Translation Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===History=== The first important translation in the West was that of the [[Septuagint]], a collection of [[Jew]]ish Scriptures translated into early [[Koine Greek]] in [[Alexandria]] between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE. The dispersed Jews had forgotten their ancestral language and needed Greek versions (translations) of their Scriptures.<ref>J.M. Cohen, p. 12.</ref> Throughout the [[Middle Ages]], Latin was the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of the western learned world. The 9th-century [[Alfred the Great]], king of [[Wessex]] in [[England]], was far ahead of his time in commissioning [[vernacular]] [[Anglo-Saxon language|Anglo-Saxon]] translations of [[Bede]]'s ''[[Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum|Ecclesiastical History]]'' and [[Boethius]]' ''[[Consolation of Philosophy]]''. Meanwhile, the [[Christian Church]] frowned on even partial adaptations of [[St. Jerome]]'s [[Vulgate]] of {{Circa|384 CE}},<ref>J.M Cohen, pp. 12-13.</ref> the standard Latin Bible. In [[Asia]], the spread of [[Buddhism]] led to large-scale ongoing translation efforts spanning well over a thousand years. The [[Tangut Empire]] was especially efficient in such efforts; exploiting the then newly invented [[block printing]], and with the full support of the government (contemporary sources describe the Emperor and his mother personally contributing to the translation effort, alongside sages of various nationalities), the Tanguts took mere decades to translate volumes that had taken the [[China|Chinese]] centuries to render.{{Citation needed|date=June 2008}} The [[Arabs]] undertook [[Graeco-Arabic translation movement|large-scale efforts at translation]]. Having conquered the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] world, they made Arabic versions of its philosophical and scientific works. During the Middle Ages, translations of some of these Arabic versions [[Latin translations of the 12th century|were made into Latin]], chiefly at [[Córdoba, Spain|Córdoba]] in [[Spain]].<ref name="Cohen13">J.M. Cohen, p. 13.</ref> King [[Alfonso X of Castile|Alfonso X the Wise]] of [[Kingdom of Castile|Castile]] in the 13th century promoted this effort by founding a ''[[Toledo School of Translators|Schola Traductorum]]'' (School of Translation) in [[Toledo, Spain|Toledo]]. There Arabic texts, Hebrew texts, and Latin texts were translated into the other tongues by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars, who also argued the merits of their respective religions. Latin translations of Greek and original Arab works of scholarship and science helped advance European [[Scholasticism]], and thus European science and culture. The broad historic trends in Western translation practice may be illustrated on the example of translation into the English language. [[File:Chaucer Hoccleve.png|thumb|upright|[[Geoffrey Chaucer]]]] The first fine translations into English were made in the 14th century by [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], who adapted from the [[Italian language|Italian]] of [[Giovanni Boccaccio]] in his own ''[[Knight's Tale]]'' and ''[[Troilus and Criseyde]]''; began a translation of the French-language ''[[Roman de la Rose]]''; and completed a translation of Boethius from the Latin. Chaucer founded an English [[poetry|poetic]] tradition on [[Literary adaptation|adaptations]] and translations from those earlier-established [[literary language]]s.<ref name=Cohen13/> The first great English translation was the [[Wycliffe Bible]] ({{circa|1382}}), which showed the weaknesses of an underdeveloped English [[prose]]. Only at the end of the 15th century did the great age of English prose translation begin with [[Thomas Malory]]'s ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]''—an adaptation of [[Arthurian romance]]s so free that it can, in fact, hardly be called a true translation. The first great [[Tudor period|Tudor]] translations are, accordingly, the [[Tyndale Bible|Tyndale New Testament]] (1525), which influenced the [[Authorized Version]] (1611), and [[Lord Berners]]' version of [[Jean Froissart]]'s ''Chronicles'' (1523–25).<ref name=Cohen13/> [[File:Portrait of Marsilio Ficino at the Duomo Firence 2.