in

[klewlis]

this morning I was reading my greek-latin nt and noticed something interesting. where greek uses two different prepositions, eis and en, latin uses only one, in. So in 1 Peter 1:2 we have:

[face=SPIonic]en agiasmw pneumatoj, eij upakohn kai rantismon aimatoj ihsou xristou[/face]

and

in sanctificationem Spiritus, in obedientiam, et aspersionem sanguinis Iesu Christi

with "in" functioning in place of both "en" and "eis". This causes me some distress because I know the semantic difference between en and eis and am therefore able to better translate the passage. But if I came upon the latin first and simply had "in .... in" it would be much harder to make that distinction. So my question is are there other clues as to the meaning of phrases like these, or are we dependent solely on interpretive context???

[benissimus]

This is why so many things are lost in translation and it is important to read things in their original texts if you wish to grasp the original sentiments! I'm not entirely clear at my beginning level of Greek what distinguishes "eis" from "en", but I would be interested to hear an explanation. My impression was that "en" is used to express position and "eis" is more of a motional preposition.

[Moerus]

In fact 'en' and 'eis' (I have not your Greeks fonts already, I have to download them soon, cause I feel the need to it ) are the same word.

Yes, 'en' and 'eis' are the same word (astonishing!). Firstly the choice of the case is obvious; the dative with 'en' to mark a position and an accusative with 'eis' to mark a sort of motion.

This difference also formed 'eis'. 'eis' origanally came form 'en' +'s'. This form 'ens' did evolve to 'eis'. The nu (n) dissapeared before a sigma (s)because off the laws of Greek fonetics. And if something dissapears, there must be a compensation for that in Greek fonetics (mostly so). So cause off the dissapearing off the nu (n) the vowel before it was lengthened from 'e' to 'ei = e+e'.

Here I gave you the fonetic analysis. When we look even closer and in comparation with other words, we see that sigma 's' is a suffix to denote a motion.

Conclusion: eis = en + s (suffix (signifies motion)) + the cases have the same difference.

In Latin we only have in+acc. in this text. So you can only see the difference by comparing with other texts or by seeing the forms in the contexts.
I have to agree with Benissimus on this: ' This is why so many things are lost in translation and it is important to read things in their original texts if you wish to grasp the original sentiments!'. The Italian have a proverb for this; traduttore - tradittore! (A translater is always a bit of a traitor!).

Greetz,

Moerus.

[benissimus]

Interesting etymologyical note there. I want to know why the "en" was not translated with a in + abl., if it represents position instead of motion into.

[Moerus]

I can only say that the distinction between in + abl. and in +acc. in ecclesiastical Latin is not as strict as in classical Latin. In christian texts they are sometimes used without the classical difference between motion and position.

Moerus.

[klewlis]

both of the phrases in my example use accusative, but it's clear that the first is more position and the second is more motion... are you saying that this is only because it's later, ecclesiastical latin, and that the same phrase in classical latin would be constructed differently?

[Moerus]

both of the phrases in my example use accusative, but it's clear that the first is more position and the second is more motion... are you saying that this is only because it's later, ecclesiastical latin, and that the same phrase in classical latin would be constructed differently?

Yes, indeed!

[klewlis]

ok then! thanks. :)

[Kasper]

So would it be fair to say that 'en' means 'in' and 'eis' means 'into'?

[klewlis]

So would it be fair to say that 'en' means 'in' and 'eis' means 'into'?

that's *generally* how it works.