English Equivalents of dicere in Prose Translations of Jerome’s Psalters

Abstract

An examination of English prose translations of Jerome’s Psalter from OE to EMnE reveals that there are four relevant equivalents of the Latin verb dicere: cweðan, secgan > seien > say, tell and speak. In each period in the history of English the verb dicere is translated by a prototypical verb of saying but the prototypes change over time. In OE both cweðan and secgan were amply attested but it was the former that had the status of the prototype. The two verbs are continued in ME but the use of quēthen undergoes morphological and syntactic restrictions as a result of which seien takes over the status of the prototype and is used in all examined ME texts in all contexts. Similarly, in the EMnE translation seien is selected in thirty-four out of thirty-eight contexts, with the remaining four occurrences of dicere are rendered by tell and speak, which were quite frequently attested in the examined texts in the ME period but they were selected as equivalents of loqui, annuntiare, enarrare and narrare. Consistent selection of equivalents seems to characterise the traditional approach to biblical translation, which focuses on the form in the first place. This attitude results from the conviction that sacred texts convey their message not only via direct linguistic expression and is at the same time an expression of the translators’ reverence and respect for the sacred nature of the text they translated.