Interlinears
Posted: January 3rd, 2015, 3:26 am
From very early on in my study of Greek, I found interlinears to be more of a distraction than a help, and as I became more familiar with the language, I found them at times to be downright misleading. From time to time, though (like over the past holidays), the topic comes up with friends who don’t know Greek, and who won’t likely ever study Greek, but who regularly use interlinears to try to get closer to the meaning of the text. I often caution them regarding some of the perils associated with the use of interlinears (advice which is not always appreciated - or heeded).
Some of the points I've made are:
• An English-Greek interlinear creates word order confusion, because it is very often impossible to create a readable English sentence following the actual Greek word order. Thus, an English word order is often imposed on the Greek, even though those who can't read Greek are unable to 'see' this.
• Interlinears necessarily involve a word for word ‘decoding’ arrangement which does violence to the richness of the Greek text, and they create the illusion that there is a one-to-one lexical relationship between Greek and English elements. In fact, this one-to-one assumption seems little more than a pretence quite often!
• Because the nuance of the Greek text is often sacrficed, semantic elements like double meanings or subtle allusions are easily lost in the transfer.
• For these reasons, and others, a good translation may actually be 'truer' to the Greek text than an interlinear.
Is this sound advice? What more (or less) ought to be said to non-Greek readers regarding the benefits or perils of using interlinears? Are there specific passages and/or structures which one can point to where interlinears actually suppress the meaning of the text rather than bring it forward?
Finally, I would be very interested In hearing your thoughts concerning whether - in the end - there is any real net benefit for non-Greek readers in using an interlinear as a tool to get closer to the meaning of the Greek text?
There have been discussions on B-Greek in the past concerning the use of interlinears, and I notice that the topic comes up regularly. I have looked back through some of those discussions, and found them interesting, and helpful. However, for the most part, earlier discussions seem to have dealt with Greek students (or would-be Greek students) using interlinears as an aid to learn Greek.
Some of the points I've made are:
• An English-Greek interlinear creates word order confusion, because it is very often impossible to create a readable English sentence following the actual Greek word order. Thus, an English word order is often imposed on the Greek, even though those who can't read Greek are unable to 'see' this.
• Interlinears necessarily involve a word for word ‘decoding’ arrangement which does violence to the richness of the Greek text, and they create the illusion that there is a one-to-one lexical relationship between Greek and English elements. In fact, this one-to-one assumption seems little more than a pretence quite often!
• Because the nuance of the Greek text is often sacrficed, semantic elements like double meanings or subtle allusions are easily lost in the transfer.
• For these reasons, and others, a good translation may actually be 'truer' to the Greek text than an interlinear.
Is this sound advice? What more (or less) ought to be said to non-Greek readers regarding the benefits or perils of using interlinears? Are there specific passages and/or structures which one can point to where interlinears actually suppress the meaning of the text rather than bring it forward?
Finally, I would be very interested In hearing your thoughts concerning whether - in the end - there is any real net benefit for non-Greek readers in using an interlinear as a tool to get closer to the meaning of the Greek text?
There have been discussions on B-Greek in the past concerning the use of interlinears, and I notice that the topic comes up regularly. I have looked back through some of those discussions, and found them interesting, and helpful. However, for the most part, earlier discussions seem to have dealt with Greek students (or would-be Greek students) using interlinears as an aid to learn Greek.