Translating Words That Mean More Than One Thing
Frequently a Hebrew or Greek word will, in the eyes of English speakers, “mean more than one thing.”
A Foreign Word With Multiple English Translations
A simple example might be eitz in Hebrew, which means both “tree” and “wood” in English. It’s not that eitz means more than one thing. Rather, the Hebrew term is more encompassing than any English word. So we say that it “means more than one thing,” but really we just have a mismatch between English and Hebrew. (When the situation is reversed, we again generally resort to English-centric terminology, and say that the foreign language has two words “for the same thing.”)
Translating Words With Multiple English Translations
I see three possible translation scenarios, depicted to the left. In the first two, context makes it clear how to translate the foreign word into English. These two cases are usually easy for the translator, and it’s generally only a linguistic curiosity that the foreign language has but one word for the two English ones. Continuing our example, the “eitz of knowing good and evil” is a “tree,” while the eitz of which the ark was built is “wood.”
But sometimes the usage of the foreign word spans both English words, and this is always a true dilemma for the translator. Neither English word suffices as a translation. We don’t see this with eitz, but lots of other words come to mind.
One example seems to be sarx in Greek (as was discussed extensively about a month ago by Peter Kirk, Clayboy, Mark Goodacre, Jason Staples and others, and again in passing yesterday by T. C. Robinson). It’s not exactly that sarx means more than one thing. Rather, its meaning includes “body” in English, but it is broader than that English word. When sarx is used for “body” or “flesh” (say, in Leviticus 13:24), it’s easy to find an English translation. But when it includes “body” and other important denotations as well, a good translation is elusive.
I think another set of examples comes from gender words. The Greek adelphos, for example, includes the English “brother,” but also what we might awkwardly call “co-member of society.” Again, the word doesn’t have more than one meaning, just more than one good translation, depending on context.
What other important words like this present themselves?
On Translations for Children
Karyn Traphagen notes that Dr. Ellen Frankel has some thoughts about making the Bible PG for children. (Dr. Frankel authored the JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible.)
Seeing this reminded of something I saw some time ago in a “children’s prayerbook” along the lines of “Like wine, the sabbath is sweet.” The problem is that children think wine is disgusting, so I doubt that comparing the sabbath to wine is really a good way to reach children.
Then I got to wondering more generally if translations need to be tailored to children, and I think the answer is at least partially “yes,” because children speak a different dialect of English. (The translation issues are in addition to any content changes, such as perhaps removing rape.)
At the most basic level, children have a different vocabulary and syntax than adults. Just as the British and American versions of some translations differ according to the two dialects, shouldn’t a children’s version take into account how children use language?
Similarly, some biblical metaphors are completely opaque to children. For example, the common image among the Prophets of a “barren women” is beyond the understanding of young children, but the point may not be.
On the other hand, I see at least four drawbacks to children’s translations:
1. Children may come to think that their children’s version is the Only True Version of the Bible, and then, as adults, refuse to use any other. This would leave them with a permanently pediatric view of the Bible.
2. More generally, children may never learn that the Bible is suitable for adults.
3. Parents — many of whom read the Bible primarily with their children — may find reinforcement for their preconceived notions that the Bible is childish.
4. As a practical matter, translating for children is difficult. A bad translation is probably worse than no translation.
So I wonder: should we create children’s translations of the Bible?
On Psalm 137: A Romp On The Banks of Babylon’s Rivers
Polycarp has posted the God’s Word translation of Psalm 137, along with the NASV and NLT for comparison. I’m glad he did, because it’s always a treat to revisit Psalm 137. (I won’t copy his translation chart here, so you might want to open his page for comparison while you read this.)
I posted a while ago about the impressive nature of the guide the translators of God’s Word wrote, even as I voiced my concern that the translation might not live up to its promise.
With Psalm 137 we see more evidence that practice is harder than theory.
The first verse of Psalm 137 starts with the Hebrew al naharot bavel, and the second follows up with al aravim b’tocha. Notice the repetition of “al.” While I’ve yet to find a translation that captures this, it’s still disappointing.
More disappointing is the continued insistence on the awkward “rivers of Babylon.” Robert Alter gets this right with his “Babylon’s streams”: “By Babylon’s streams//there we sat, oh we wept,//when we recalled Zion.” I’m less concerned about “streams” versus “rivers” than I am with the “X of Y” phrasing, which frequently should be “Y’s X.”
However, Alter’s reason for choosing “streams” is interesting. He says in a footnote that:
naharot generally means “rivers,” but because the more probable reference is to the network of canals that connected the Tigris and the Euphrates, “streams” is a preferable translation here.
I’m note sure. If the word means “rivers” in Hebrew but was nonetheless used for streams, why can’t we do the same thing in English, and use the word “river” for streams? On the other hand, maybe Alter’s point is that the Hebrew is ambiguous, but in English we have to choose.
The next line variously refers to “poplars” or “willows,” and while clearly the matter is important to many translators (the ESV, NAB, NRSV, and probably others have a footnote), I must admit that I have no idea what a poplar is. However, the Hebrew word is aravim, which also means both “evenings” and “Arabians.” I wonder if the word didn’t form a pun in the line, “on the aravim in it, we hung up our harps.” If so, “weeping willows” is probably a good translation, even if the trees were poplars.
