Translators to the gods?

Alejandro

Active Member
Well, you could actually take the whole notion a lot farther than this. Assuming that a certain deity condescends to speak to you in whichever language you best understand, haven't you ever wondered in what accent s\he would speak it, or if s\he could/would speak to you in slang? Would the deity be street enough to speak the language of the street, with all its inflections and nuances? At any rate the question presupposes that the gods speak a certain language or languages, with the same limitations and parameters which restrict human speech and its cultural considerations. And if this is the case then the answer to the question is possibly Yes or No.
>>Yes, they need translators, because French gods, or Inuit gods, or Zulu gods, speak only French, Inuit, and Zulu, etc., or at least not all members of the pantheon in question are that well-versed in Kiswahili, Lakota, Mandarin, or the other roughly 6,000 modern tongues of humankind.
>>No, they ain't need no translator, yaw, because, included in each divinity's microprocessor, is the really nifty ability to automatically learn and speak both his/her own language as well as any other form of communication anyone could ever invent on earth or in heaven.

In most ancient mythologies and religions, however, though the gods may not necessarily be omniscient or omnipotent, they certainly do transcend pretty much every aspect of human existence, including human thought and speech. So I presume that the Greeks and the Romans, who were quite liberal with their syncretism, when they freely identified their own gods with those of the various nations and peoples they encountered beyond their immediate cultural reference-frame, took it is a natural given that if Zeus was Amūn and Amūn was Zeus, then he could speak and understand both Greek and Egyptian well enough, or if Venus Caelestis was Tabiti and Tabiti was Venus Caelestis, then she could most likely think and dream in both Latin and Scythian. The Greeks and Romans shared a myth in which Hermes/Mercurius invented the first human languages and somehow bestowed them upon humankind some time after the Flood of Deucalion, which reminds of the story of the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis. It seems that it would have taken a degree of open-mindedness and humility on the part of any of these peoples, however, to imagine that if the gods did have a native language, it was not necessarily Greek, Latin, Egyptian or Scythian. Considering how language, like all other aspects of human culture, is in a constant state of flux, would anyone (back then) have considered that the gods' language, if they did have their own native language (or if among themselves they spoke any language in even remotely the same way we understand this concept as humans), was perhaps subject to the same changes over time as our own languages are?
 

Caburus

Active Member
Hebrews believed God speaks Hebrew, Moslems favour Arabic, and Hindus the Sanskrit. The British Empire knew he spoke English, but the Pope knows it's Latin. I'm not sure about any other religions. But the gods being gods, need no translators.
I would expect deities to not only communicate in all human languages, but in all animal languages too, as animals are often used as messengers or information gatherers, or represent the god/dess in some way. (Odin's raven spies, Inanna talking to the fly, Athena and her owl, Thoth and his baboons, Jehovah and the whale, etc.)
I would assume the deities communicate through some telepathic direct-to-brain speech.
With regard to oracles, the Pythia at Delphi had to have her answers, obtained from Apollo, translated for the ears of her foriegn questioners. So presumably Apollo spoke to her, or rather she could only understand him, in Greek, and not in the language of the original question.
 

dtango

Member
According to Homer and the Egyptian funerary texts the gods had their own language.

Iliad 1.403

But you came, goddess, and freed him from his bonds, when you had quickly called to high Olympus him of the hundred hands, whom the gods call Briareus, but all men Aegaeon; for he is mightier than his father. He sat down by the side of the son of Cronos, exulting in his glory, and the blessed

Iliad 20.74
…against Leto stood forth the strong helper, Hermes, and against Hephaestus the great, deep-eddying river, that god called Xanthus, and men Scamander.

As regards the funerary texts, there are two kinds of Judgment of men by the gods described there. One is focusing on the bodily traits (the man being judged has to have an appearance like that of the gods) and the other is focusing on the speech: the man has to be able to speak certain words, certain language which, obviously, must be that of the gods.

This fact explains the rather strange insistence of the myths that all men were speaking one and the same language initially. Whoever did not speak the language of the gods was exterminated and so the remaining were all speaking the language of the gods!
 

fibi ducks

Active Member
According to Homer and the Egyptian funerary texts the gods had their own language.

Iliad 1.403

But you came, goddess, and freed him from his bonds, when you had quickly called to high Olympus him of the hundred hands, whom the gods call Briareus, but all men Aegaeon; for he is mightier than his father. He sat down by the side of the son of Cronos, exulting in his glory, and the blessed

Iliad 20.74
…against Leto stood forth the strong helper, Hermes, and against Hephaestus the great, deep-eddying river, that god called Xanthus, and men Scamander.

thanks dTango, i often wondered about these examples from the iliad. but then it could be that mostly the gods spoke the same language as humans, with these exceptions. i'm trying to imagine what a plausable reason for that state of affairs might have been. i guess the gods stuck with the old names while humans came up with new ones. (???)
 

