Re: Translation of the Babel Text

When I did mine, I went with my junior high German teacher's words. She
always said that translation should be "matching," so that you matched
thought for thought rather than word for word.  That being said, I start
with word to word and then massage until I have moved to something that
matches the thought.
Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On
Behalf Of Sai Emrys
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 8:45 PM
To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Translation of the Babel Text

My question is: how did you do it?

1. Literally / word for word
2. Almost-literally - conceptually identical 3. Loosely - replacing some
metaphors (e.g. for understanding something or for building) 4. Total
replacement - e.g. changing some major aspects of the story to fit your
culture, or some major assumptions (like the personification of Yahweh)

This ties in to general translation issues, but scriptural texts
particularly seem prone to be treated as requiring literal preservation of
the original.

(I've seen this in other translations also - where people, instead of
translating the intention of a text, translate the metaphors and other items
literally... and end up with a cognitive calque.)

 - Sai