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?
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.
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.
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.
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I think he translated it himself. It’s an archaic text though, so translating it in modern english would also be weird probably.
Can you make “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” correct with some linguistics magic?
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.
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
Yes. The conjugates for “to be” are: I am, You are, He/she is, etc.
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)
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.
Doesn’t this get into something like past vs past perfect, future vs future perfect?
I can’t remember this shit from grade school.
I’m awful with what they are called. Had to look up homonym, was about to use synonym instead.
to beis an irregular verb that takes the formsam,are, andisin the present tense.to becomeis a different verb which has the formsbecome, andbecomes.
Ah maybe I can learn german understand half the memes on lenny
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).
Thanks for sharing your knowledge of ancient Hindu scripture, SexualPolytope.
Great explanation. Do you have any formal education in Sanskrit or the gita?
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.
I knew the reference but not the language. Thank you for the explication!
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.
No one would bat an eye at similar phrases such as “I am made anew”
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.
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.
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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”).”
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.
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.
There’s a discussion here:
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.
See also the Christmas carol “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”
Lord is come. Rock is push. Flag is win.
Lord is Baba.
And Baba, as always, is You.
French and other languages still have the distinction, while English has switched to using “has” everywhere.
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Yep and this construct is still pretty normal in German, we would say for example “ich bin gegangen” (I am gone) versus “Ich hab gesagt“ (I have said). Honestly I don’t think could explain exactly why some words take an “I am” construct but motion is as good a theory as any.
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.
It’s the not reason, since the quote comes from Oppenheimer’s own translation of the Sanskrit text to English.
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.
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.
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”.
We can do both in modern English as well, but there are clear preferences by modern English speakers
I took 2 years of Latin in high school, but that was decades ago, so you may be right
I have not sure. I am become a suspicion it’s from Old English (the malt liquor, not the language).
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.
Another one: give it the old college try.
Because English is a terrible language.
Signed, an English speaker.
