Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Paul,

You have done an academic translation (=one done in the classroom when
students work with the text) and shown one *possible* way to translate the
text. Before I comment on your post I have two questions:
You wrote:

>
>As far as I know, everything here except the clauses noted by * * in
>verses 14, 15, and 16 was handled in accordance with the theory as
>developed in prose.

Could you please express that theory so we can know exactly what it says
about the translation possibilities for YIQTOL, WAYYIQTOL, WEYIQTOL, QATAL,
and WEQATAL.

As a professional translator you know that your task is not finished by
finding one rendition which is coherrent from a linguistic point of view.
When there also are other possible renditions, as far as tense and mood in
the receptor language is concerned, you have to take other points into
account as well: Does my translation collocate with the rest of the book?
By choosing this particular tense and mood, am I getting the message
across, or may I mislead the readers? Will the readers get the right
connotations?

Did you do these quality evaluations in connection with your translation,
or did you only think of finding a way to translate the text in accordance
with your theory? And even more importent: Have you as yet translated
Esaiah 44 into the Ibanag language using the same tenses and moods as in
the translation that you sent to the list? If not, is this the way you
probably will translate into Ibanag or into English? (I am only concerned
with tense and mood and not with concordant/idiomatic translation).


Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo