[B-Greek] my wooden interlinear translations

Wayne Leman wayne_leman at sil.org
Sat Nov 5 01:32:29 EST 2005


Eric, your comments on how important language exposure is for producing good 
quality translation is heartwarming for me to read, as a Bible translator 
who has spent many years helping people of another language translate the 
Bible into their language. I recall the "non-English" that we students would 
produce in my undergraduate Greek class and I groan. I have groaned as I 
have evaluated many English Bible versions. I'm glad for voices like yours 
on the b-greek list where there is good advice for helping people translate 
Greek better. I wish that more universities and seminaries that teach Greek 
could also teach the Greek students more about what it means to translate 
well into English or any other language. I suspect that learning more of how 
languages work and how to convey the meaning of one language to another, 
using the natural forms of the target language, would, ultimately, help 
improve students' grasp of the intricacies of the Greek lexicon and syntax. 
Too often there are bad translation habits passed down through generations 
of teachers and students who become teachers who ...

I realize that it's off-topic for this list, but I'm in your camp when you 
say: "This indicated to me that our
thoughts and sensations govern our language, not the other way around." 
There are too many unfounded "folk" ideas about some unique qualities of 
Greek or any other language, sometimes connected to Whorfian concepts of 
language. You have put the cart before the horse instead of the heart before 
the course. Well done!

Thanks,
Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Better Bibles Blog: http://englishbibles.blogspot.com

>
> As for fully appreciating these issues, even after studying several
> languages in high school and college, that was virtually nothing compared 
> to
> what I learned from living for several years in a foreign country
> (Indonesia) and becoming bilingual. I found that I would speak and know
> exactly what I was saying without being aware of which language I was 
> using,
> or I would remember exactly what was said in a conversation without being
> able to recall which language was used. This indicated to me that our
> thoughts and sensations govern our language, not the other way around. 
> Thus
> the focus of translation must as much as possible be on evoking the 
> correct
> thoughts and sensations.
>
> Eric Inman




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