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Translation Issues - Jing - 02-03-2005

1. Technical Translation Without the knowledge of the Original Language

An old Chinese aircraft engineer knew just a bit more English than I know about Aramaic. It was one of his main jobs, however, to work on some military standard translations from English into Chinese. He did not reply on grammars at all. His knowledge and understanding of the aircraft engineering was his only power to make it. Of course, he had an English-Chinese dictionary.

Many might have laughed or mocked at his English skills and his slowness in translation. To him, those mockers were only mockers, as no matter how good their English skills were. to him their skills were no more better than the waste that he wanted to dump. They served him no good, but mocking. His knowledge of engeering was far more useful than the English skills of those mockers that were worse than nothing to him.


- Jing - 02-03-2005

2. Biblical Translation without the Knowledge of the Original Language

As a post- aircraft engineer myself, and a slow phd candidate in the Aerospace Engineering, I just happen to know a little bit English, that is just good enough for me to receive the spiritual blessings by reading English Bibles. KJV is of real hard English to me. Praise the Lord! God has blessed me many blessings through KJV, according to my skills in baby English.

My church tends to be KJV only. I used to treat KJV as though God had written His Bible as KJV. Then, I learned that the NT Bible was originally written in Greek. I began to do some word studies when I wanted to look into something real deep, mainly using blue letter bible.

NOW, I am convinced that at least most books in the NT were originally written in Aramaic. I was excited by this new discovery.

However, what good will the Aramaic Bible do me and my beloved Chinese fellow? I have been zealous to do them a service since I received Christ as my personal Saviour and Lord.

I never believe the Bible is for a handful of the Elites in the world. The Gospel is more for the common people who are mostly unlearned.

For my personal purpose, as I know almost nothing about the Aramaic, I read the bad Aramaic translation English by comparing with other Bible versions at hand. That is much similar to the case of the Chinese engineer in the previous post.

I shew my foolishness to make a "translation" of Col 1:12-20 like the old Chinese engineer did for his military standars translation and aimed at getting some help from you Aramaic experts.

LOL. No one has the burden to help me up to this time. Therefore, my translation of Col 1:12-20 has been better than nothing as it indeed carries some knowledge of the Word.

An hour ago or so, I made a better translation than before in my eyes:

Col 1:12-20

thank to God the Father, who spreaded us to a portion of the inheritance of holiness in light;
and rescued us from the power of the darkness, and brought us to the kingdom of His Son beloved.
Who in him is to us his salvation and remission of sins;
who is the image of God of not being seen, and the first-born of all creations;
and in him was created everything in heavens and in earth, everything of being seen and everything of not being seen, whether on thrones, and whether in dominions, and whether in principalities, and whether in authorities, everything by him and in him was created;
and he was from the before, and everything in him standing;
and he is the head of body of the church, as he is the head of the first-born of from the abode dead, so as he should be the first in the all;
for in him (He) desired whole fullness to dwell;
in him to reconcile to Himself everything, and has made peace in the blood of the Cross by him, whether of in the earth and of in the heavens.


- Jing - 02-04-2005

3. Regrouping Wanted

The first thing I got excited about the language of the Aramaic is that it is traditionally written and read from right-to-left. That is really no trouble for a Chinese interlinear translation as traditional Chinese was written and read from right-to-left and from up-to-down as well. I thought, "WOW. The Chinese translation will be easy 'cause both the Aramaic and the Chinese are of the eastern languages."

When I got the Mattew chapter 1 in English by Paul Younan, the very first verse troubled me. I thought how come Paul Younan translated the Aramaic to comply his translation with English tradition?

See,

01
the book
of the genealogy
of Yeshua
the Messiah
the son
of Dawed
the son
of Awraham

or

01
the book of the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah the son of Dawed the son of Awraham

That is very English to me that I can understand!

If I translated it into modern Chinese iterally, it turns out to be like this

01
the book the genealogy's Yeshua's the Messiah the son Dawed's the son Awraham's

Does it make sense anyway?! The only way that makes sense for Chinese is to read it reversely:

01
Awraham's son, Dawed's son, Yeshua the Messiah's genealogy's book

(Chinese doesn't have articles like the or a.)

All Chinese translations of the Bible are the same way as above. You might say, that does not make sense very much to English speakers. However,

"the book the genealogy's Yeshua's the Messiah the son Dawed's the son Awraham's"

is not only grammarly bad, not also NONSENSE!

Therefore, I suggested that what if I regrouped the original English phrases so that it makes sense in Chinese like this:

01
the book of the genealogy
of Yeshua the Messiah
the son of Dawed
the son of Awraham

then in Chinese it goes like this:

01
the genealogy's book
Yeshua the Messiah's
the Dawed's son
the Awraham's son

Though it is still intolerable in Chinese, but it indeeds help us guess what it means by our previous knowledge of the Bible, but NOT by the language itself. It isnt a Chinese language in any sense, but it indeed helps us guess what it means.

Of course, this very first verse that I had to deal with went to the extreme that might make you think I am simply not happy to comply with the interlinear translation word by word in Aramaic/English way.

