKapioi oi nsivrovxsc; wv, oxi xopTao0^oso0s. paKapioi oi K^aiovxsq wv, oxi yEXaaETE.
Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.
Romans 7:3
A ^annu ^an at libandin abin haitada horinondei, jabai wair^i^ waira an^aramma; i^ jabai gaswilti^ wair, frija ist ^is witodis, ei ni sijai horinondei waur^ana abin an^aramma.
apa ow Zravxoq xou avSpoq poixaWq xpn^axioEi sav ysvqxai avSpi sxspro: sav Ss anoOavn o avqp, s^suOspa saxiv ano xou vopou, xou p^ sivai aux^v poixaMSa ysvopsvqv avSpi sxspro.
So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Mark 7:10
CA Moses auk raihtis qafc: swerai attan fceinana jah aifcein fceina; jah: saei ubil qifcai attin seinamma aifcfcau aifcein seinai, daufcau afdau^jaidau.
prouo-nq yap sinsv, xipa xov naxspa oou Kai x^v pntspa oou, Kai, o KaKo^oyrov naxspa ^ pnxspa Oavaxro xEXEUxaxro:
For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
Timothy II 2:26
A jah usskarjaindau us unhulfcins wruggon, fram fcammei gafahanai habanda afar is wiljin.
Kai ¿vav^yroaiv Ek x^q xou SiaPo^ou nayiSoq, sZroypnP-svoi un' auxou slq xo sKsivou Os^np-a.
And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
Mark 4:29
CA fcanuh bifce atgibada akran, suns insandeifc gilfca, unte atist asans.
oxav Se napa8ro o Kapnoq, suOuq anooxs^si xo Spsnavov, oxi napsoxnKsv o Ospiopoq.
But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
Corinthians I 7:28
A afcfcan jabai nimis qen, ni frawaurhtes, jah jabai liugada mawi, ni frawaurhta, ifc aglon leikis gastaldand fco swaleika. ifc ik izwis freidja . . . .
sav Se Kai ynp-flq, oux ^papxsq: Kai sav y^fl ^ napOsvoq, oux ^papxsv. OHyiv Se xfl oapKi s^ouoiv oi xoiouxoi, syro Se uprov ^siSopai.
But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
Periphrastic passive:
John 16:21
CA qino, fcan bairifc, saurga habaid, unte qam hveila izos; ifc bifce gabauran ist barn, ni fcanaseifcs ni gaman fcizos aglons faura fahedai, unte gabaurans warfc manna in fairhvau.
q yuv^ oxav xiKi^ ^un^v sxsv, oxv ^Osv q ropa aux^q: oxav Ss yEVV^ofl xo navSiov, oukstv pvnpovsusv x^q OWysroq Sva x^v xapav oxv sysvv^On avOpronoq siq xov Koopov.
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.
Mark 3:21
CA jah hausjandans fram imma bokarjos jah an^arai usiddjedun gahaban ina; qe^un auk ^atei usgaisi^s ist.
Kai aKouoavxsq oi nap' auxou s^^Oov Kpax^oai auxov, s^syov yap oxv ¿^Eoxn.
And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.
Mark 3:9
CA jah qa^ ^aim siponjam seinaim ei skip habai^ wesi at imma in ^izos manageins, ei ni ^raiheina ina.
Kai sinsv xoiq paOnxaiq auxou iva n^ovapvov npooKapxEpfl auxro Sva xov ox^ov iva p^ GMProoxv auxov:
And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they should throng him.
Thessalonians II 3:7
A . . . . ist galeikon unsis, unte ni ungatewidai wesum in izwis,
auxoi yap oi'Saxs nroq Ssi pvpsioOav qpaq, oxv ouk ^xaKx^oa^EV sv upiv
For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you;
Corinthians II 6:14
A ni wair^ai^ gajukans ungalaubjandam; unte hvo dailo garaihtein mi^ ungaraihtein ai^au hvo gamaindu^e liuhada mi^ riqiza?
p^ yivEo0E ¿xEpoZuyowvxE^ anioxovq: xiq yap psxox^ SvKavoouv^ Kai avopia; ^ xiq Kovvrovia ^roxi npoq oKoxoq;
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
Timothy I 1:14
B i^ ufarassi^ <war^> ansts fraujins mi^ galaubeinai jah fria^wai ^izai in Xristau Iesu.
tnEpEnXsovaoEV Se ^ xapiq xou Kupiou ^prov psxa nioxsroq Kai ayannq x^q sv xpioxro inoou.
And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
1. 1. General observations
It is quite clear that the synthetic passive is more diverse in the terms of the Greek moods it translates; this holds true for the Greek passive forms as well. It is also apparently the default method of translating the Greek future tense (80 instances in total vs 2 for all the periphrases combined), so the synthetic examples are to be expected to contain some instances with the Greek future, unlike their periphrastic counterparts. More interestingly, in no case does the Gothic passive translate a Greek active perfect - all the underlying Greek perfects are mediopassive in the synthetic and periphrastic rendering alike. Importantly, there seem to be no syntactic regularities or specific contexts that could make such translations systemic.
