[imarg]

As a Greek myself I never really thought much about this word. Yes, it is not common but I thought I understood this. After reading the linked article I am not so sure anymore and I am not really sure how I would translate it.

I cannot translate it to English in a single word but the way I understand it would be "what is needed, no more, no less" (which is also mentioned in the article).

I found two greek sources that seem to agree with me [1], [2]. Especially in the first it gives also as synonym the word "daily". However it also mentions that in the biblical context although it is widespread understood as "necessary" the correct interpretation (of the whole phrase) is rather "give us today the bread of tomorrow".

So, as a conclusion, I guess even as a Greek I am as much confused as all these scholars that try to translate it!

[1] https://el.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B5%CF%80%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%8... [2] https://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/modern_greek/tools/l...

[throw0101a]

> I cannot translate it to English in a single word but the way I understand it would be "what is needed, no more, no less" (which is also mentioned in the article).

> I found two greek sources that seem to agree with me [1], [2].

Except did that meaning crystalize before or after the word was used in the New Testament?

What the original authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke meant, and what people started using the word for later in history, could be two very different things.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I always took it to mean "essential" (as in "ουσιαστικός"). But then I read that wikipedia article and now I'm as confused as you :)

[marton78]

> I cannot translate it to English in a single word but the way I understand it would be "what is needed, no more, no less" (which is also mentioned in the article).

This might not be translatable to English in one word, but it can be to Swedish: lagom.

[raincom]

There is a thesis called "Indeterminacy of Translation" by the late philosopher W.V.O Quine. You don't need to worry about "fully translating" any word from one natural language to another language.

[CRConrad]

Quine, as in...?

Aha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)

So, yes -- though named not by but for him, by Douglas Hofstadter in G, E, B.

[jordigh]

I generally distrust modern Greeks' knowledge about Ancient Greek. For example, beta has changed pronunciation, becoming something like English v instead of English b like it was originally, but most modern Greeks will vehemently deny that the pronunciation has changed.

We have good evidence that it used to be like English b (voiced bilabial plosive):

https://www.foundalis.com/lan/betapro.htm

That's just one example. Native speakers are usually the worst at understanding and explaining their own language.

[imarg]

But this isn't ancient Greek.

Yes I know about the Erasmus pronunciation and that it does not conform to how we talk nowadays. And I know most Greeks haven't ever heard about his theory. And I say theory because not everyone agrees with his proposed pronunciation.

But this here is another matter. Biblical texts are not in ancient Greek.

Edit: I actually said that the biblical texts are not in ancient Greek (in that the language had evolved from the time of Plato and other such texts) but to be honest I wasn't really sure about my statement. I tried to do a quick research and I might have been mistaken.

However about this particular prayer, although it is of course not in modern Greek, I do not think there are particular hard passages that are not understood without knowing any ancient Greek.

[cgio]

I will disagree. I cannot see how a native speaker can be the worst at understanding their own language. Your own language is the one you understand best, and even though that is not directly the opposite statement, for your statement to be correct it would mean that statistically native speakers are of inferior understanding compared to others. When you take that to apply for all languages you would end up with a paradox. You give an example based on pronunciation, which does change for all languages, so I would not take knowledge of history of pronunciation to have anything to do with the instinctive understanding of concepts in your mother tongue. Now on the second part, I.e. the ability to explain, I would think it’s related to understanding, but it is more nuanced as it also has to do with knowledge of the language in which the explanation is articulated.

—-edit to add comment on pronunciation of β

On the specific pronunciation subject, I am no expert in the matter but I do wonder how that reconciles with the fact that the letters μπ make the sound b in Greek and that combination of letters is not modern but has been in Ancient Greek words too, such as in εμπνέω.

[tbrake]

> I generally distrust modern Greeks' knowledge about Ancient Greek

I'd find it fascinating that you would have encountered these discrepancies often enough to form such an opinion, assuming you're not involved in studies of or adjacent to ancient greek.

Can you highlight what OP got wrong?

[afroisalreadyin]

Isn't this a tad exaggerated, jumping from the change in the pronunciation of one letter, to native speakers being the worst? I think you need considerably more proof than that.

[dang]

I'm sure you didn't intend this as an insult but in the context of the comment you were responding to, it could have been expressed more kindly.

Unfortunately, an inflammatory grandiose generalization like "native speakers are the worst at understanding their own language" is likely to derail a thread altogether and turn itself into the (much less interesting) topic, so please let's all try to edit those out of our posts to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[nspattak]

As a Greek myself I can confirm that most of us know almost nothing about ancient Greek and a lot of us think that they do because they have the mistaken impression that the two languages slightly differ.

To be fair though, i guess this happens in any language/ethnicity so it is better to leave science to the experts/scientists and take their opinion. And ancient Greek scientists are not necessarily Greeks as much as any random Greek speaker is not a linguist.

[antegamisou]

Know-it-all armchair Internet experts are always the worst at understanding and explaining anything, especially when they attempt so with scarce evidence.