The second example is,

06
Aeshe
fathered
Dawed
the king
Dawed
fathered
Shlemon
by
the wife
of Awrea

I have to regoup like

06
Aeshe
fathered
Dawed
the king
Dawed
fathered
Shlemon
by
the wife of Awrea

to make any sense in Chinese.

And some more examples as fellow, each of which has to be regrouped into one group to make sense in Chinese.


in the captivity of Babel (in verse 11)

and after the captivity now of Babel (in verse 12)

the birth now of Yeshua the Messiah (in verse 18)

the Spirit Holy (in verse 18)

an angel of the LORD (in verse 20)

etc.


In Matthew chapter 2

in Beth-Lekhem of Yehuda (mat 2:1)

in the days of Herodus the king (mat 2:1)


....


- Jing - 02-04-2005

4. Chinese and Aramaic Are of the Different Language System

Jing Wrote:2. Biblical Translation without the Knowledge of the Original Language

...

An hour ago or so, I made a better translation than before in my eyes:

Col 1:12-20

thank to God the Father, who spreaded us to a portion of the inheritance of holiness in light;
and rescued us from the power of the darkness, and brought us to the kingdom of His Son beloved.
Who in him is to us his salvation and remission of sins;
who is the image of God of not being seen, and the first-born of all creations;
and in him was created everything in heavens and in earth, everything of being seen and everything of not being seen, whether on thrones, and whether in dominions, and whether in principalities, and whether in authorities, everything by him and in him was created;
and he was from the before, and everything in him standing;
and he is the head of body of the church, as he is the head of the first-born of from the abode dead, so as he should be the first in the all;
for in him (He) desired whole fullness to dwell;
in him to reconcile to Himself everything, and has made peace in the blood of the Cross by him, whether of in the earth and of in the heavens.

The above translation of Col 1:12-20 must help none of you guys who dont know Chinese, but It ENLIGHTENS me indeed. Though I messed up certain things due to my ignorance of the Aramaic grammar, it is not a complete translation without the consideration of the Aramaic grammar.

It surprised me A LOT that Aramaic and English seems to me of the same language system! And Paul Younan makes little effort to comply with English grammar. Instead, he is loyal to the Aramaic grammar, but the interlinear English translation still makes sense in almost all cases with just few tricks only when necessary. That is the reason why you guys define the legal interlinear translation is word for word, OR by transliteration.

However, this legal interlinear translation rule is ILLEGAL in Chinese!

English words cannot be transliterated into Chinese. Aramaic words cannot be transliterated into Chinese. They are totally of different language systems! Therefore, even the word order is not to follow that of the original language.

That is the reason why Chinese interlinear translatation is to take ONE sentence as A WORD ( LOL) without losing the original sense (every sensible word is considered.***). It follows another definition of so-called interlinear translation:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=interlinear">http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=interlinear</a><!-- m -->

2 entries found for interlinear.
in??ter??lin??e??ar ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ntr-ln-r)
adj.
Inserted between the lines of a text.
Written or printed with different languages or versions in alternating lines.


That is legal in Chinese sense. I have to the source for all main Chinese/English versions...different versions are shown line by line without phrase for phrase.

Quote:Choose the Versions to be Viewed:

King James Version America Standard Version
Bible in Basic English
Chinese Union Version (GB) Chinese Union Version (Big5)
New Chinese Version (GB) New Chinese Version (Big5)
Chinese Lu Zheng Zhong (GB) Chinese Lu Zheng Zhong (Big5)



*** Chinese dont have articles. Chinese dont have the tense of verbs. Chinese dont have the forms or states of nouns. Chinese dont have plural or singular of nouns or pronouns. A Chinese word is made of sensible characters, and Chinese words themselves take everything about plural. singular, tense, etc. Word order is important to Chinese. A weird word order is laughed as Japansese.


- Dan Gan - 02-06-2005

Very interesting Jing! How are you going to transliterate the name of Jesus in Chinese?

Yeshu' ?

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- Jing - 02-06-2005

Praise the Lord!

Thanks for bearing with me for my showing of my ignorance.


If you had posted to me yesterday, I might have replied right back and said, Transliteration is impossible for Chinese. LOL.

I have been struggling within myself of the translation issues as I indeed have some disability in any language.

As you know Chinese dont have letters but characters instead. That is the reason why I had thought Chinese dont have transliteration issue before I looked it up from a dictionary.

All bilical names in Chinese are indeed transliterated, mostly as close to the original sounds possible, except some of those in the NT with the inflence of Greek mss.

Jesus was translitered good enough as YESU.

Joshua was as YUESHUYA.

Messiah was as MISAIYA.

But mostly another name for MISAIYA is JIDU, which is used by all with comfort. I dont have how the original translator choosing JIDU, not a transliteration to me.

Jehovah as YEHEHUA.

Yahweh as YAWEI. which is used only in a sermon addressing the Names of God.


I got to run. God bless you!


- Dan Gan - 02-07-2005

Jing Wrote:Praise the Lord!

Jesus was translitered good enough as YESU.

That is what I expect from English transliteration of the Greek IESOUS instead of JESUS because the suffix S for nominative masculine singular in Greek is not required in English.

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