>From my experience of dealing with the vocabulary of Guru Dev, I can assure you that I have never found him using any Latin. However, I there are many English words e.g. Governor, minister, loud-speaker, no desire etc. I am confident that the translator did a pretty good job, some of the quotations are almost exact matches for Hindi quotations I have already translated myself. Though, having said that, I would question his use of words such as 'veteran' and 'noble'. The confusion over the words 'is' and 'are' rule out a native English speaker, though in probability the words that Guru Dev used could pedantically be translated in this way.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Premanand Paul Mason" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I have just come by a photocopy of a tiny booklet of quotations > > from Guru Dev, translated into English. > > My surmise is that this booklet is a translated copy of a Hindi > > booklet of about the same size. Does anyone have any information > > they can offer on the background of this item? > > Link to on-line edition of these quotations. > > http://www.paulmason.info/gurudev/sources/gdbooklet.htm > > Interesting. I found that one of the verses makes > me wonder who the translator was, and what liberties > he/she might have taken. The verse in question is: > > "Be a worldly man through body and wealth and contemplate > Him (Paramatma) in your heart. Thus you shall shine in the > world and attain sumum bonum as well." > > The misspelled term 'sumum bonum' struck me as odd, > so I looked it up on Wikipedia: > > "Summum bonum (greatest or supreme good) is a neoplatonic > concept attributed to the Christian God by Saint Augustine > in de natura boni (399), in direct opposition to his earlier > Manichaean convictions. Augustine denies the positive > existence of absolute evil, describing a world with God as > the supreme good at the center, and defining different > grades of evil as different stages of remoteness from > that center." > > In my ignorance of anything about Guru Dev's life, > is it likely that he would have known about and > used such a Latin phrase, aware of its background, > or is it more likely that a Christian translator was > using a phrase that was meaningful to him/her to > translate the phrase "the greatest good" in Hindi, > spoken by Guru Dev with no other connotations than > the greatest good? > > Word nitpicking, I know, but interesting... ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