1. 2. The words, their meaning and their contexts
8i8ra^i: 'to give'. The case of Lk 6:38 is unusual: there are plenty of active forms of SlSro^i in the New Testament, but only one of them was translated with the passive voice. The context, however, provides a possible explanation: the gibaid, jah gibada izwis in the beginning of the sentence may call for parallelism rather than for an active impersonal construction.
Xpn^ttTiZra: 'to transact business, to be called'; there is no occurrence of this verb in the active voice in the parts of the NT that exists in Gothic (from here onwards - GNT) other than Rom 7:3. The meaning of this verb is medial.
yEMra: 'to laugh'; there is 1 other instance of this verb in the active voice in the NT (Luke 6:25, ye^rovxe^, translated with the present participle hlahjandans) beside Luke 6:21. The meaning is medial.
TE^EUTara: 'to come to an end'; there are 6 more instances of active usage in the GNT; 4 personal forms (Mt. 9:18, Mk. 9:44,46,48) are translated with gaswiltan and gadaupnan 'to die' (Mk 9:48); the infinitive ^e^ev xe^euxav in Luke 7:2 is translated with swultawairpja 'dying', and the perfect participle in Jn 11:39 is simply rendered as daups 'dead'. It is interesting, however, that in the context of Mk 7:10 the translator did not use the 4-class verb gadaupnan which fits the context perfectly, but preferred a 1-class
causative afdaupjan in the passive form. In the Gothic Bible, there are 2 more occurrences of this verb (Mk 14:55, Rom 8:36), and both times we see the verb Bavaxaro in the meaning 'to kill'. It is unclear whether it was the presence of the word Bavaxro that prompted the translator's choice, or, perhaps, he understood the overall meaning as 'let him be killed by death'.
avav^ra: 'come to one's senses'. 2 Tim 2:26 is the only occurrence of this verb in the whole of New Testament. Its meaning is clearly medial.
rcapa8i8ra^i: 'to deliver, to betray'. There are 37 occurences of the active voice in GNT; 13 are translated with galewjan 'to betray', 8 with anafilhan 'to deliver', 15 with atgiban 'to give', and 1 (Mk 15:1) is left untranslated. In Mk 4:29, the context is again medial: oxav Se napaSro o Kapno^, the fruit gives itself.
ya^Era: 'to marry'. In 1 Cor 7:28 the one marrying is a woman2; in contexts when rules for men as well as women are set, the usual expression seems to be ouxe ya^oficw ouxe ya^iZpvxai, (ni liugand ni liuganda; Mk 12:25, Lk 20:34—35; or liugaidedun jah liugaidos wesun in Lk 17:27). In 1 Cor 7:28 there also is a second usage of the same verb, y^^^^, aimed at men, but the Gothic translation is nimis qen, and it looks more 'authentic'. Overall, there are 18 instances of ya^ero in the active voice in GNT; most are about men or people in general; some, like 1 Tim 5:14, are describing a woman, but contain an infinitive which in Gothic cannot be passive. It looks like while in Greek one can say 'a woman marries', it does not seem possible in Gothic.
yEvvara: 'to give birth, to become'. There are only 4 other active voice instances in GNT (Lk 1:13, 1:57, Gal 4:24, 2 Tim 2:23); all are translated with (ga)bairan in the meaning 'to bear, to give birth'. It is interesting that in Jn 16:21 in Greek, the subject of the sentence is likely to be the woman, and not the child; but in Gothic, the phrase is reinterpreted, and the child is the subject. If this was how the Greek original was understood by the translator, he committed a mistake. Perhaps, he changed the structure on purpose; but then the next verb, gaman, would also refer to the child, as there is no indication of the subject switching back to the woman.
2 Interestingly, in Mk 10:12 the Byzantine version contains yap^On vs Westcott/Hort's yap^ofl, and seems to be more correct, because the line talks about a woman getting married. More on that specific verb, as well as on the infinitive liugan in 1 Cor 7:9 and 1 Tim 5:14 in H. Kern (1867).
¿^ioTn^i: 'to be mad; to be astonished'. There are 3 more active usages in the GNT; 2 mean 'to be astonished' (Mk 5:42, Lk 8:56), and one means 'to be mad' (2 Cor 5:13). All are translated with the 4-class verb usgeisnan, which renders the medial meaning perfectly. We see that in Mk 3:21 the 1-class usgaisjan is used. We have already seen such a change in gadau^nan/gadau^jan above. This is the only time usgaisjan is employed in GNT, so it is unclear why in the very similar contexts of 2 Cor 5:13 and Mk 3:21 different forms are used. A 4-class active form and a 1-class passive form are interchangeable just as it was for xe^euxaro; if so, there seems to be no difference between the synthetic and periphrastic passive in this aspect.
npooKapTEpEra: 'to attend upon, to wait'; there are three more instances in GNT; in Col 4:2 and Rom 12:12 x^ npooeu%^ npoorapxepeixe and x^ npooeu%^ npooKapxepouvxe^ are translated as bidai haftjandans; in Rom 13:6, eig atixo xofixo npooKapxepouvxe^ is translated as in pamma silbin skalkinondans. In Mk 3:9 'iva n^oiapiov npooKapxep^ atixro is rendered as ei skip habaip wesi at imma; this is an interesting construction, seen nowhere else in the Gothic Bible. Actually, nowhere else in the Gothic Bible nor in Skeireins is haban used as a past participle. This seems to be an occasional usage.
