Desiderative subjunctive

Hi everyone,
I am finding it difficult to translate into English the Latin subjunctive when It expresses a wish. Could you plese help me to translate the following?

1. Utinam redeat!
2. Utinam redierit!
3. Utinam rediret!
4. Utinam redisset!

I know that 1 and 2 express a feasible desire in the present and in the past respectively, and 3 and 4 an unfeasible desire, but I don't know how to phrase that in English.
Thanks for you help.
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

I'm not sure what the convention is. I would add "hopefully" or "I hope" in the first two, e.g.

1. Utinam redeat!
Hopefully he returns/ will return!

2. Utinam redierit!
I hope he has returned!

And in 3 and 4, you can add "if only":

3. Utinam rediret!
If only he returned!

4. Utinam redisset!
If only he had returned!

In 3 and 4, you can also use "I wish" instead of "if only": "I wish he returned!", "I wish he had returned!". Note that in Latin, you can also replace the utinam with velim in case of 1 and 2, and with vellem in case of 3 and 4.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Using "I hope" is also my first idea for the first two sentences. I would use "I hope" in the translation of utinam redeat, too ("I hope he returns"). With "hopefully" it means something different, to my mind ("Hopefully he will return" = "There's reason to hope that he will return").
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

With "hopefully" it means something different, to my mind
Wow, are you sure you're not a conservative? :D "Hopefully" in the same sense as "I hope" is frowned upon mainly by super-conservative linguists.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
I'm sorry, if there is such a usage it's just that I'm unfamiliar with it.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
I mean, "Hopefully, he will come" does imply that you hope he will come, but that's not the entire meaning (again, to my mind; maybe I'm wrong and in some contexts it is): it also means that there is reason for that hope; that you think it's kind of likely to happen — so more like "There's reason to hope he will come" than just "I hope he comes".
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

You're overthinking it. "Hopefully" is just an evil Germanism.
 
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