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Marsilio Ficino]]]] Meanwhile, in [[Renaissance]] [[Italy]], a new period in the history of translation had opened in [[Florence]] with the arrival, at the court of [[Cosimo de' Medici]], of the [[Byzantine]] scholar [[Georgius Gemistus Pletho]] shortly before the fall of [[Constantinople]] to the Turks (1453). A Latin translation of [[Plato]]'s works was undertaken by [[Marsilio Ficino]]. This and [[Erasmus]]' Latin edition of the [[New Testament]] led to a new attitude to translation. For the first time, readers demanded rigor of rendering, as philosophical and religious beliefs depended on the exact words of Plato, [[Aristotle]] and [[Jesus]].<ref name=Cohen13/> Non-scholarly literature, however, continued to rely on ''adaptation''. [[France]]'s ''[[Pléiade]]'', England's Tudor poets, and the [[Elizabethan]] translators adapted themes by [[Horace]], [[Ovid]], [[Petrarch]] and modern Latin writers, forming a new poetic style on those models. The English poets and translators sought to supply a new public, created by the rise of a [[middle class]] and the development of [[printing]], with works such as the original authors ''would have written'', had they been writing in England in that day.<ref name=Cohen13/> The Elizabethan period of translation saw considerable progress beyond mere paraphrase toward an ideal of [[Stylistics (linguistics)|stylistic]] equivalence, but even to the end of this period, which actually reached to the middle of the 17th century, there was no concern for [[Words|verbal]] [[accuracy]].<ref name="Cohen14">J.M. Cohen, p. 14.</ref> In the second half of the 17th century, the poet John Dryden sought to make [[Virgil]] speak "in words such as he would probably have written if he were living and an Englishman". As great as Dryden's poem is, however, one is reading Dryden, and not experiencing the Roman poet's concision. Similarly, [[Homer]] arguably suffers from [[Alexander Pope]]'s endeavor to reduce the Greek poet's "wild paradise" to order. Both works live on as worthy ''English'' epics, more than as a point of access to the Latin or Greek.<ref name=Cohen14/> [[File:Edward FitzGerald.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward FitzGerald]]]] Throughout the 18th century, the watchword of translators was ease of reading. Whatever they did not understand in a text, or thought might bore readers, they omitted. They cheerfully assumed that their own style of expression was the best, and that texts should be made to conform to it in translation. For scholarship they cared no more than had their predecessors, and they did not shrink from making translations from translations in third languages, or from languages that they hardly knew, or—as in the case of [[James Macpherson]]'s "translations" of [[Ossian]]—from texts that were actually of the "translator's" own composition.<ref name=Cohen14/> [[File:Benjamin Jowett - Imagines philologorum.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Benjamin Jowett]]]] The 19th century brought new standards of accuracy and style. In regard to accuracy, observes J.M. Cohen, the policy became "the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text", except for any [[bawdy]] passages and the addition of copious explanatory [[footnote]]s.{{efn|For instance, Henry Benedict Mackey's translation of [[St. Francis de Sales]]'s "[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/desales/love.html Treatise on the Love of God]" consistently omits the saint's analogies comparing God to a nursing mother, references to Bible stories such as the rape of Tamar, and so forth.}} In regard to style, the [[Victorian era|Victorians]]' aim, achieved through far-reaching metaphrase (literality) or ''pseudo''-metaphrase, was to constantly remind readers that they were reading a ''foreign'' classic. An exception was the outstanding translation in this period, [[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward FitzGerald]]'s ''[[Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam|Rubaiyat]]'' of [[Omar Khayyam]] (1859), which achieved its Oriental flavor largely by using Persian names and discreet Biblical echoes and actually drew little of its material from the Persian original.<ref name=Cohen14/> In advance of the 20th century, a new pattern was set in 1871 by [[Benjamin Jowett]], who translated Plato into simple, straightforward language. Jowett's example was not followed, however, until well into the new century, when accuracy rather than style became the principal criterion.<ref name=Cohen14/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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