# לכו ונלכה באור ה'‏



## tyzeka

Are these words Hebrew? If they are, what is the meaning? 

Thank you very much!


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## arielipi

לכו ונלכה באור ה
lechu you go
venelcha and we go (after you go and with you)
be'or in (the) light (of)
hashem god


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## Drink

arielipi said:


> לכו ונלכה באור ה
> lechu you go
> venelcha and we go (after you go and with you)
> be'or in (the) light (of)
> hashem god



To fix your English:
Go, and we'll walk in the light of Hashem (G-d).


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## arielipi

Drink said:


> To fix your English:
> Go, and we'll walk in the light of Hashem (G-d).


no, it is go; its the same root and this root is used for go.


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## tyzeka

Thank you for the explanation. I really appreciated it.


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## arbelyoni

It's part of Isaiah 2:5 - "[O house of Jacob] come and let us walk in the light of the Lord" (KJV)


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## Drink

arielipi said:


> no, it is go; its the same root and this root is used for go.



Actually switching "go" to "walk" was my least important change, but there is a reason I did that as well. In Hebrew it makes sense to use the same word, but in English, "go" is more about the result and "walk" is more about the action, which is why in the first use, "go" makes more sense, and in the second one, "walk" does. As arbelyoni pointed out, the KJV agrees with me. Like I said, I was correcting your English, not your Hebrew.


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## arielipi

Transcribing biblical languages (ancient) is hard to do, and to pass the exact meaning of an old language is harder yet; for that i try as hard as i can to maintain what hebrew gives, not what english wants... hope this clarifies why i used go in both places.


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## Drink

arielipi said:


> Transcribing biblical languages (ancient) is hard to do, and to pass the exact meaning of an old language is harder yet; for that i try as hard as i can to maintain what hebrew gives, not what english wants... hope this clarifies why i used go in both places.



Like I also said, switching "go" to "walk" was my least important change.


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## airelibre

(Possibly important) grammatical points:
לכו is a command form of the verb "go", or as some have said, perhaps more fittingly here "walk". (In Hebrew, there is no one-one translation for "walk".) It is also in the plural form, meaning the command is to more than one person.

נלכה is a jussive (is this the right word?) form of the verb. This means it is a word that wills an action. Luckily, in English, in the first person plural (we), we have something similar: let us go, which here does not literally mean "allow us to go", but is a word of willing or urging of an action.


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## Drink

airelibre said:


> נלכה is a jussive (is this the right word?) form of the verb. This means it is a word that wills an action. Luckily, in English, in the first person plural (we), we have something similar: let us go, which here does not literally mean "allow us to go", but is a word of willing or urging of an action.



No, it's the cohortative, which is a form that only occurs in the first person (in this particular case it is the first person plural). It can be translated as "let me/us walk" or "I/we shall walk", but essentially it is not much different from the ordinary future tense, which would be translated as "I/we will walk".


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## Albert Schlef

Drink said:


> airelibre said:
> 
> 
> 
> נלכה is a jussive (is this the right word?) form of the verb. This means it is a word that wills an action. Luckily, in English, in the first person plural (we), we have something similar: let us go, which here does not literally mean "allow us to go", but is a word of willing or urging of an action.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, it's the cohortative, which is a form that only occurs in the first person (in this particular case it is the first person plural). It can be translated as "let me/us walk" or "I/we shall walk", but essentially it is not much different from the ordinary future tense, which would be translated as "I/we will walk".
Click to expand...


Why, the dictionary explains cohortative not like you do ("not much different from the ordinary future tense") but like airelibre does ("is used for mutual encouragement or discouragement", or "Inflected to express plea, insistence, imploring, self-encouragement, wish, desire, intent, command, purpose, or consequence").

Interestingly, I see that two verses earlier we have something similar: "לכו ונעלה אל הר ה'‏". So at first I thought "X-לכו ו" is some general idiom for "let's X". But it doesn't seem quite right to say "לכו ונאכלה פלאפל", or does it? ;-)


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## airelibre

Albert Schlef said:


> Why, the dictionary explains cohortative not like you do ("not much different from the ordinary future tense") but like airelibre does ("is used for mutual encouragement or discouragement", or "Inflected to express plea, insistence, imploring, self-encouragement, wish, desire, intent, command, purpose, or consequence").
> 
> Interestingly, I see that two verses earlier we have something similar: "לכו ונעלה אל הר ה'‏". So at first I thought "X-לכו ו" is some general idiom for "let's X". But it doesn't seem quite right to say "לכו ונאכלה פלאפל", or does it? ;-)


That might just be more to do with the fact it's biblical language. If you're right that it's an idiom, then maybe they would say something like that if they had falafel thousands of years ago.


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## Ruiy

arielipi said:


> Transcribing biblical languages (ancient) is hard to do, and to pass the exact meaning of an old language is harder yet; for that i try as hard as i can to maintain what hebrew gives, not what english wants... hope this clarifies why i used go in both places.





¿Traductological rule ?


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## arielipi

Ruiy said:


> ¿Traductological rule ?


Well, some people seem to think its better to translate how english would say it, i for one think its better to translate as source says it.


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## Ruiy

Yes, there are different guidelines and methodologies to follow when we translating. And this takes different shades depending on the idiom-source and idiom-destination  concerned.




ਤੁਹਾਡਾ ਆਪਣਾ.


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## airelibre

Ruiy said:


> Yes, there are different guidelines and methodologies to follow when we translating. And this takes different shades depending on the idiom-source and idiom-destination  concerned.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ਤੁਹਾਡਾ ਆਪਣਾ.



