GAR

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Mon Jun 24 02:27:48 EDT 2002


> B-Greekers,
>
> 	In a few of my studies recently, I've done some version
> comparisons and noted that the NIV seems to rarely translate GAR.  I'm not
> an expert on the program, but my father ran a cross-linked search on the
> NIV and the UBS GNT and found that the NIV didn't translate GAR 948
> times.  (Without actually knowing how to run the queries, as simple as
> they seemed, I don't want to say that for sure.)  In contrast, the KJV
> translated GAR as "for" 990 times.
>
> 	Instead, it seems as though the translators of the NIV took GAR to
> suggest paragraph or thought breaks.
>
> 	This led me to wonder a little bit about the force of GAR.  In
> reading a few of the archived articles, I gained a little bit of
> understanding about how it's used, but I was hoping for something a little
> more comprehensive and cohesive.  I know there's no
> "one-translation-fits-all" option, really, but I'm curious mainly about
> the force of GAR and how it fits pieces together.

Without repeating much of earlier posts on GAR, let me say briefly that in
my understanding of Greek, GAR introduces a thought that supports or further
explains what has just been said. It may indicate a logical reason, but in
most cases it has a different function.

The NIV and most modern translations into English do not translate GAR in
those instances where the ordering of the expressed thoughts in itself is
sufficient to indicate that what is said now further supports or explains
what has just been said. English (and generally Western as opposed to
Eastern) through pattern is step-by-step progressive, so it is implicitly
understood that what is being said now further supports or explains what has
just been said. Since English does not have anything equivalent to GAR, the
translators employ a common practice which is called "making implicit what
was originally explicit." This does not mean "leaving out information", it
just means that the function which GAR has in Greek is in many contexts
understood from the conventional thought patterns of English. The English
language happens to be poorer than Greek and many other languages when it
comes to such connecting words. (For instance, in Danish we have three
common connectors - apart from silence - covering roughly the area of GAR,
whereas English has only one option ("for") - apart from silence.)

I don't think NIV took GAR as indicating a paragraph break, and it would be
wrong to do so. They just made GAR implicit. Sometimes, GAR occurs in a
place where there is a paragraph break, because the explanation is fairly
long and develops into new thoughts. Paul often does that. But such a
paragraph break is not signalled by GAR, but by the semantic shift of topic.

Iver Larsen




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