La traducción de coniux y uxor referidos a la Virgen María en las traducciones de los evangelios al inglés antiguoThe translation of coniux and uxor referring to the Holy Virgin Mary in translations of the Gospels into Old English

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that in translations of the New Testament into some old Germanic languages, there is a different usage of the term relative to “married woman, wife”, depending on whether the reference is to Virgin Mary, on the one hand, or any other married woman, on the other. As an explanation for this terminological difference in the translations into different Germanic languages, we highlight the need to linguistically acknowledge the perpetual virginity of Mary. Along similar lines, the aim of this article is also to analyze the terms used in the translations of the New Testament into different dialects of Old English to refer to Virgin Mary as a married woman, comparing them with the ones used in same texts to refer to other women in the same condition, in order to verify if Virgin Mary receives a different treatment when she is referred to as wife.

Keywords

• old english; terminology; new testament; wife; virgin mary