Caburus

Active Member
Interestingly a similar thing appears in Norse mythology - the Aesir called the primordial giant Ymir, but the frost-giants call him Aurgelmir.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
but then it could be that mostly the gods spoke the same language as humans, with these exceptions. i'm trying to imagine what a plausable reason for that state of affairs might have been. i guess the gods stuck with the old names while humans came up with new ones. (???)
I'll agree with that.

Ovid also says in his Metamorphoses that one of Dream-spirit sons of Somnus (the Roman version of the Greek sleep-god Hypnos) was called Icelus by the gods but that mortals knew him by the name Phobetor.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
According to Homer and the Egyptian funerary texts the gods had their own language.

Iliad 1.403

But you came, goddess, and freed him from his bonds, when you had quickly called to high Olympus him of the hundred hands, whom the gods call Briareus, but all men Aegaeon; for he is mightier than his father. He sat down by the side of the son of Cronos, exulting in his glory, and the blessed
This might, however, be based on a more ancient and now-lost Titanomachy in which Aegaeon is actually a patronymic rather than a proper name. The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica tells us that the Corinthian Eumelus, or Arctinus of Miletus, wrote of an ancient sea-giant called Aegaeon, who supported the Titans in their war against Zeus and his siblings. Another scholion on Apollonius quotes Ion of Chios as saying that the Aegaeon whom, in the lliad, Thetis sent up from the Mediterranean to Zeus' aid was a son of Thalassa (a personification of the Mediterranean Sea). The previous scholion calls Aegaeon a son of Pontus and Gaia, and Lattimore's translation of your passage suggests that the Hekatonkheiros Briareus was the son of this Aegaeon, or rather Aegaeus (Aigaios): whom the gods call Briareus, but all men Aegaeus's son. That would make Homer's quote actually mean "Briareus is mightier/greater than his father [the sea-giant] Aegaeus." In this version [of the myth], then, Aegaeon simply denotes "Son of Aegaeus."
 

dtango

Member
Interestingly a similar thing appears in Norse mythology - the Aesir called the primordial giant Ymir, but the frost-giants call him Aurgelmir.
Ovid also says in his Metamorphoses that one of Dream-spirit sons of Somnus (the Roman version of the sleep-god Hypnos) was called Icelus by the gods but that mortals knew him by the name Phobetor.
Very interesting and useful information, thank you both!
The Egyptians had a name for the language of the gods, HkAw, but unfortunately the translators render this term as “magic words” presenting thus the gods to recite magic incantations instead of speaking.

I believe that gods and giants (or Titans) are no products of the imagination. Apart from different languages gods and men are reported to belong to different races because men are called “black-heads” in Sumerian and Chinese traditions and the general impression is that the gods were blond, or at least of lighter color than men.
Any information in connection with the above will be greatly appreciated.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
The Egyptians had a name for the language of the gods, HkAw, but unfortunately the translators render this term as “magic words” presenting thus the gods to recite magic incantations instead of speaking.
Tru dat! :)
Apart from different languages gods and men are reported to belong to different races because men are called “black-heads” in Sumerian and Chinese traditions and the general impression is that the gods were blond, or at least of lighter color than me. Any information in connection with the above will be greatly appreciated.
But is ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga necessarily meant as a comparison between the Sumerians and their own gods? Couldn't they just have been comparing themselves to other human beings? And maybe it doesn't necessarily indicate a phenotype as such. We do hear of the controversial idea that the Aztecs (or more properly the Mexica) believed their chief god Quetzalcóatl to be blonde and bearded, and that thus they mistakenly identified their conqueror Cortés with this deity when the Spanish landed in North America. But I can think of two ancient views which seem to run counter to your suggestion, granted that these views are not from the Sumerians or the Chinese. In one view the gods bear pretty much the same appearance as humans while in the other they are definitely darker in complexion, not lighter.

