‘Semantic extension’ and semantic change: were translators of the Old Latin Bible L1 speakers of Greek?
Date:
Abstract:
The first Latin translations of biblical texts, known collectively as Old Latin Bible (OLB), are not the product of a single translator, and neither can they be traced back to a single time and place of origin (Houghton 2023, 1–2). While there is strong agreement that they were translated from Greek, the identity and native language of their translators remain unknown.
The OLB exhibits considerable influence from Ancient Greek, especially in the lexicon. Among the contact-induced lexical phenomena, there is one which Burton (2000, 120–8) calls ‘semantic extension’. One of the examples he lists is virtūs, which is sometimes used to mean ‘miracle’ in the OLB, although it is never attested with this meaning before. Normally ranging from ‘manliness’ to ‘strength’ to ‘courage’, its meaning partly overlaps with that of Greek δύναμις, which virtūs often translates in the OLB. Within the scriptures, however, δύναμις is also used to mean ‘mighty act’, ‘miracle’, and while virtūs did not have this connotation, it is chosen to express this meaning.
This paper argues that ‘semantic extension’ can be taken as evidence for Greek being the L1 of the OLB translators. Thus, translational choices like that of virtūs would be the result of misalignment in the semantic correspondence of virtūs and δύναμις in the mind of the L1 Greek translator. This goes against the claims of Burton (2000, 112, 171, etc.) and more recently Bianconi (2021), with studies of the OLB Gospels and Genesis respectively, who believe there is linguistic evidence to argue in favour of the translators’ L1 being Latin. To support this hypothesis, Burton relies on the use of rare and/or literary Latin lexical items, while Bianconi offers a set of neologisms which he believes betray a native control of Latin.
To counter this view, my paper will analyse a few lexemes displaying ‘semantic extension’ in the OLB through comparison of their use in the text with corresponding passages from the Greek. It will moreover investigate whether some of the meanings resulting from ‘semantic extension’ are found outside of biblical and patristic writings, thus possibly qualifying as instances of semantic change. One such example could be plāga, which was originally used in the sense ‘strike’, ‘blow’, but takes on the meaning ‘illness’ on the model of Greek μάστιξ through the scriptures. This meaning might have been preserved through early Romance and beyond: cf. PDE plague < OFr. plage.
References:
Bianconi, Michele. 2021. “Translation strategies in the Vetus Latina: a pilot study of the book of Genesis.” Studi e Saggi Linguistici 59 (2): 51-79.
Burton, Philip. 2000. The Old Latin Gospels: A Study of their Texts and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Houghton, Hugh A. G. 2023. “The Earliest Latin Translations of the Bible.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Latin Bible, edited by Hugh A. G. Houghton, 1–18. New York: Oxford University Press.