I recently sent an email out to a large number of people. In it I was explaining a bit about our work and what we do when we translate. I was wanting to demonstrate that when translating there is always implied information that the original readers would know but a reader on a small island 2000 years later (like the Amphletts) might not know. The example I gave had to do with Jesus sending two of his disciples to Jerusalem to prepare the passover. They do it and the following verse states that Jesus and the twelve went to the city. One of the men working with me immediately asked, "What happen to the other two who went to Jerusalem? When did they join Jesus and the other ten?" Good question. It's not mentioned in the text. It is assumed the reader would know they must have returned so that the whole group would go together. We added in a short statement that after they did what Jesus had said, they returned. This is the way Gumawana speakers like it. Everyone needs to be accounted for to be a good story.
Someone responded to my email with the question "How are you differentiating what is "literal" translation (nothing added) and what you are adding for clarification sake." People have different ideas of what is literal. What I say is that there is no true literal translation. In fact I would wonder if literal translation is actually an oxymoron. I give as an example a literal translation of Matthew 1:18 from the Greek:
"Of the and Jesus Christ the birth like thus was. Being promised in marriage of mother of him Mary to the Joseph, before or to come together them she was found in stomach having from spirit holy."
How easy was that to read? Would you call that a translation? All translation involves interpretation. If you compare the above with the NASB translation of it you can see some things the translators did to clarify the meaning:
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit."
Notice that the NASB starts out "when". That word is not even in the Greek. The Greek has "being promised in marriage..." which is a participle. They have interpreted the participle as being temporal in nature and so translate it as "when" to make it clear. They took the Greek idiom "was found in stomach" and clarified as "found to be with child" but they could have made it even clearer by saying either "she was expecting" or really clear "she was pregnant."
Now the reason I said "literal translation" might be considered an oxymoron is this. Here is a definition of "translation" from the program wordweb: "A written communication in a second language having the same meaning as the written communication in a first language." Notice it doesn't say a word by word glossing of one language with another. No, it makes reference to one language having the same meaning. But meaning is conveyed differently from language to language. So if by literal we mean word by word, but the word "translation" has to do with same meaning, we end up with an oxymoron. When we do word by word translating the meaning as in Matthew 1:18 is not going to come through. Another good example of this is Matthew 1:25. The Greek literally says "he [Joseph] did not know her [Mary]." If we translated that into Gumawana according to the words, the meaning is Joseph didn't know whom he married. Is that the intended meaning that Matthew had in mind? No, if we translated the meaning, in Gumawana we have to say, "Joseph didn't sleep with Mary." That conveys the idea that Matthew intended.
So I do put implied information into the Gumawana translation. That is information the readers would derive from the context, information that doesn't need to be stated for various reasons. The author and reader shared a similar language, culture and beliefs so that certain information didn't have to be stated explicitly. But on the Amphletts 2000 years later, that information will not necessarily be understood. Now that doesn't mean we just put in information willy nilly. We start out somewhat on the literal side and ask questions to find out what is clear and not clear. When it isn't clear we find out why. It may be that it will require some implied information to make things understandable. In the example above, I mentioned participles. Gumawana doesn't have participles, so technically a literal translation into Gumawana is impossible for most of the New Testament. But the important thing is not that the Greek uses participles, therefore English or Gumawana should too. The question has to be asked what is the function of the participle? Once that is understood, then we look for grammatical constructions in the target language (Gumawana) that have a similar function. This produces a faithful translation to the meaning.
So the question I would pose is this: Is not the meaning more important than the form?
Someone responded to my email with the question "How are you differentiating what is "literal" translation (nothing added) and what you are adding for clarification sake." People have different ideas of what is literal. What I say is that there is no true literal translation. In fact I would wonder if literal translation is actually an oxymoron. I give as an example a literal translation of Matthew 1:18 from the Greek:
"Of the and Jesus Christ the birth like thus was. Being promised in marriage of mother of him Mary to the Joseph, before or to come together them she was found in stomach having from spirit holy."
How easy was that to read? Would you call that a translation? All translation involves interpretation. If you compare the above with the NASB translation of it you can see some things the translators did to clarify the meaning:
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit."
Notice that the NASB starts out "when". That word is not even in the Greek. The Greek has "being promised in marriage..." which is a participle. They have interpreted the participle as being temporal in nature and so translate it as "when" to make it clear. They took the Greek idiom "was found in stomach" and clarified as "found to be with child" but they could have made it even clearer by saying either "she was expecting" or really clear "she was pregnant."
Now the reason I said "literal translation" might be considered an oxymoron is this. Here is a definition of "translation" from the program wordweb: "A written communication in a second language having the same meaning as the written communication in a first language." Notice it doesn't say a word by word glossing of one language with another. No, it makes reference to one language having the same meaning. But meaning is conveyed differently from language to language. So if by literal we mean word by word, but the word "translation" has to do with same meaning, we end up with an oxymoron. When we do word by word translating the meaning as in Matthew 1:18 is not going to come through. Another good example of this is Matthew 1:25. The Greek literally says "he [Joseph] did not know her [Mary]." If we translated that into Gumawana according to the words, the meaning is Joseph didn't know whom he married. Is that the intended meaning that Matthew had in mind? No, if we translated the meaning, in Gumawana we have to say, "Joseph didn't sleep with Mary." That conveys the idea that Matthew intended.
So I do put implied information into the Gumawana translation. That is information the readers would derive from the context, information that doesn't need to be stated for various reasons. The author and reader shared a similar language, culture and beliefs so that certain information didn't have to be stated explicitly. But on the Amphletts 2000 years later, that information will not necessarily be understood. Now that doesn't mean we just put in information willy nilly. We start out somewhat on the literal side and ask questions to find out what is clear and not clear. When it isn't clear we find out why. It may be that it will require some implied information to make things understandable. In the example above, I mentioned participles. Gumawana doesn't have participles, so technically a literal translation into Gumawana is impossible for most of the New Testament. But the important thing is not that the Greek uses participles, therefore English or Gumawana should too. The question has to be asked what is the function of the participle? Once that is understood, then we look for grammatical constructions in the target language (Gumawana) that have a similar function. This produces a faithful translation to the meaning.
So the question I would pose is this: Is not the meaning more important than the form?
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