Re: KT boundry event


Windy wrote:
UC wrote:
By this logic, of course, we would be unable to translate the Bible or
any other ancient text into modern English. Is that your position?

I realize the difficulty that this thesis presents for translating
ancient languages. Suffice it to say that the common, familiar
vocabulary of Modern English was established quite a long time ago:
Shakespeare wrote in Modern English.

...
For ancient languages, especially works such as the Bible, have a
different use. There are numerous schools of thought about how to
approach these texts, and I have read the most important of those
works.

That's crazy talk. All ancient texts are not some esoteric lore that
have a "different use" than modern language. What about Aristotle
listing body parts of animals, for example? Seems to translate pretty
well to me.

I was in fact referring to the Bible. Texts of Aristotle that are
entirely technical usually present fewer problems than abstract
philosophical or religious ones. If you read Benjamin Jowett's preface
to his translation of Plato's dialogues, he explains the difficulties
of translating ancient Greek to Modern English. In very rough terms, he
says the Greek is less specific or less concrete.

"http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_plato_dialogues_intro.htm

"There are fundamental differences in Greek and English, of which some
may be managed while others remain intractable. (1). The structure of
the Greek language is partly adversative and alternative, and partly
inferential; that is to say, the members of a sentence are either
opposed to one another, or one of them expresses the cause or effect or
condition or reason of another. The two tendencies may be called the
horizontal and perpendicular lines of the language; and the opposition
or inference is often much more one of words than of ideas. But modern
languages have rubbed off this adversative and inferential form: they
have fewer links of connection, there is less mortar in the
interstices, and they are content to place sentences side by side,
leaving their relation to one another to be gathered from their
position or from the context. The difficulty of preserving the effect
of the Greek is increased by the want of adversative and inferential
particles in English, and by the nice sense of tautology which
characterizes all modern languages. We cannot have two 'buts' or two
'fors' in the same sentence where the Greek repeats (Greek). There is a
similar want of particles expressing the various gradations of
objective and subjective thought--(Greek) and the like, which are so
thickly scattered over the Greek page. Further, we can only realize to
a very imperfect degree the common distinction between (Greek), and the
combination of the two suggests a subtle shade of negation which cannot
be expressed in English. And while English is more dependent than Greek
upon the apposition of clauses and sentences, yet there is a difficulty
in using this form of construction owing to the want of case endings.
For the same reason there cannot be an equal variety in the order of
words or an equal nicety of emphasis in English as in Greek.

(2) The formation of the sentence and of the paragraph greatly differs
in Greek and English. The lines by which they are divided are generally
much more marked in modern languages than in ancient. Both sentences
and paragraphs are more precise and definite--they do not run into one
another. They are also more regularly developed from within. The
sentence marks another step in an argument or a narrative or a
statement; in reading a paragraph we silently turn over the page and
arrive at some new view or aspect of the subject. Whereas in Plato we
are not always certain where a sentence begins and ends; and paragraphs
are few and far between. The language is distributed in a different
way, and less articulated than in English. For it was long before the
true use of the period was attained by the classical writers both in
poetry or prose; it was (Greek). The balance of sentences and the
introduction of paragraphs at suitable intervals must not be neglected
if the harmony of the English language is to be preserved. And still a
caution has to be added on the other side, that we must avoid giving it
a numerical or mechanical character.

(3) This, however, is not one of the greatest difficulties of the
translator; much greater is that which arises from the restriction of
the use of the genders. Men and women in English are masculine and
feminine, and there is a similar distinction of sex in the words
denoting animals; but all things else, whether outward objects or
abstract ideas, are relegated to the class of neuters. Hardly in some
flight of poetry do we ever endue any of them with the characteristics
of a sentient being, and then only by speaking of them in the feminine
gender. The virtues may be pictured in female forms, but they are not
so described in language; a ship is humorously supposed to be the
sailor's bride; more doubtful are the personifications of church and
country as females. Now the genius of the Greek language is the
opposite of this. The same tendency to personification which is seen in
the Greek mythology is common also in the language; and genders are
attributed to things as well as persons according to their various
degrees of strength and weakness; or from fanciful resemblances to the
male or female form, or some analogy too subtle to be discovered. When
the gender of any object was once fixed, a similar gender was naturally
assigned to similar objects, or to words of similar formation. This use
of genders in the denotation of objects or ideas not only affects the
words to which genders are attributed, but the words with which they
are construed or connected, and passes into the general character of
the style. Hence arises a difficulty in translating Greek into English
which cannot altogether be overcome. Shall we speak of the soul and its
qualities, of virtue, power, wisdom, and the like, as feminine or
neuter? The usage of the English language does not admit of the former,
and yet the life and beauty of the style are impaired by the latter.
Often the translator will have recourse to the repetition of the word,
or to the ambiguous 'they,' 'their,' etc.; for fear of spoiling the
effect of the sentence by introducing 'it.' Collective nouns in Greek
and English create a similar but lesser awkwardness.

(4) To use of relation is far more extended in Greek than in English.
Partly the greater variety of genders and cases makes the connexion of
relative and antecedent less ambiguous: partly also the greater number
of demonstrative and relative pronouns, and the use of the article,
make the correlation of ideas simpler and more natural. The Greek
appears to have had an ear or intelligence for a long and complicated
sentence which is rarely to be found in modern nations; and in order to
bring the Greek down to the level of the modern, we must break up the
long sentence into two or more short ones. Neither is the same
precision required in Greek as in Latin or English, nor in earlier
Greek as in later; there was nothing shocking to the contemporary of
Thucydides and Plato in anacolutha and repetitions. In such cases the
genius of the English language requires that the translation should be
more intelligible than the Greek. The want of more distinctions between
the demonstrative pronouns is also greatly felt. Two genitives
dependent on one another, unless familiarised by idiom, have an awkward
effect in English. Frequently the noun has to take the place of the
pronoun. 'This' and 'that' are found repeating themselves to weariness
in the rough draft of a translation. As in the previous case, while the
feeling of the modern language is more opposed to tautology, there is
also a greater difficulty in avoiding it.

(5) Though no precise rule can be laid down about the repetition of
words, there seems to be a kind of impertinence in presenting to the
reader the same thought in the same words, repeated twice over in the
same passage without any new aspect or modification of it. And the
evasion of tautology--that is, the substitution of one word of
precisely the same meaning for another--is resented by us equally with
the repetition of words. Yet on the other hand the least difference of
meaning or the least change of form from a substantive to an adjective,
or from a participle to a verb, will often remedy the unpleasant
effect. Rarely and only for the sake of emphasis or clearness can we
allow an important word to be used twice over in two successive
sentences or even in the same paragraph. The particles and pronouns, as
they are of most frequent occurrence, are also the most troublesome.
Strictly speaking, except a few of the commonest of them, 'and,' 'the,'
etc., they ought not to occur twice in the same sentence. But the Greek
has no such precise rules; and hence any literal translation of a Greek
author is full of tautology. The tendency of modern languages is to
become more correct as well as more perspicuous than ancient. And,
therefore, while the English translator is limited in the power of
expressing relation or connexion, by the law of his own language
increased precision and also increased clearness are required of him.
The familiar use of logic, and the progress of science, have in these
two respects raised the standard. But modern languages, while they have
become more exacting in their demands, are in many ways not so well
furnished with powers of expression as the ancient classical ones. "

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