It started in my Sunday School class. Since last fall, we have been studying the kings of Israel (northern kingdom) looking for patterns, cause, effect and what we can learn. Class members take turns giving the backgrounds of the characters and starting the discussion. As class members did their research, they noticed that a man’s name would sometimes be rendered more than one way. Why?
Only two of us have experience with more than the English language. The class came to realize that there are names and nicknames. They also learned that names don’t carry across into other languages. For example, my given name is Charles. Everyone called me that until I met Sylvia. She said it sounded “stuffy,” and if I wanted to go with her she would call me Chuck. Neither Charles nor Chuck work in Spanish. For that reason, a number of my Spanish speaking friends call me Carlos. My German speaking ancestors would have probably named me Karl. You get the idea.
The class took a side road as we looked into the relationship between language and culture. Obvious examples include Spanish speakers saying, “white and black” or the “house white.” Not so obvious are cultural perceptions and practices. In Japan, addresses are based on the block–they are numbered. Buildings are numbered in the order they were built. They do not follow street names and sequential numbers.
Confusing? Perhaps it is to us.
Just for fun, I took a familiar piece by Wm Shakespeare and ran it through an online translator. Starting with English, I then translated to Spanish, then Greek, Japanese, Hindi, back to Spanish and finally to English. Here’s what happened:
Original
Who is Sylvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness,
And, being helped, inhabits there.Then to Sylvia let us sing, That Sylvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.
Final Output
Who is Sylvia? This is my blessing to all the pastors?
The grace of God, a way to give a fair and reasonable to heaven
It can be seen.What is it justified? Let the beauty and good living.
I love helping a blind eye repair
And it has helped because I live there.Sylvia song again, Sylvia is excellent.
It is good that the slack in the housing land once each person:
This will make a wreath.
You don’t have to use that many languages to get bizarre changes. It might seem a miracle that we are able to communicate at all. Nevertheless, all share common thoughts and feelings of joy and sorrow. Desire and frustration. Contentment and unrest. Hope and despair.
Have you experienced anything like this?
I love how languages evolve, and knowing where words and phrases come from.
Oops, I see in my fervor I ended a sentence too quickly!!
If you were to compare today's Hebrew version of the scriptures with the oldest extant fragment we have in existence today (currently known as the Hinnom Scrolls),
…. you'd see that the language has not changed. Not one jot or tittle. It is AMAZING. Nothing has been "lost in translation" with the scriptures.
I find languages and etymology absolutely fascinating. It's been a hobby of mine for years.
What's amazing is that the scriptures remain virtually unchanged from the original writings by the first scribes. I've studied it intently (as have a few of my kids). If you were to compare today's Hebrew version of the scriptures with the oldest extant fragment we have in existence today (currently known as the Hinnom Scrolls).
The New Testament is similar. The Greek transcripts created over hundreds of years are remarkably identical to the oldest Greek fragments of scripture dating to the first century AD. God has miraculously preserved the integrity of His word over the ages.
The translations from the Hebrew and Greek into our modern languages leaves much to be desired, in my opinion. While a good deal is accurate, I am rankled by what seem to be intentional changes– some changes even affect the doctrinal meaning of the scripture.
For example, take 1 Timothy 5:1-2, focus on the word "elder" here. In verse 1, the word "elder" for the man is implied to be a church leader, as evidenced elsewhere in scripture (Titus and etc). The Greek word here is "presbooteros," or a member of a counsel– it's a noun. Yet in verse 2, the "elder" is modified as an adjective to describe an older woman, but the same Greek word, presbooteros, is used here as well. The English translators diluted the meaning a little, to imply that men are elders, and women are elderly. This is just one example I've found. Do a Greek study on the word "mind," especially in the Letter to the Romans, and you'll see what I mean. The English translation is exceedingly poor. I suppose this is why our forefathers received an education in classical Greek, Hebrew, and Latin– this education set them free to understand the nuances of the scriptural language that is lost in just plain English.
You can see I am very passionate about this topic. 🙂 But it blows my mind that– despite the "telephone game" or "whisper game" that children like to play that proves how language can change from speaker to listener– the scriptures have not changed. The message is still clear, and the heavens declare the glory of God. I just posted about that this morning, too. 🙂
There are some good movies out there about this topic, too– God's Indestructable Book, The Forbidden Book, etc.
I like that you took the time to illustrate your point with the "remodelled" Shakespeare.
Communication is difficult enough between two people who know each other well. It is amazing that we can convey our ideas to others at all!
It's called whisper down the lane only history has been whispering down the lane for millenia. Add in the removal of facts by the victors looking to erase any negatives about themselves and seeking to eliminate their vanquished and we get a very skewed look at what occurred in the past. Not to mention the translation issues you experienced especially with languages that don't currently exist and the problems you mentioned when words don't mesh from language to language.
And then there are cultural differences that add a whole other layer…
Guess what my degree is in?