THREAD: Latvian grammatical articles, Bible translation, and the divine name (a bit of an eclectic posting)

Here is a map of national European languages classed according to usage of grammatical articles. Notably, Slavic, Baltic, and Finno-Ugric language groups lack them.

Latvian, being a Baltic language, lacks grammatical articles, though definiteness can be expressed morphologically via adjectives:

• jaun-s, jaun-a 'young' (m. f., nominative, indefinite)
• jaun-ais, jaun-ā 'the young (one)' (m. f., nominative, definite)

Definite adjectives can be used attributively or substantively:

• jaunā māja 'The new home'
• jaunā ir Rīgā 'The new one is in Rīga’

Back to articles...

If you look at the earliest Latvian literature, you will indeed find grammatical articles (drawn from demonstrative pronouns).

Take, for example, the first Bible translation (1694), completed by Johann Ernst Glück.

He was a German Lutheran pastor who spent years learning Latvian and then producing the translation with the financial backing of the Swedish crown (Latvia was ruled by Sweden at the time).

The title of his first edition reads:

Ta Swehta Grahmata

'The Holy Book' (literally, 'That Holy Book’)

The first Latvian literature was obviously written in the context of German colonisation, along with its culture and linguistic influence. As such, it makes sense that grammatical articles, among other Germanic features, would be present in the written literature.

The use of articles naturally extended also to the divine name יהוה, which in Glück's edition was also written with capital letters, as in Psalm 23, pictured below:

Tas KUNGS irr mans Gans / man ne truhks neneeka
'The LORD is my Shepherd / I shall lack nothing’

A bit on the word kungs 'lord'.

Although it is a Germanic loanword, there is some debate over which language specifically. The Low German dialects in particular exerted great influence on Latvian because of the medieval Hanseatic League, which Latvian towns participated in.

The Middle Low German form, however, was kunig (whence Lithuanian kùnigas 'prelate'). Since the earliest Latvian texts, the form has always been kungs, leading some scholars to consider a loan from Swedish kung 'king' (without the need to invoke anaptyxis).

Both Finnish and Estonian also have this loanword, however, in an even more archaic form: kuningas 'king'. This is very nearly close to the reconstructed Proto-Germanic version: *kuningaz (where the o-stem nominative ending -az is 'frozen' in both Finnic languages).

Returning, again, to grammatical articles...

Over time, as Latvian literature developed and became more nationalistic, it tended to eliminate germanicisms, where possible, and this included articles.

However, the divine name was a notable exception.

Throughout all Latvian Bible translation history, the divine name has always been rendered 'tas Kungs'.

Until 2012.

The committee behind the latest Latvian translation, in development since 1995, made a dramatic decision to eliminate the 'article':

tas Kungs > Kungs.

They perceived it to be the last vestige of an old, artificial tradition imposed on the Latvian language.

Here's the thing, though. To my mind, there is nothing 'artificial' about using 'tas Kungs'. It does not at all feel like an alien element in the language.

In fact, the very lack of 'tas' (a demonstrative pronoun, to be sure, but more polyvalent than might seem), sounds very strange to my ears. How, as a reader, am I to distinguish between various 'lords' and 'The Lord'?

In my judgement, the committee's attempt to make the translation as 'natural' as possible has resulted in a very forced style (and I have told some of the members this).

The perennial issue of how to properly render יהוה in English is also pertinent here.

Although 'the LORD' (in small caps) is traditional, some more recent translations have switched to 'Yahweh'.

Perhaps it is my traditionalism, but I prefer to stick with 'the LORD' for a number of reasons:

No meaning is lost (especially if readers are instructed adequately)

It links up nicely with multiple independent traditions: (1) obviously the Masoretic tradition, (2) the various Greek OT translations (ὁ κύριος), and (3) most importantly, the New Testament (which may perhaps even provide a kind of 'inspired sanction' for the tradition).

• It avoids requiring that the Christian reader rely on a scholarly construct (however securely reconstructed) for such a central term.

• Related to a previous point, it helps the reader better understand the exegetical motivations of NT authors, especially in Christology.

I end with an excerpt from 1 Corinthians 8:5–6:

Un jepʃchu tur irr kas Deewi tohp ʃaukti [...] ittin ka tur irr daudʃ Deewi un daudʃ Kungi.

'Though there are things which are called gods...just as there are many gods and many lords.’

Tomehr mums irr weens Deews tas Tehws [...] un weens Kungs Jeʃus Kriʃtus

'Nevertheless for us there is one God, the Father...and one Lord Jesus Christ.'

/ END