I have frequently seen 選ばれし者 used as a translation for the English phrase
_"The Chosen One"_. I know that し is the 連体形 of the auxiliary verb き which,
[quoting from
デジタル大辞泉](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/50189/meaning/m0u/%E3%81%8D/), is
used when expressing things in the past that the speaker has personally
experienced (直接経験を回想的に表す) or when remembering the past that has definitely
happened (確実な過去の事実を回想する).

However, in English, the phrase _"The Chosen One"_ is often used as as a
conjecture. Here are some examples ( ** _SPOILER WARNING_** ):

  * In _Star Wars_ , Anakin Skywalker is **_thought_** to be the _"The Chosen One"_ mentioned in a prophecy. And yet there's certainly ambiguity if he really is the _"The Chosen One"_ or not. There's no real moment or event where he was chosen by someone or something and no one who calls Anakin _"The Chosen One"_ knows for sure if he is or isn't. There is just a belief that he could be it. 
    * In this case, there are arguments that the _"The Chosen One"_ isn't actually Anakin. And thus the event during which Anakin would have been chosen would have been purely hypothetical.
  * In the _Harry Potter_ series, Harry is **_speculated to be_** _"The Chosen One"_ by the newspapers because of the existence of prophecy whose contents are unknown. The prophecy is assumed to say that Harry is the only person who can defeat the main villain. Although in this series, there isn't much ambiguity that Harry actually was chosen by someone (by the main villain as his worthy opponent), the people calling him _"The Chosen One"_ would not have personally experienced that event and those people would also not know with certainty that Harry was chosen as they do not know the contents of the prophecy. They at most are speculating.

Yet, in both of these cases the Japanese translation is 選ばれし者. Is there a
nuance I'm missing in き that allows you to use it for speculative talk or is
there a more correct way to translate _"The Chosen One"_ in classical style
Japanese?

EDIT: To make myself a little clearer, I think for example in

> [I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen
> One.”](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John.1.33-John.1.34&version)

it seems like it would sense to use 選ばれし者 because the speaker would have
personally seen the event. Another example would be when one is quoting
someone.

However, I feel a statement like 選ばれし者だった (the translation for "You were the
Chosen One" in a [famous scene](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-were-the-
chosen-one) in Star Wars) seems extremely illogical in Japanese. From what
I've read about き is that there's no implication at all of continuation of the
state. It either happened or it didn't. So, it seems extremely odd that one
could change from being chosen to not being chosen.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-02-19T21:32:27.180
65590
2019-02-20T21:23:34.547
2019-02-20T21:23:34.547
10045
10045
question
grammar translation classical-japanese auxiliary-き
Is 選ばれし者 a grammatically correct translation of "The Chosen One"?
At first I was thinking that the 「し」in「選ばれ **し** 者」was not a form of（助動詞）「き」,
but was rather the 副助詞「し」...

However, I've been looking at examples for this (副助詞)「し」and I haven't been
able to find any where the following word is a noun, so I'm sure my initial
idea was mistaken and you are correct that this し is the noun-modifying 連体形
conjugation of（助動詞）「き」.

There is an interesting comment on this particular phrase that might be
relevant to your question in the Wikipedia article on 完了形:

> 現代の擬古的表現「 **選ばれし者** よ」などは、文語体の過去と完了の区別を知らないために
> 生じたもので、「過去に選ばれ、現在もその結果が継続している」という意味では「 **選ば れたる者** よ」というのが正しい。

<https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%8C%E4%BA%86%E5%BD%A2>

There is also a related answer here:

[Grammar of (verb)し(noun) such as in
選ばれし者](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/14498/grammar-of-
verb%E3%81%97noun-such-as-in-%E9%81%B8%E3%81%B0%E3%82%8C%E3%81%97%E8%80%85)
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-02-20T01:58:00.060
65592
2019-02-20T12:28:53.590
2019-02-20T12:28:53.590
7055
7055
65590
answer
I think the English and Japanese are the same linguistically. They can both be
embedded in speculative or negative contexts without issue:

> だが、選ばれし者ではなかった  
>  However, he wasn’t the chosen one.
>
> 選ばれし者のはずだったのに…  
>  He was supposed to have been the chosen one...
>
> 本当に選ばれし者なのか？  
>  Is he really the chosen one?
>
> 選ばれし者であろう人が現れた  
>  Someone likely to be the chosen one appeared
>
> この門を開けるのは選ばれし者のみ  
>  Only the chosen one can open this gate

I think your Q is possibly also trying to make a point that in English it’s
_more_ common to use the expression in negative or speculative contexts than
normal positive contexts, which I think I can see. But even there, I don’t
think the distribution of usage is particularly different in Japanese, and
even if it was, that’d be saying more about the tropes used in Japanese
fiction than the word itself IMO.

BTW, it’s very common for modern usages of historical grammar to have
different meanings, nuances and distributions than they originally did. In
modern Japanese, I’d say the main differences between 選ばれし者 and 選ばれた者 are that
the former 1. sounds more grandoise, 2. feels more like a single unit/noun 3.
gives the impression that they are Chosen by some higher authority (god, etc)
as opposed to chosen by a normal person/process. In those senses, it seems to
map pretty well to the English.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-02-20T20:48:37.700
65601
2019-02-20T20:57:01.680
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
-1
3097
65590
answer