Talk:Pater noster
- The following was excised from the text page and moved here
Proper English usage requires agreement between subject and verb. "...Who art..." is incorrect grammar, since the familiar, "Thou," is the proper subject for "art," the familiar conjugation form of the verb, "to be." To avoid this awkwardness, it is much simpler to render the translation as, "Our Heavenly Father...." Please note that of all the translations offered in this article, only the German translation has proper agreement between the subject and verb: "Vater unser, der Du bist im Himmel,..." ("...der Du bist..." = "...[the] Thou art..."). There is no literal English equivalent. The Dutch translation avoids the problem by using the equivalent of "Our Heavenly Father...."
- The author of these comments doesn't seem to understand the use of ellipsis in the English language, nor of the fact that the Lord's Prayer directly addresses the Father. Indeed, the pronoun "Who" refers to the elliptically omitted "Thou", and there is no other grammatical inconsistency. The comments on the German translation are also in error. "der" translates as "who" (not "the" as the author mistakenly construes), and the phrase "der Du bist in Himmel" translates as "Thou who art in heaven". -- Chucktalk Giffen♫ 23:17, 2 May 2008 (PDT)
Which order?
Which order we have to apply to various translations: alphabetical? by addition? --Carles Vela i Aulesa 18:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
- With this many alphabetical seems good. Richard Mix 03:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Italian
I notice the present Italian translation is neither that of Dante, set by Verdi, nor that used by Alessandro Kirschner. Still fine to use as a translation, but it would be nice to know where it's from. Richard Mix 03:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
- It's the text from "Messale Romano", i.e., the official catholic text to be used for the Holy Mass, published by the Conferenza Episcopale Italiana (CEI - i.e., Italian Conference of Bishops). Reference (in Italian): http://www.chiesacattolica.it/pls/cci_new_v3/V3_S2EW_CONSULTAZIONE.mostra_pagina?id_pagina=2782&rifi=guest&rifp=guest. Max a.k.a. Choralia 07:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks! The other versions really should be added when someone finds time; I'll tag the work pages. Richard Mix 10:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Metrical versions
At the moment, we have a separate text page for Vater unser im Himmelreich, a German metrical version of the Pater noster. We also have (recently added) an edition of William Billings' Kittery, a setting of an English metrical version of the Pater noster (the text is attributed by Billings to Isaac Watts, but in fact seems to originate from a hymn supplement associated with the 'New Version' metrical psalms of Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady). I'd like to suggest that we keep metrical versions of the Pater noster on this page (perhaps giving the texts in a new section after the 'Texts for traditional rites' section, but before the 'Translations' section). To do this, I've proposed a merge of Vater unser im Himmelreich to this page. This would keep the metrical paternosters consistent with the treatment, for example, of the psalms, which have prose and metrical versions of the texts, in various languages, linked to the same pages. Any thoughts? EJG (talk) 17:31, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
- Hi Edmund, thanks for starting this useful discussion. Thinking from the point of view of a user who is, e.g., on the page Vater unser im Himmelreich (Samuel Scheidt) and simply wants to find the text for it, wouldn't it be easier for him/her to access a separate page, instead of having to look for the text among many versions and languages? Another point to consider is that sometimes metrical versions have a quite different translation from the original biblical text, or the text is re-arranged in a different order, in such a way that putting them side by side is not very useful. A last advantage I see in keeping separate pages is that Google indexes by page title; if there are three pages instead of just one, the chance of someone finding the exact text they want is higher. For these reasons I suggest that texts that are not exact translations stay on separate pages. (maybe this should be done for the metrical psalms, too?) Regards, —Carlos (talk) 03:45, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with Carlos here. I think it's better to keep separate pages, but to ensure that each page contains a link to the other relevant pages. A rough parallel (though not translations) is "Tantum ergo" and "Pange lingua". What matters is how users are more likely to search.
Jamesgibb (talk) 14:32, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
- Thankyou both. Having reconsidered this, I'd agree that for the Pater noster, since we have so many translations, it's easier to keep the metrical versions separate. I've added the links both ways between Pater noster and Vater unser im Himmelreich, and between Pater noster and Our Father who in heaven art.
- In terms of Carlos' additional suggestion of splitting out the metrical psalms from the psalm pages, I'm not in favour of that - oompared to the paraphrases of the Pater noster, I think it's more likely that searchers will look at the page for a particular psalm if they're looking for a metrical version of that psalm, without necessarily having already decided which version of the text they want to sing. As I see it, the fragmentation of splitting out the 'Old Version' (Sternhold/Hopkins), 'New Version' (Tate/Brady), Merrick, and Watts versions for each psalm, each into a separate page, and the difficulty this would give in seeing an overview of what settings we had for any given psalm, would outweigh the potential benefits in terms of ease of finding a text within the 'Psalm XYZ' page. EJG (talk) 17:37, 18 May 2014 (UTC)