The ancient peoples of the Mediterranean Basin imagined that their gods bore the same skin-colour and general appearance as they did. Or at least that's the idea reported to us by their neighbouring Greeks. Xenophanes of Kolophon, in fact, observed this phenomenon to the point of sarcastic criticism saying that:
... if cattle and horses and lions had hands
Or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
Horses like horses and cattle like cattle
Also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies
Of such a sort as the form they themselves have.
Moreover, the "Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black" while the "Thracians say that they are pale and red-haired." Evidently for the same reason, other Greeks referred to the Libyan god Ammon, whom the Egyptians called Amūn, as Zeus Aithiops, because he was dark-skinned. It's interesting, then, that Alexander the Great, who doesn't seem to have been particularly dark-skinned, when he arrived in Egypt, claimed to be the son of Ammon, and therefore divine himself.

Going back eastward, in India, from which a lot of your aforementioned Chinese traditions are traceable, we have the notion that some of the highest gods are very dark-skinned, so much so that they are blue in complexion. Incidentally, these gods, like Rāma and Kṛṣṇa, are famously popular among light-complexioned Indians, but this concept of their dark skin-colour necessarily singling them out as members of a different "race" or ethnic group from human beings seems to be just as controversial as the idea of Quetzalcóatl being blonde and blue-eyed. In the case of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa anyway, the point about a difference between humans and gods is moot, since these two are both as human as they are divine.
 

dtango

Member

But is ùĝ saĝ gíg-ga necessarily meant as a comparison between the Sumerians and their own gods? Couldn't they just have been comparing themselves to other human beings?

There is no doubt that Sumerians called themselves Blakheads but when reference is made to the creatures of the gods then the entire humanity is meant

Enuma Elis, translators Benjamin R. Foster(F) E.A.Speiser (S)
VI, ~107
He shall be the shepherd of the black-headed folk, his creatures. (F)
May he shepherd the black-headed ones (S)
VI, ~115
He shall appoint the black-headed folk to serve him.(S)
May he order the black-headed to serve him.(F)
VI,~119
Let the black-headed wait on their gods (S)
Let the black-headed folk be divided as to gods (F)

The division of the people according to the number of the gods, the sheepfolds they created, are known from the Old Testament, the ancient Near Eastern texts and Plato (“The Crito” 109b):

Sometime, the gods divided by lot between themselves the regions of the entire earth without quarreling….
…and when they settled they were feeding us as herds, as possessions and cattle theirs; without using violence, as do the herdsmen when they take the herds to pasture ground hitting them…

In this case therefore the humans in general are meant.

ERR A AND ISHUM
Translator Stephanie Dalley

Tablet I
(40) He gave them to Erra, warrior of the gods,
"Let them march at your side!
Whenever the hubbub of settled people
becomes unbearable to you,
And you want to wreak destruction,
To kill off some black-headed people and lay
low Shakkan's cattle.

Erra, the warrior of the gods, who kills the black-headed people is just a paid killer as is the Egyptian one in the following passages from Spell 317 of the Coffin Texts:

I have carried out your slaughterings, you gods, I have taken those who rebelled against you, I have been placed in the rank of Nile-god.

A few lines down, in §116, he says: They see me in my rank of Nile-god, for indeed I am the young god.

(120) All the (other) gods are afraid of battle,
So that the black-headed people despise (them).

Tablet II
(51)The black-headed people will revile you, and
you will not accept their prayers.

(~106) Ishum made his voice heard and spoke,
Addressed his words to the warrior Erra,
"How could you plot evil for gods and men?
Even though you have plotted evil against the
black-headed people, will you not turn
back?"

This type of “hero,” as Gilgamesh and Hercules were, tortured and killed humans carrying out the slaughtering of the gods hoping to be recognized as gods themselves (they were seeking…immortality), but when the gods refused to accept them as equals they attacked the gods.

As for Xenophanes... not all ancient Greek philosophers were bright.:)
 

Runemalar

New Member
do the gods nead translators ? Somehow I don't believe that they can undsersatnd any language. does anyone know a story where a god neads a translator?
I cannot believe that humanoid beings, whether they might have made contact with man or not, could ever be logically con sidered to be 'gods'. As perhaps older, therefore more advanced beings may claim to be gods before ignorant humans who do not realise that the infinite spirit of creation is more of an elemental and universal force than an individual humanoid being, therefore I can only imagine that they 'may' have a matrix based technology capable of translating thought processes into a number of known languages or they would obviously require a translator as we do,but I deny them a god hood. The idea is absurd and illogical
 

dtango

Member
but I deny them a god hood. The idea is absurd and illogical
Have you ever suspected that it is your idea of godhood which is absurd and illogical and not the ancients’?
They were talking of gods with whom they were living side by side and had sex with.
Their gods were just another human race who spoke a different language; not the immaterial spiritual beings you have in mind.
So, whose idea is illogical?
 
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