Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Søren Holst <sh AT teol.ku.dk>]

Sorry to display my ignorance, but can I presume upon the collective
learning of the list?:

I'm stuck over an abbreviation in a Hebrew article: ayin"nun-tet. I've tried
the Alcalay dictionary and the abbreviation lists of a few books I happened
to have lying around, but to no avail.
        The context makes me suspect the nun-tet is "nosach tevrani",
Tiberian version, but what's the ayin?

thanks in advance
Soren, Copenhagen
>From lizfried AT umich.edu  Tue Jan 28 09:31:15 2003
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From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
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cc: Wayne Leman <Wayne_Leman AT sil.org>
Subject: [b-hebrew] send 
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Re: send,
I have to explain this idiom to my younger students,
but the older ones understand it perfectly well.
That's cuz they've read English poetry and novels.
It's perfectly fine English. It's in the famous line
"Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."
That is the same construction (virtually) in Ezra 4:14
 Nowadays if you want to find out something,
you'd turn on the radio, or check the internet,
you wouldn't have to send someone to find out for you.
The same with the all of them. In Gen.27:45 she is simply
saying that she can't just call Jake up and tell him to come
home, she has to send someone.
(That's bound to be way more effective anyway, I should try it.)
Rather than changing the translation, we should be teaching
students about the changes our technology has wrought.
Liz Fried

> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Peter Kirk
> Sent: Tue, January 28, 2003 5:43 AM
> To: 'b-hebrew'
> Cc: Wayne Leman
> Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Re: Grammar Texts Question
>
>
> Bryan, I appreciate your goal of encouraging people to appreciate good
> Hebrew. And I understand that it is not your responsibility to teach
> them good English. But perhaps you might accept some
> responsibility, as
> a good citizen if nothing else, for not teaching them bad English!
>
> In fact Samuel's Hebrew is not bad, or even idiosyncratic and
> unusually
> abrupt. It is good Hebrew, which needs to be appreciated for
> what it is
> and for being syntactically different from English. I chose
> one example
> of a common idiom, see also Gen 27:45, 1 Sam 20:12,31, 2 Kings 6:13,
> 7:13, Ezra 4:14, Job 1:4,5, Jer 43:10 - from a search of the NRSV for
> "send and". For more examples of this Hebrew idiom, see the article
> "Send!" by John Ellington in The Bible Translator, Vol. 45
> No. 2 (April,
> 1994): 228-238 - this should be available online at
> http://rosetta.reltech.org/TBT/CD3/TBT.html. Ellington writes:
>
> "...in common, everyday English it is rare indeed to hear the verb
> "send" without an object. [excluding compounds like "send
> out" and "send
> away"]
>
> In spite of this many English versions of the Bible use the verb "to
> send" without an object in a wide variety of contexts. In RSV, for
> example, this happens more than fifty times. And the recently
> published
> NRSV uses "send" as an intransitive verb over thirty times. Even such
> modern versions as REB and NIV sometimes fall into the trap of
> translating in such a way as to present the verb "send" without an
> object. This almost always reflects a Hebrew original in
> which the verb
> $FLAX [shalach] is used without an object. Frequently it involves a
> construction where this verb is followed immediately by another verb."
>
> So it seems that we have a construction which is common in Hebrew but
> very rare and unnatural in English, outside Bible
> translations. I don't
> think we should be promoting unnatural English when we teach
> Hebrew. Of
> course this topic will quickly go off topic for this list, but is
> regularly discussed on the b-trans list - subscribe via
> bible-translation-request AT kastanet.org.
>
> By the way, Wayne Leman pointed out off-list that his website
> http://biblepacesetter.org/bibletranslation/ is temporarily down. He
> pointed me to a list of Hebrew idioms at
> http://www.geocities.com/bible_translation/otidioms.htm, but
> this is not
> in fact the study I was referring to. He has done a separate study on
> grammatical oddities in English Bible translations, which may
> be at the
> same geocities website or linked to from it.
>
> Peter Kirk
> peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
> http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-hebrew-
> > bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of B. M. Rocine
> > Sent: 28 January 2003 00:07
> > To: 'b-hebrew'
> > Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: Grammar Texts Question
> >
> > Hi Peter, you wrote:
> >
> >  If your
> > > students get too used to stretching English to its limits in
> answering
> > > your exercises, if and when they get on to serious
> translation (and
> > > don't put yourself down, Bryan, the next generation of translators
> of
> > > standard English Bibles may cut their teeth on your course) they
> will
> > > find it hard to distinguish stretched English from
> standard English,
> and
> > > to switch back to the latter.
> >
> > Oh, no.  Now I have to be responsible for teaching them
> English, too?
> ;-)
> > (The truth is, at my school, I *do* teach  English, albeit in a
> another
> > course.)
> > I do find your worry a touch fanciful.
> >
> > If this sounds fanciful, look at some of
> > > the wildly stretched supposedly English syntax in some
> modern Bible
> > > translations. Wayne Leman, who moderates the b-trans list, has
> collected
> > > many examples (mostly New Testament); see
> > > http://biblepacesetter.org/bibletranslation/. For
> example, there are
> > > verbs which are always transitive in English, except for
> some reason
> in
> > > the Bible; one example, common in translations of the
> Hebrew Bible,
> is
> > > "send", as in "Send and bring him" (1 Sam 16:11 NRSV). In English
> this
> > > is a grammatical error! We really shouldn't teach
> students that this
> is
> > > an acceptable English rendering.
> >
> > What's wrong with "Send and bring him"?  I think Samuel was using
> > incorrect
> > Hebrew!  Didn't you catch that?  His tone is abrupt.  I think he is
> > irritated.  So are we to correct him in English?  I think a good
> > translation
> > gives correct for correct and incorrect for incorrect.
> >
> > Don't worry about my course, though.  In stretching English to its
> limits
> > there is no need to tolerate the ungrammatical.
> >
> > >
> > > Also, I suspect that students want to learn Hebrew because they
> don't
> > > trust the standard translations and think they can do
> better. I was
> > > surprised that you wrote the opposite.
> > >
> >
> > Take my statement in context.  *Within the constraint produced by
> > targetting
> > a wide audience*, the bookstore translations are worthy
> accomplishments.
> > Learning BH should equip people to criticize these translations in
> more
> > limited settings like class, church, and synogue (and the b-hebrew
> mailing
> > list!).  But first, to become a good critic, the student
> must learn to
> > appreciate the Hebrew.  Appreciating the Hebrew, (a.k.a. hearing it,
> > reading
> > it, comrehending it) is my goal, and I think appreciating it is
> distinct
> > from translating it.
> >
> > Shalom,
> > Bryan
> >
> >
> > B. M. Rocine
> > Living Word Church
> > 6101 Court St. Rd.
> > Syracuse, NY 13206
> >
> > ph: 315.437.6744
> > fx: 315.437.6766
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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