¿TaKTEra: 'to behave'; 2 Thess 3:7 is the only occurrence of this verb in the New Testament; its medial semantics is obvious. It is not clear whether ungatewips was perceived as an adjective more than as a participle - and this is its only occurrence in the GNT - but technically it is a participle and there is no reason not to see it as such.
¿TEpoZuyEra: 'to be yoked up differently'; 2 Cor 6:4 is the only occurrence of this verb in the New Testament; its medial semantics is obvious, but the Gothic ni wairpaip gajukans is also a literal translation of yiveoBe exepoZuyouvxe^.
tnEpn^EovaZra: 'to abound exceedingly'; 1 Tim 1:14 is the only occurrence of this verb in the New Testament. In Gothic, warp is traditionally added because ufarassjan is a 1-class verb, and ufarassip represents half of the periphrastic passive. This Gothic verb is used in the active voice in 3 other lines (2 Cor 4:15, 9:8, 9:12), where it translates Greek nepiooeuro 'to abound'. nepiooeuro is frequent in GNT, and is translated in a wide variety of ways: aflifnan (Jn 6:12, 6:13, Lk 9:17), biauknan (1 Thess 4:10, Phil 1:26), managnan (2 Cor 4:15, 8:2, 8:7), ufarassau + verb (2 Cor 1:5, 8:7, Phil 4:12, ) ufarwisan (1 Thess 4:1), ufarfulljan (1 Cor 15:58),
managizo wairpan (Mt 5:20) and gaaukan (1 Thess 4:1). Both verbs have a medial meaning.
2. Discussion and Conclusion
As we see, most verbs in both lists are denominative and formed with a *ye/o suffix. The few exceptions are 8(8юцг, пара8(8юцг, avav^ro and e^icxn^i. Of those four, only 8(8юцг in Lk 6:38 does not clearly have a medial meaning and probably is a result of a stylistically motivated decision. The passive voice that translates yevvaro in Jn 16:21 may be the result of a misunderstanding. All the other verbs are clearly medial in meaning, and were perceived as such by the Gothic translator (perhaps, with the exception of xe^euxaro)
Thus, regarding the passive forms that translate Greek active voice, there is no difference in the function of the two passive forms; both can be used to convey a medial meaning, sometimes very similar (like avav^ro and e^icxn^i that both mean a state of mind). The only difference may be in the quantity of such examples: if yevvaro is indeed translated wrongly, and ungatewips was perceived more as an adjective, then the periphrastic passive could be used to convey medial meaning less frequently. This is indirectly corroborated by its propensity to translate Greek perfects and thus to denote states, and not actions.
A separate issue is the ability of Gothic to substitute a 4-class active voice with a 1-class passive voice. A detailed overview of this issue and some other examples of such a synonymy can be found in Ferraresi (2005: 111-117); the main conclusion here is that it does not seem to matter much whether the passive is formed synthetically or periphrastically.
Overall, in the respect of translating active verbs with medial meaning into Gothic, the difference between the two passives seems to be more quantitative than qualitative.
References
Abraham, W. 1992: The emergence of the periphrastic passive in Gothic.
Leuvense Bijdragen 81, 1-15. Drinka, B. 2011: The sacral stamp of Greek: periphrastic constructions in New Testament translations of Latin, Gothic, and Old Church Slavonic. Oslo Studies in Language 3(3), 41-73. Ferraresi, G. 2005: Word order and phrase structure in Gothic. Peeters. Gukhman, M.M. 1998: Gotckiy yazyk [The Gothic Language]. Moscow. Гухман, М.М. 1998: Готский язык. Москва.
Kern, H. 1867. Eine imperativform im gothischen. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete des Deutschen, Griechischen und Lateinischen 16 (6. H), 451-453. Lehmann, W. P. 1994: Gothic and the reconstruction of Proto-
Germanic. The Germanic Languages, 19-37. Pollak, H. 1964: Zu den Funkzionen des Gotischen Präteritums. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 86, 25-61.
S. D. Kleyner. Translating the Greek Active with the Gothic Passive
The paper examines 12 cases when Greek active verbs are translated into Gothic with the passive voice. All these translations are clearly occasional and are the product of a deliberate choice made by the translator. Still, such decisions allow us to see what is possible in Gothic, and whether there is a difference between the synthetic and periphrastic Gothic passives in terms of their capability to render active verbs with medial meaning.
Keywords: Gothic, Greek, active voice, synthetic and periphrastic Gothic passives.
