[B-Greek] re my wooden interlinear translations
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at juno.com
Fri Nov 4 18:22:23 EST 2005
On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 16:35:00 -0600 "Dan Gleason" <dan-bgreek at hotmail.com>
writes:
> GS Wrote: >I don't mean to attack or encourage you in your project,
> but did
> you ever
> >consider that a better way might be to do a real translation in
> which you
> >do not ** mimic ** Mark's Greek style but to attempt to find an **
> >equivalent ** style in English which would convey a sense of what
> you
> >believe you find in Mark?
> >
> >george
> >gfsomsel
> ________________________________________
>
> Hello George
>
> I thought about doing a "real translation" - as if was a cleaned up,
>
> proofed, edited, eyewitness or hearsay account - and it doesn't
> work.
> The most literal wooden translation following Mark's word order
> brings out
> the visual puns and imagery.
> Every phrase in Mark's text is like a planed plank of wood.
> Every KAI is like a wood joint, a miter, a rabbet, a dado, or a
> nail.
> Translating into "proper English" obscures or destroys the visual
> puns in
> the text as it was written.
> I don't even think about proper English when I read Mark.
> When my translation sounds "a little wierd but plausible in a
> strange way" -
> to me, that's a "sign" that I got it right.
>
> Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery - but Mimicry is the
> Greatest
> Form of Flattery.
>
> Dan Gleason
_____________
Mimicry in English of something written in Greek can become totally
grotesque and nothing more than a caricature. Mimicry really only works
within one language since differentl languages function in different
ways. If you find Mark grotesque, perhaps you might think about why this
is so. Do you adequately understand Mark? or is there actually
something in Mark that is strange? Many have noted that Mark's Greek is
not of the highest quality. This has frequently been attributed to a
Semitic way of thinking on Mark's part. Perhaps. If so, how would one
go about conveying such a quality in English? When I was a lad (no, they
didn't apprentice me as office-boy to an attorney firm nor did I polish
the knob on the front door), I remember a radio program called "Life with
Luigi" which consisted of the character's reading a letter which he wrote
home to his mother in Italy telling her his experiences. This was full
of dialectal English such as might have been spoken by a new Italian
imigrant who had not yet learned English proficiently. This is what I
would recommend that you do. You need not translate the GMk into
absolutely proper English (what is that anyway?).
george
gfsomsel
___________
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