Perchance

Hi. I'm trying to translate the first chapter of 'Genesis' into a language I'm making up, and I'm running into a problem that I'm not sure how to handle. I wasn't raised in a theistic background myself, and so I'm not sure of the meaning that 'father' as in 'God the Father' has to theists (or people who used to be theists).

So far, the language I've created, Aril, has four words for father, one (baret) meaning father in the sense of 'biological parent'; one (ilom) meaning 'heart-father, one whom one regards as father by one's own choice'; one {elre) meaning 'father as creator' (in the sense that people speak of Jules Verne as the father of science fiction); and one {ilomu) as an affectionate name, roughly equivalent to 'Daddy," though used by adults as well as children.

So, to people who are or used to be theists:

Which sense does/did the concept of God as a 'Father' have? Is it one that I haven't even considered above? Or does it embrace one or more of them?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I can translate the literal meaning of the words, but I would also like to get a sense as much as possible of the emotional impact.

Sorry if this seems like a weird request .

-Perchance.

Bree

How about a word with a more stern connotation?

Remember when you were a kid (maybe this doesn't apply to your childhood) and you did something really, really bad? Mom would always say "you just WAIT until your FATHER gets home!" or something similar.

Arrowman

What an interesting concept. Could you come up with a few alternatives for different meanings of "love" at the same time? Might help some of us males who shy away from the "L" word

As to your question - I think the only real answer is
- for Jesus (when you get to him): "all of the first three".
- for the Jews (which I presume is where you're at now): "all of the last three".

- Although I suspect the OT Jews might not have been using "ilomu" a lot, given all the nasty things God was doing to them at that stage.

You might need to use different words at different parts of the Bible, depending on context.

If you had to use just one word, you might need to invent a fifth word for "Father" meaning "authority figure". Which is pretty much what Bree suggested, I suppose.

(Which makes me wonder - what are we going to do when God Gets Home? He's been gone an awful long time; the queue for cigarettes at the 7-11 must be really long)

Perchance

Bree: Thanks for the suggestion. My childhood was like that in some ways, but not completely (my mother would say, "Wait until your father gets home!", and my father would say, "Wait until your mother gets home!") Somehow, the threats of dire punishments never quite materialized .

I may need a fifth word, after all. Surely, if there's a positive word like ilom, there can be a negative one, too.

Thanks again.

-Perchance.

Perchance

I do have some different concepts of love (and will have to come up with more). The race whose language I'm making up and writing about is non-human, and all of them are natural empaths, who feel and know the emotions of those about them. So the language needs a lot of different words for different emotional concepts, since it would be hard for one of them who was reading a passage to know what emotion was meant if there was just a generic word.

Three of the concepts so far are:

cylmansha: love like a summer's day, sweet and gentle and long-enduring; probably what we would call "Platonic love."

arienda: "friend's and honor's love," love mingled with intense admiration for a person's good character.

fale: fierce, protective love that one feels for a child (whether one's own or not is irrelevant).

I do tend to go on .

Wow, thanks. I hadn't even thought about the division between the different parts (not having been raised with the Bible that much). I'll probably need to depend on context, yes.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind . It's mostly only for use in direct dialogue or address anyway.

That would be a little different: "Our Daddy, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name..."

Thanks again. I'd entirely forgotten about that meaning.

Well, I know I'll have to clean up my room, and put all the blasphemous books away...

-Perchance.

invictus58

From what I have always heard is that Jesus referred to God as "daddy," so I would say ilomu or ilom.

DarkBronzePlant

Two questions:

First, would "Who's your daddy?" translate into "Who's your ilomu?" or "Who's your ilom?". I'd suspect it would be one of those two, although perhaps you need a fifth word for "father".

Second, do you have, like, way too much time on your hands?

Perchance

"Who's your daddy?" would probably not come up, since this is a creation of English and the culture that we have (I suppose American culture, though I don't know where the phrase originated), and I'm writing about a culture set on an entirely different world. I suppose that if a rough "equivalent" were used, though, I would probably need to invent a fifth word.

And yes, I do have a lot of time on my hands (currently), but:

1) You would be amazed how much time is open when you watch almost no television.

2) I type really, really fast (75-80 words a minute).

3) I'm not the only one, believe me . Enter "conlang" into any good search engine and see what happens, or go to <a href="http://www.zompist.com/kit." target="_blank">www.zompist.com/kit.html.</a> There are at least a few hundred people on the net creating languages for different purposes- to use in fantasy worlds, for example, or just for fun.

[Edited to fix spelling problem on URL].

-Perchance.

[ June 01, 2002: Message edited by: Perchance ]</p>

DarkBronzePlant

Well then, I think you should add the fifth word!
Actually, on second thought, I should be the last one to comment on that, as I typically get home from work in the evening, and then set about working on various pieces of software I'm developing... which ultimately will have little practical use and will probably net me almost no money.

As a more serious question, do you have a background in linguistics or anything like that? Knowledge of how various languages are formed or structured? Or is developing your own language, in effect, a way to learn linguistics? Just curious...

Queen of Swords

Off-topic, I know, but have you read Eric van Lustbader's The Ring of Five Dragons? He created the most annoying fantasy language I've ever encountered.