Idioma = language, no idiom


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## MuttQuad

Translating from one language into another, one can be as exactly literal as possible, or one can translate into the target language's equivalent of idiom, tone, and meaning.

Which way -- and how "loosely" to go -- depends on the intended use. For example, highly idiomatic advertising material should be translated very idiomatically, whereas a recipe for food should be more literal.

In going from French to English, for example, do we want "It's raining halberds, it's raining battle axes, or it's raining cats and dogs"?


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## arielipi

When translating the bible its hard enough as it is just to understand the hebrew itself, so to translate it to english which is not even remotly close...


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## Drink

arielipi said:


> When translating the bible its hard enough as it is just to understand the hebrew itself, so to translate it to english which is not even remotly close...



If you look in any Hebrew-English dictionary, either biblical or modern, you will see that the verb "הלך" is defined as both "to go" and "to walk". See for example Morfix. So I don't see what you mean by "not even remotely close".


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## arielipi

Hebrew is semitic, neglish is PIE if i recall correctly. and yes, hebrew words tend to be translated into many words in english, but here it is to me more as go than walk.


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## Drink

arielipi said:


> Hebrew is semitic, neglish is PIE if i recall correctly. and yes, hebrew words tend to be translated into many words in english, but here it is to me more as go than walk.



In that case, can you explain why?


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## arielipi

It just does, why do you agree that לכו is go - it couldve been "walk first"


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## Drink

arielipi said:


> It just does, why do you agree that לכו is go - it couldve been "walk first"



The first could have been "walk" as well, but it's up for debate. The KJV even translates it as "come".


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## Ruiy

airelibre said:


> Idioma = language, no idiom




The term << languague >> is too comprehensive in what regards their semantic content.  I prefer a term whose content itself meets the following essential notes or generics semes:


/verbal communication system/ + /politic and geographically bounded/ + /belonging to a community of speakers/ = ¿¿¿???? 




Any better suggestions ..


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## Drink

Ruiy said:


> The term / languague / is too comprehensive in terms of its semantic content.  I prefer a term whose content itself meets the following essential notes:
> 
> 
> verbal communication system + politic and geographically bounded + belonging to a community of speakers = ¿¿¿????
> 
> Any better suggestions ..



Yes, that's called a "language".


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## Ruiy

Drink said:


> Yes, that's called a "language".




No, I doubt it..


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## Ruiy

I insist: it is too comprehensive; this concept covers both verbal language and non-verbal.


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## airelibre

Yeah: language.
Perhaps "lenguaje" has different connotations in Spanish, but in English (our native language!), this is the word we use.


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## Ruiy

airelibre said:


> Yeah: language.
> Perhaps "lenguaje" has different connotations in Spanish, but in English (our native language!), this is the word we use.




All right, ¡ what can I argue to a native speaker !, he,he,he..
But anyway, the term does not satisfy me.



Bye...


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## MuttQuad

Ruiy said:


> All right, ¡ what can I argue to a native speaker !, he,he,he..
> But anyway, the term does not satisfy me.
> 
> 
> 
> Bye...



Same in American English. We say "language" for what you may call "lengua" or "idioma." Now, you have had responses from two well-educated native speakers. Why should you be dissatisfied?


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## Ruiy

MuttQuad said:


> Same in American English. We say "language" for what you may call "lengua" or "idioma." Now, you have had responses from two well-educated native speakers. Why should you be dissatisfied?




Because of all the nuances that we lose. I was sure that there were a number of terms in English that conceptualized these different nuances. But I do not remember where I read it. Probably it was a corpus of specialized terminology and not words belonging to colloquial speech.


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## MuttQuad

Ruiy said:


> Because of all the nuances that we lose. I was sure that there were a number of terms in English that conceptualized these different nuances. But I do not remember where I read it. Probably it was a corpus of specialized terminology and not words belonging to colloquial speech.



In English, we say "language" or, sometimes "tongue" with pretty much identical meaning; but "idiom" and "dialect" are too different in meaning to be considered merely nuanced.


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## Drink

MuttQuad said:


> In English, we say "language" or, sometimes "tongue" with pretty much identical meaning; but "idiom" and "dialect" are too different in meaning to be considered merely nuanced.



I disagree. "Tongue" can only refer to a subset of language (for example, it can't refer to body language). The word "speech" is also used to refer to spoken language only, and "idiom" is sometimes used to refer to the deeper levels of language. But in the end, "language" covers all of this.


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## MuttQuad

Drink said:


> I disagree. "Tongue" can only refer to a subset of language (for example, it can't refer to body language). The word "speech" is also used to refer to spoken language only, and "idiom" is sometimes used to refer to the deeper levels of language. But in the end, "language" covers all of this.



I thought we were discussing spoken/written language, in which case I can assure you that "tongue" is often used as an equivalent for language, as in "In what tongue is that fellow speaking?" or "What is your native tongue?" Refer to AHD4, def. no. 3. for "tongue."It is, however, more common to use "language" in such cases than "tongue."


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## Drink

MuttQuad said:


> I thought we were discussing spoken/written language, in which case I can assure you that "tongue" is often used as an equivalent for language, as in "In what tongue is that fellow speaking?" or "What is your native tongue?" Refer to AHD4, def. no. 3. for "tongue."It is, however, more common to use "language" in such cases than "tongue."



Well yes in this context, but you seemed to be making a very general statement.


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## Yuzer

Drink said:


> Yes, that's called a "language".


I actually tend to agree with Ruiy, his "formula" can apply to a dialect as well.


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