God Didn't Say That

Behold! Little words mean a lot more than you might think.

It turns out that “um” means something in English, and we can learn about translation by looking at that short word.

The following hypothetical conversation between a shopper and a sales associate at a book store demonstrates:

Shopper: “Where can I find a complete bilingual text of Aristotle?”

Clerk: “Aristotle who?”

Shopper: “Um, the Greek philosopher?”

The last line, in colloquial American English, does two things. The last three words answer the question. But the first word, “um,” demonstrates disdain. The shopper is mocking the sales associate for his or her ignorance. (Incidentally, this happened to me at Barnes and Noble a couple of years ago. The staffer at the customer service desk didn’t know who Aristotle was. I did my best to hide my disappointment in our school system.)

This short word “um” demonstrates an important way words can work in language: they can add a flavor or nuance to a conversation. And as a guess, most English speakers are unable to articulate how “um” works in their native language, so we also see how complex and subtle these nuance-words can be.

I’m almost sure that na in Hebrew was such a word, and that “please” or “pray” don’t convey the same thing in English.

I think hinei in Hebrew and idou in Greek also contributed primariliy to the tone of a sentence, in a way that is not captured by “behold,” “see,” “see here,” and so forth.

So here’s a challenge: What do you think hinei and/or idou contributed?

December 2, 2009 Posted by Joel H. | general linguistics, translation practice, translation theory | behold, Bible, Bible translation, hinei, idou, linguistics, na, translation | 3 Comments