Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 17/11/2005 13:26, Rolf Furuli wrote:

> ...
>
> When I studied applied linguistics, the following book was a part of the
> curriculum: P: Newmark (1988). "A Textbook of translation".  This book was
> awarded the British Association of Applied Linguitics´prize in 1988.  For
> the benefit of the list I quote Newmark, p. 36 (you have seen this quote
> before on another list):
>
> "Many translators say you should never translate words, you translate
> sentences or ideas or messages.  I think they are fooling themselves. The SL
> texts consists of words, that is all that is there, on the page."  Newmark
> shows that translation is done on different levels of the text, but he
> stresses that to deny the importance of the word is to fool oneself.
>  

Newmark is entitled to his opinion. And it is not a bad one. It is true 
that "The SL texts consists [sic, I presume the grammatical error is 
your retyping here] of words, that is all that is there, on the page." 
It is also true that the text consists of letters, that is all that is 
there, on the page. Also that the text consists of sentences (some 
possibly incomplete), that is all that is there, on the page. And I 
could set up other levels, from paragraphs or larger, down through 
clauses, phrases, morphemes, graphical elements of letters, right down 
to the molecules of ink. It is a fallacy to arbitrarily pick one of 
these levels, the word, and insist that this level is the fundamental one.

> I assume that you accept that the word is the basic translation unit in
> technical translation (e.g., a description of an engine). If you do that,
> then you accept that the word *can* be the basic translation unit - but you
> deny this as regards Bible translation. So your judgement is your personal
> viewpoint regarding the translation of the text of the Bible, and not based 
> upon translation theory. It is your privilege to have this viewpoint, but 
> you do not recommend yourself as a balanced scholar when you deny that other 
> approaches (e.g. a literal approach) is possible as well.
>  

I assume nothing of the sort. Please don't put words into my mouth. I do 
not see any fundamental difference between biblical and technical 
translation. All translation needs to respect words as well as higher 
and lower level entities. Certain technical words and phrases, both in 
technical documents and in the Bible, need to be translated in slightly 
different ways from other parts of the text, but never in a blindly 
concordant way as even in technical documents words are used in multiple 
senses.

I do not deny the validity of your approach for the very particular 
audience which you have in mind - although I do claim that even for that 
audience "to time indefinite" is a bad rendering of `olam. But for a 
general audience a very different approach is needed.

> When Newmark speaks of the basic function of the word, and I do the same, we
> do not opt for an interlinear translation. Neither do we insist that most
> Hebrew words should be rendered by one English word. It simply means that we
> realize that each Hebrew word has a mening without a context, and to
> ascertain as much as possible of the meaning of each word is the first step
> in the translation process. I would guess that the NWT translators had about
> the same view.
>
>  
Well, why did the NWT translators always render nephesh and `olam for 
example with the same English word, when these Hebrew words have a wide 
range of meaning?

> > > ...
> > >      
> > Of course you struggle. For this is the fundamental falllacy of the
> > literal translation method used in NWT, the presumption that there is a
> > single English word, or even a short phrase, which corresponds even
> > approximately to the full range of meaning of a Hebrew word. In general
> > there is no one word in language B which corresponds to all the senses
> > of a word in language A; language simply does not work like that.
> >    
>
> Wrong again! I have at least two times pointed out that the NWT uses the 
> word Sheol.  Did the translators think that this is an English word 
> corresponding to "the full range meaning of a Hebrew word"? Not at all! And 
> that proves your words above to be wrong, at least in this case. ...

Well, I am glad that for once they got something relatively correct, but 
that does not excuse them for their failure to realise that there is the 
same problem with nephesh and countless other Hebrew words which have 
been translated concordantly but misleadingly.

> ... I am also 
> quite sure that the translators did not view "time indefinite" as "a short 
> phrase, which corresponds...approximately to the full range of meaning of " 
> (WLM.  Here you show your ignorance of the basic principles of literal 
> translation. The point is that "time indefinite" is an English phrase that 
> can be used to represent the core of the concept signaled by the Hebrew word 
> (WLM. In a way "time indefinite" is a catalyst that Bible students can use 
> to expand their understanding of the *concept* signaled by (WLM, when they 
> look at the contexts in which "time indefinite" occur. So even though the 
> word is the fundamental translation unit, the literal translation does not 
> attempt not convey words but to conveys concepts.
>
>  
Well, my response here is twofold:

1) The English phrase "time indefinite" cannot "be used to represent the 
core of the concept signaled by the Hebrew word (WLM", unless such 
representation does not depend on any correspondence in meaning, because 
the meaning of "time indefinite" is quite different from "the core of 
the concept signaled by the Hebrew word (WLM" which relates to eternity.

2) It is inaccurate translation to use an English word which represents 
the core of the concept signalled by a Hebrew word to translate an 
occurrence of that Hebrew word which has a meaning greatly divergent 
from that core.

For me, the three fundamentals of Bible translation for a general 
audience are clarity, accuracy and naturalness. I have long realised 
that literal translations like NWT lack clarity and naturalness. I now 
realise that they lack accuracy as well. Therefore in my judgment they 
have no merit as translations, at least outside a very small and 
specific target group.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/