Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)

caeruleancentaur wrote:

>Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@N...> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I think religeous texts are almost always amongst the most difficult
>>things to translate. I remember hearing once about a missionary who
>>wanted to translate the bible into the local language, but this was
>>somewhere where they didn't have donkeys, horses or anything similar.
>>How do you translate the story of the birth of Jesus without
>>mentioning a donkey!?! You could translate it as "big four legged
>>beast that carries things" I suppose, but if you don't mention that
>>these were common place then readers not familiar with donkeys or
>>horses etc might assume that this beast is a miracle rather than
>>something you see every day. So you have to include way more than
>>just one word just to get across the basic idea of Mary riding on a
>>donkey.
>>
>>
>
>I agree with you in principle.  Missionaries do have problems in
>translating terms that are culturally bound.  Just a reminder,
>though, that the donkey is not mentioned in the Christmas stories of
>Matthew and Luke.  Neither are camels or oxen.  It would be very easy
>to translate the Christmas stories without mentioning donkeys.  I
>would be more worried about the espousal custom in Matthew or the
>census in Luke.  Or the manger.
>
>
Personally, and this is just me, I'd insert an approximate phonetic
rendition of said object and follow it with an explanation.

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