I’m surprised to see italics for “They said” in verse 3. The idea of italicizing words that “aren’t in the original” is usually a terrible one, but I have to admit that in verse 5 it’s pretty convenient. The issue in verse 5 is that the Hebrew reads “may my right forget.” It’s very common in Hebrew to find “right” for “right hand,” so: “may my right hand forget.” But forget what? Again, Alter explains the issue perfectly:
[footnote] 5. may my right hand wither. The Masoretic text reads “may my right hand forget [tishkah].” This is problematic because there is no evidence elsewhere for an intransitive use of the verb “to forget” — hence the strategy of desperation of the King James Version in adding, in italics, an object to the verb, “its cunning.” But a simple reversal of consonants yields tikhhash, “wither.”
God’s Word goes with, “let my right hand forget how to play the lyre” (original italics).
Most translations miss the key word play in verses 3-4. The Babylonians (“they”) demand, “sing to us from a song of Zion [shir tzion]“ and the Israelites (“we”) reply, “how can we a song of Adonai [shir Adonai]….” “They” think it’s just a nationalistic song “of Zion,” but “we” know that it’s God’s song. Surprisingly, the NLT doesn’t do too badly in this regard with “one of those songs of Jerusalem” and “the songs of the Lord.” (But so much else the NLT rendition here is wrong.)
As for verses 8-9 and the horribly gruesome image of smashing children against rocks, I would hope that we’ve missed something, but the “children” in verse 9 seem to be “child[ren] of Babylon” that we see in verse 8 with the Hebrew bat bavel, “daughter of Babylon.”
On the Word breishit
Professor Ellen van Wolde’s recent article about Genesis has brought the debate about the word breishit to the fore again.
Some people don’t like the traditional understanding — “In the beginning” — because the Hebrew word is, literally, “in a beginning” or “in the beginning of.” (Simon Holloway recently provided a little more detail.)
Accordingly, some translations (such as the JPS) prefer, “When God began to create,” reading the Hebrew literally as “in the beginning of God’s creating.” Other commentators use this grammatical tidbit to argue against creation ex nihilo in Genesis.
But I think the reasoning is flawed.
We frequently see what we might call determiner mismatches in translation. That is, it’s common to find that one language requires a determiner (“the,” say) where another disallows it. For example, American English requires “the” in the phrase, “his illness put him in the hospital” while the British equivalent is “…in hospital.” Similarly, many dialects of Portuguese require a determiner before proper names (e.g., “the Paulo” instead of just “Paulo”).
In Genesis 5:2 we read that Enoch walked with ha-elohim, literally, “the God,” but every English translation I know renders the Hebrew simply as “God.”
In Deuteronomy 11:12, we find the phrase meireishit hashanah v’ad acharit shana, literally, “from the beginning of the year to an end of a year,” yet, again, the meaning is clear and translators seem content to correctly render the phrase as “the end….”
It seems to me that using English rules of grammar to understand the lack of a determiner in breshit is no different than using American rules of grammar to (mis)understand the British phrase “in hospital.”
Man is Everywhere (And So is Woman)
In a comment on A. Admin’s post about Bill Mounce, Mark Baker-Wright takes Dr. Mounce to task for writing (originally here):
Have you noticed the new advertisement for the Prius: “Harmony Between Man, Nature And Machine.” I’ll bet Toyota would be glad to sell to women.
Dr. Mounce is using the point to support his claim that:
[T]hankfully “humankind” never occurs in the NIV/TNIV. What an ugly word! But “mankind” continues to be used as a generic term in English, as does “man.” I know there are people who disagree with this point, but the fact that it is used generically over and over again cannot truly be debated; the evidence is everywhere.
What we have here is confusion on at least two levels:
1. Different people have different dialects. This should be obvious — particularly in light of the heated debate people have about this very issue in their own language — but it seems that this point is frequently forgotten or ignored. It’s perfectly possible (and seems to be true) that one person would hear “man” or “men” and think “people,” while another person would hear “male adult people.”
So even when “there are people who disagree,” both sides can be right for their own dialects.
2. Words mean different things in different contexts. It’s perfectly possoble — and, again, seems to be true — that in English “man versus nature” has more of a general feel than “man versus woman.”
Mounce even gives us an example from his own dialect. He writes, “I know there are people who disagree.” Why didn’t he write, “I know there are men who disagree”? Because in that situation, it would seem, “men” doesn’t mean “people.”
Q&A: trei asar – The Twelve Prophets
Another question from the About page:
The Twelve Prophets . I find it strange that the abbreviation for these books is given as תרי עשר
Why are the 12 called 10? Please could you say more about the grammar of this phrase. Thanks
The word תרי (trei) is actually Aramaic for “two,” so תרי עשר (trei asar) is “twelve.”
The prefix is most commonly known in Modern Hebrew from the word tresar, “dozen,” though unlike its English equivalent, tresar is formal.
Translation Challenge: Psalm 2:2
Psalm 2:2 exhibits particularly clever structure, with meanings that form chiasmus and word combinations that pattern in straight parallelism.
The Hebrew reads: yityats’vu malchei erets//v’roznim nosdu yachdav. Yityatsvu means the about same thing as nosdu yachdav, and malchei eretz is like roznim. That’s the chiasmus. But equally, each line has three words, and both times the first words stand alone while the 2nd and 3rd form a pair.
Obviously, the KJV “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together” preserves none of this.
Can anyone think of a translation that captures the structure and meaning and beauty of the original?
From AGS-
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