I would consider the Italian text to be as good an indicator or better than the eventual Latin, since it probably was composed in German or Italian and the Italian text was probably the one that was labored over most carefully as it was revised. The Latin version will be authoritative when it is released but the fact that it is not yet released means that it will be an official translation, probably from the Italian, not from the German. I doubt that even the German version available now represents the pope’s own words—it was probably made from the Italian because Italian is the lingua franca that had to have been used on a document like this that underwent, by all accounts, a long series of discussions and revisions. The pope is absolutely fluent in Italian and my guess is that he either wrote it orginally in Italian or that very early on a German original was translated into a workin Italian base document.
Many encyclicals don’t even have their first draft directly from the pope’s own hand—often someone else drafts a working first draft to get things started.
That may not be the case here. Benedict may well have written a first draft and, if so, it might have been in German, but might just as well have been in Italian. He’s certainly capable of having written a first draft in Latin, but I very, very seriously doubt that that’s what happened.
So the Latin text, when released, will be helpful for comparison purposes, but it will represent a staffer’s translation from the Italian. Whether Benedict himself will have compared this official Latin translation, when it is published, with what he approved on June 29 in Italian, I don’t know. But even if he did, the Italian version remains the starting point for interpretation. The Latin authoritative but will necessarily be interpreted as to it’s meaning. Knowing that the Latin was not the earliest version means that, even though it is official, in interpreting it the Italian will be central.
I wondered the same thing: the “teeth” idiom is not in line with the Pope’s elegant and precise style. Thank’s for noticing.
As far as your specific question is concerned, I would say that the English translation’s use of “real teeth” is just an unfortunate choice by the translators. The idea in the other two languages is of actual, concrete form. The Italian is more concrete than the German but the English is too loose. But I wouldn’t place much weight on it—just an infelicitous translating choice in English. The Latin version probably won’t resolve anything. I’d just take the German and Italian together as pointing toward “concrete form,” which is probably a weaker way of putting it than “real teeth.” In some ways, I could wish that the Italian had had something closer to an expression like “real teeth” at this spot. But it didn’t and therefore it should not have been translated as “real teeth.”
I have to retract the claim that the Italian is more concrete than the German. They are identical. I was working from memory having read both cursorily. The German is an exact translation of the Italian. The English is not.
“But “Acquire real teeth” has an utterly different meaning (at least to English speakers “real teeth” implies authority — “muscle”, while “give real substance” or “give real form” implies a structure, how something is organized)”
It depends on how the Italian means “form”—for someone as philosophically as inclined as Benedict is, he might mean by “form” something more than merely structure. Then again, since this was heavily revised by advisors, it may be more bland, along the lines you describe. But I doubt that the Latin will help here. I agree that “acquire real teeth” does imply enforcement and authority and in that sense the English translation is seriously flawed.
I don't speak Italian but see concretezza
Italian for "substance" is sostanza
The difference between Italian and German versions is illusory.
Actually, the Italian does not use “form” at all, only the German does. The Italian merely speaks of a concretization of the concept. The German turns this into “concrete form.”
It would have been better to use a verb: “so that the concept of a family of nations might be really concretized”
in both the German and the English, though this is hard to do in German—the verbs available tend to be abstractifying Latinizations. “Konkretiert” can, I suppose, be used, and perhaps it would be just odd enough to make the point.
"...in order to give a concrete reality to the concept of the family of nations..."
**Which is right? We’ll have to wait until the Vatican posts the Latin version.**
Others are waiting for this too.
Excellent point. It certainly was what Reuters and AP leftist media glommed onto.
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Sorry, Mark,
Those differences do not diminish my points in the least.
I wish something did.
They don’t.
The net bottom line is ESSENTIALLY the same.
Euphemisms are still euphemisms.
The global family of nations is merely another name for collective global government.
The 10 regions have already been articulated quite in keeping with Biblical prophecy.
There will be NO retreat from those goals between now and Armageddon.
Papal pontifications of the sort I’ve read regarding this document can ONLY facilitate such a rush toward hell on earth.
Regardless of the word dicing and slicing, the Pope also quite disturbingly, comes across as writing out of both sides of his fingers.
And to do so about such an important issue is more than a little disturbing.
The bottom line still is . . .
—The globalist oligarchy probably cares about what the Pope says only in as much as it makes their goals easier and faster or harder and slower.
—To have him even SOUND LIKE—to whatever degree—that he is encouraging any move at all even TOWARD global government must leave them gleeful.
—Beyond that, the globalists’ boss, satan, must be ecstatic realizing that it will be all the easier seducing more Roman Catholics into his globalist snares with such phrasing from the Pope.
This is an excellent point. The expression jumped out at me, too, because it was too idiomatic in the first place (almost journalistic) and it sounded completely out of character.
I am traveling and hadn’t seen the original (I think it was written in Italian) until now. But it is very clear that the English translation twisted it significantly. There has been a problem with many, many of the English translations coming out of the Vatican, and IIRC, they even replaced some of the translators a couple of years ago. BUt the problem probably lies more with the people who approve the translations than the translators themselves.