No Stupid Questions • 1 year ago

Why is “Now I Am Become Death” phrased so awkwardly in English?

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Why is “Now I Am Become Death” phrased so awkwardly in English?

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No Stupid Questions • 1 year ago

Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds — J. Robert Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer famously quoted this from The Bhagavad Geeta in the context of the nuclear bomb. The way this sentence is structured feels weird to me. “Now I am Death” or “Now I have become Death” sound much more natural in English to me.

Was he trying to simulate some formulation in Sanskrit that is not available in the English language?

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1 year ago
Yes. The conjugates for “to be” are: I am, You are, He/she is, etc.

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