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  • From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • To: "Peter Kirk" <peter AT qaya.org>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] NIV v' NWT translation policy
  • Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 18:46:08 -0000


Peter, I don't share any organisation's 'theology' except my own
which I personally believe is the direct result of a combination
of my life's experiences, reading the bible and allowing Yah's
spirit to influence my understanding of it.

Before I started studying modern languages I stood firmly behind
NWT's policy of 'one target word = one source word' because I really
didn't know any better. After I learned a bit of a few languages and
had a few experiences of not being understood when attempting to
communicate in a language not my own my experiences started to mould
my mentality and to understand that the 1:1 approach was wrong.
As I got further down the road I also realised that any attempt to
translate was wrong and in order to really learn a language I had to
completely abandon my first language and allow myself to be absorbed
by the target language.

It was then that I started to realise that each language has its own
limits and range of expression and these differences started to stand
out to me dramatically. But after the novelty of the differences
started to wear off it became evident that every language I came into
contact with was unified in the greater family of languages by its
consistent usage of core concepts. Every language has a way of expressing
love, hatred, hunger, joy, sadness, remorse. regret, happiness, bewilderment,
surprise etc. etc.

I am thouroughly convinced as a direct result of my travels and experiences
that these core concepts are the common denominator of ALL languages both
living and dead. When you are young and you learn your first language
what does your brain associate new words with? With these core concepts!
Your brain well understands the concept of hunger long before learning a
series of phonemes that expresses it. Your brain is well capable of
distinguishing
between the various colours long before knowing the names your country's
language
attributes to them.

When I say that I agree with the NWT policy of consistency I mean that I
agree
that a particular concept should be translated consistently otherwise the
translator could rightly come under the accusation of forcing his own
interpretation on the poor readers who often remain in ignorance of the
decisions which have been taken for them.

Where I disagree with the NWT is that those core concepts, according to my
experience, cannot be mapped onto our current definition of a 'word'. The
seperations we put between 'words' are quite arbitrary and some languages
have extremely long words which are combinations of smaller words (see German
for example). In English we have 'book' and 'shelf' and we have 'book shelf'.
Now should it be written
book shelf
book-shelf
or bookshelf?
Any of the three would be fine as the combination of two words have such
an intimate relationship that they define a unique concept which I struggle
to imagine the situation in which its meaning would be ambiguous. These are
the
real words in any language and combinations of words are recurrent and used
predictably and this, according to my translation philosophy, is the true
unit
of translation.

My favourite example is get.

How shall we translate 'get' as a concept?
How shall we translate 'get up'?
How shall we translate 'get up to'?
How shall we translate 'get up to mischief'?
How shall we translate 'get up to standard'?
How shall we translate 'get up to no good'?
How shall we translate 'get up to heaven'?
etc.?

At what point do the above examples become unique concepts? In my mind
neither
'get', 'get up' or 'get up to' are unique concepts until we get the fourth
word
e.g. 'get up to mischief' and then it becomes clear to me which of the many
concepts
this word could convey is actually intended.

In conclusion,
a) I agree that consistency is a requirement
b) I do not agree that the unit of consistency should be the arbitrary
division
we currently ascribe to 'words'


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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Deuteronomy 20:19 )DM
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Harold:

Good work.

In each of these cases, the question is a rhetorical
question, not a true question with an open ended answer.

So in reading this verse as a rhetorical question, "Is a
tree of the field a man to go into siege from before you(r
face)?" or in better English, "are trees of the field men that
you should besiege them?" i.e. that the trees are not the
enemy.

Thanks.

Karl W. Randolph.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
>
> Dear Karl,
>
> > Are there any other examples where an interrogative hey
> > follows a KY in Tanakh?
>
> HH: In Hebrew some verses are Gen 50:19; 2 Sam 19:23; 2 Chron 6:18.
>
> Yours,

--
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