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?

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    He was using some fancier and older form of English. I believe it is grammatically correct, we just don’t use those forms anymore. The first translation of the Gita is from 1785 and it is one of the most translated Asian texts. Famously, every translator places emphasis and projects their own personal worldview unto the text. Though Oppenheimer actually could read and had read the Bhagavad Gita in its original Sanskrit, so he was just giving it his own personal twist.

    • @LeFantome
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      2311 months ago

      If “I have become” and “I am” are both valid translations then “I am become” seems like fairly minor literary license.

      I think it sounds cooler. Powerful beings are not supposed to sound ordinary.

  • Lvxferre
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    11 months ago

    It’s from English, not Sanskrit. More specifically, an archaic English feature, where you’d use “be” instead of “have” for the present tense, if the main verb denotes a change of state (such as “become”). Note how “I have become Death” sounds perfectly fine for modern readers.

    Odds are that Oppenheimer was quoting either an archaic translation Bhagavad Gita, or one using archaic language (this is typical for religious texts).

    Also give this a check. English used to follow similar rules for be/have as German does for sein/haben.

    [Shameless community promotion: check [email protected] ! This sort of question would fit like a glove there.]

    • Masterkraft0r
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      1411 months ago

      I think he translated it himself. It’s an archaic text though, so translating it in modern english would also be weird probably.

      • Lvxferre
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        211 months ago

        Linguistics is mostly descriptive, mind you; it doesn’t “make” things correct, it explains what happens.

        That said, “are belong” wouldn’t work. “Belong” indicates possession, not a change of state, so even under older grammatical rules you’d still need to use “have” with it. And you’d need to use it in the past participle (belonged), not the base form (belong). Note that Oppenheimer’s quote doesn’t have this problem because the past participle of “become” is still “become”.

        And the present perfect wouldn’t even make sense here. CATS is not saying “those bases used to belong to us, and they still do”; it’s more like “those bases used to be yours, but now they’re ours”. You’d need to use the simple present here, “belong” - “now all your bases belong to us”, without an auxiliary, with the “now” highlighting that this wasn’t true in the past but it is in the current time.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      where you’d use “be” instead of “have” for the present tense, if the main verb denotes a change of state (such as “become”).

      But in that example isn’t the “am” replacing the “have”?

      I have become death

      I am become death

      • @[email protected]
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        711 months ago

        If you think about it the fact that modern English uses “Have” in this context (primarily describing something you own) is actually weirder than “Am” (something you are)

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          It’s almost like a different word, a hononym. To have and to have done something in the past. Neither being nor possessing really works for the “have done”. Being works for become because become has being as a part of its meaning as well as a transition from some previous thing that was before.

          Though both are used similarly. I have ran. I am running. I will run. I guess have is still the odd one out since will is future tense for am. Though was also works. I was running. But was is more specific than have, it feels like “I was running” is a part of a narrative that includes a specific time, while “I have ran” doesn’t require anything else. It’s like you possess the previous action of running, so maybe it is apt. Language is funny.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            Doesn’t this get into something like past vs past perfect, future vs future perfect?

            I can’t remember this shit from grade school.

            • @[email protected]
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              111 months ago

              I’m awful with what they are called. Had to look up homonym, was about to use synonym instead.

      • @lightsecondOP
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        111 months ago

        to be is an irregular verb that takes the forms am, are, and is in the present tense. to become is a different verb which has the forms become, and becomes.

  • ѕєχυαℓ ρσℓутσρє
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    11 months ago

    The original line comes from Chapter 11 Verse 32 of the Bhagavad Gita.

    कालोऽस्मि लोकक्षयकृत्प्रवृद्धो

    (kālo ’smi loka-kṣhaya-kṛit pravṛiddho)

    The most literal translation would be: “I am mighty Time, the source of destruction of the worlds.” But काल can alternatively mean Death, and it looks like that’s the interpretation Oppenheimer chose. The verb here is a simple “am”, as in “I am Time/Death”. So the “am become” part is not due to any feature of Sanskrit itself.

    But people usually take some liberty while translating poetry. Given the context (i.e. Krishna convincing Arjuna to fight, and showing him his true form), it makes sense to use “I have become” or even “I am become” (as explained in the other comments, it’s grammatically correct).

