Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Hi Pere,

I've been thinking a lot recently about the meaning of words. Translation
has a history as long as the history of languages. Translators who have
defined translation dictionaries have often used their instincts guided by
word usage when choosing which word translates which word. Other than this
we seem to be lacking any kind of scientific formalism for testing our
translation models. Much of the way we choose to translate the bible rests
on the foundation of tradition of how the bible has been translated in the
past by those who were fluent in source and target languages.

In my opinion, the whole field of translation needs to be formalised in some
way such that we can test translations empirically in terms of fluency and
fidelity.

James Christian