Every time I see an ancient text translated, it always sounds like it was spoken by a classy Englishman from the 1800s. Is there a reason it’s translated that way instead of modern English?
Every time I see an ancient text translated, it always sounds like it was spoken by a classy Englishman from the 1800s. Is there a reason it’s translated that way instead of modern English?
That’s a pretty good example. If you get into Bible translation you’ll find there’s a massive world of stuffingy* about different translation approaches. Because as well as having what I presume is by far the largest and longest collective scholarship to study and translate, plus textual criticism over multiple ancient copies, plus emotional hand-me-downs (people liking the KJV because it’s what they grew up with), it’s also considered by many translators to be the holy word of God, so “I think my translation’s a bit clearer than yours” becomes “therefore yours falsely represents the very Words of God and may deceive people away from following the Truth!!!”
Fascinating stuff, though.
*I meant to write ‘argument’ but gboard thought ‘stuffingy’ is better.
Yup. And the Bible is a notorious example of that, since a lot of versions are retranslations from Koine Greek, Aramaic and Old Hebrew into Latin into modern languages. And even if the Latin Vulgata was well made*, you’re bound to have the process happening twice.
*It could be worse. One of the reasons why Jerome worked on the Vulgata was because he didn’t like the Greek translations of Hebrew texts. Without that, people would be translating into modern languages the Latin translation of the Greek translation of Hebrew texts. Yup.