      • FapmanB
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        1311 months ago

        We need a r/rimjobsteve community on lemmy

      • ѕєχυαℓ ρσℓутσρє
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        11 months ago

        I did learn Sanskrit in school for a few years (I’m Indian). I have some personal interest in the scriptures; although admittedly, I mostly read 12-16th century Bengali scriptures (e.g. শ্রীকৃষ্ণকীর্তন, বৈষ্ণব পদাবলী etc.). But I do know some bits about the Sanskrit scriptures as well.

  • @[email protected]
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    7011 months ago

    Am/is become is an old English biblical phrasing and the material he was translating is religious so he probably used that style to invoke the religious nature of the text. He was very well read so this was certainly a specific stylistic choice on his part.

      • @[email protected]
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        1311 months ago

        Because that’s grammatically correct by today’s standards. “Become” would typically be in the context of “have become” instead of “am become” these days.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 months ago

        Nobody would bat an eye if it was “have become” or “am becoming” either. I don’t know when it changed but I think it’s just a small change in how the word is used in modern vs old English.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    I was curious about this last week and found an article that provides some other examples of this type of usage:

    “The translation’s grammatical archaism made it even more powerful, resonating with lines in Tennyson (“I am become a name, for always roaming with a hungry heart”), Shakespeare (“I am come to know your pleasure”), and the Bible (“I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness”).”

    https://www.openculture.com/2023/07/j-robert-oppenheimer-recites-the-line-now-i-am-become-death-the-destroyer-of-worlds.html

    The article also provides some commentary from a scholar about how to translate the original Sanskrit that Oppenheimer is referencing.

    Edit: This article is referenced in the above article, and provides some interesting insight into why Oppenheimer was thinking of this quote. His situation was very similar to the situation of Arjuna, who speaks the original phrase in the ancient story. It really gives some additional insight into how many different mental levels Oppenheimer must have been able to conceptualize.

    https://m.economictimes.com/news/science/of-oppenheimer-and-the-bhagwat-gita-lead-correcting-intro-april-22-is-the-113th-birth-anniversary-of-robert-oppenheimer/articleshow/58315807.cms?from=mdr

  • Maharashtra
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    11 months ago

    He used archaic form of English instead of contemporary, possibly for the sake of dramatic effect.

    Imagine that it’s part of a longer monologue filled with "thou"s, "betwixt"s, "harken"s and you’re on the right track.

    • @[email protected]
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      6711 months ago

      For the lazy:

      The use of “is become” here relates to verbs of motion/transition; verbs of motion would take be while other verbs would take have. There is no such grammatical distinction in English perfect forms anymore.

      English began with this distinction, as did sibling languages like German.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    Old English from a millennia ago sounds like a foreign language, even early modern English from Shakespeare’s time sounds pretty odd. So it depends on when the translation was done. With English it’s common for newly invented words to get popularized and end up in the dictionary. The same kind of thing happens with grammar. Conversely people still sometimes use obsolete words from early modern English as a way to emphasize a statement.

    The grammar of that quote may be due to the English translation of the time or something he simply interpreted in his own way. It sounds grammatically off for contemporary English, but that’s relative to the time frame. I imagine the English we speak today may sound odd to someone a few hundred years from now.

    • @[email protected]
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      711 months ago

      It’s the not reason, since the quote comes from Oppenheimer’s own translation of the Sanskrit text to English.

  • @[email protected]
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    1011 months ago

    Only tangentially related: Latin, the dead language, heavily tied into romantic, classical education. I recently found out that Latin in general wouldn’t say, I did this, but instead, this was done. Less of an emphasis on individual agency. Fascinating aspects about linguistics, how thought, sense of self has evolved over millenia.

    • @[email protected]
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      411 months ago

      I don’t think that’s quite right - I’m not fluent in latin, but I know it has both passive and active conjugations for its verbs, so you can express both the idea of doing something and the idea of something being done.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 months ago

        Yes, but the tendency is there. Notably, “Alea iacta est” (commonly translated as “The die has fallen”) is closer in literal meaning to “The die has been thrown”.

      • Regular Human
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        211 months ago

        We can do both in modern English as well, but there are clear preferences by modern English speakers

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    I have not sure. I am become a suspicion it’s from Old English (the malt liquor, not the language).

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    Students of French will recognize the use of the verb “to be” along with verbs such as “come” or “become”. As others have mentioned, we changed this in English, but it remains so in other languages.