17 Comments
So...please tell me what the correct translation would be for 'We have spoken' Thanks.
No, just "we have told"; "Them" would need a "τους". "We have told them"=εμείς τους έχουμε πει.
This does not make sense in English, but I think I get what you are saying. I think the "them" or "her" is silent, but still carries the meaning. You can say, "we have spoken" or "we have talked" but you would never said "we have told" as a full sentence. I'd be like, "FINISH THE SENTENCE ALREADY". Hahah.
In Greek, there is no told or say, there is just λέω (πει is a form of it, it's irregular). That's why the best translation is "they have said", but since λέω can be translated as "tell", we must accept that answer, even if it sounds incomplete. :)
"Say" is transitive. "We have said" isn't just incomplete, it's grammatically wrong.
Just sayin'…
Maybe a functional translation would be something like , "we've already said that" or "we told them".
Thanks for that. I especially like the "we told them" idea. I put "we have spoken" (rejected) which kind of means "we've said all we wanted to say". It's something pompous people say and it's really annoying. I wonder if έχουμε πει has any shades of that?
I think that έχουμε πει is not a sentence that can stand on its own; it needs a context. For example, you are with friends and you are trying to order: ''Has everyone said what he wants?'' ''Εμείς έχουμε πει'' (We have said). Nothing pompous in my opinion. :)
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Is the irregular form "πει" derived from an other (older?) verb which also means "to say"?
No, είπα (from which πει derives) was the aorist form of λέγω (which became λέω) along with έλεξα (which is no longer used). The verb λέγω was as irregular as λέω. :)
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It is true that λέγω is suppletive in Ancient Greek, but the question is correct that the different parts of speech do derive from different roots, just that this process goes back well over 3,000 years. The aorist root is cognate with Latin vox, for example (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B5%E1%BC%B6%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BD)
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To troll1995 and involans: Thank you for your answers. So, as I assumed, the origine of the irregular form is from a different root.
