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! ===Modern translation=== As a language evolves, texts in an earlier version of the language—original texts, or old translations—may become difficult for modern readers to understand. Such a text may therefore be translated into more modern language, producing a "modern translation" (e.g., a "modern English translation" or "modernized translation"). Such modern rendering is applied either to literature from classical languages such as Latin or Greek, notably to the Bible (see "[[Modern English Bible translations]]"), or to literature from an earlier stage of the same language, as with the works of [[William Shakespeare]] (which are largely understandable by a modern audience, though with some difficulty) or with [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s [[Middle English|Middle-English]] ''[[The Canterbury Tales|Canterbury Tales]]'' (which is understandable to most modern readers only through heavy dependence on footnotes). In 2015 the [[Oregon Shakespeare Festival]] commissioned professional translation of the entire Shakespeare canon, including disputed works such as ''[[Edward III (play)|Edward III]]'',<ref>{{cite news |last1=Schuessler |first1=Jennifer |title=Translating Shakespeare? 36 Playwrights Taketh the Big Risk |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/theater/oregon-shakespeare-festival-play-on.html |access-date=11 August 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=30 September 2016}}</ref> into contemporary vernacular English; in 2019, off-off-Broadway, the canon was premiered in a month-long series of staged readings.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Schuessler |first1=Jennifer |title=A Shakespeare Festival Presents Modern Translations. Cue the Debate (Again). |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/theater/shakespeare-modern-english-play-on-festival.html |access-date=11 August 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=3 April 2019}}</ref> Modern translation is applicable to any language with a long literary history. For example, in Japanese the 11th-century ''[[The Tale of Genji|Tale of Genji]]'' is generally read in modern translation (see "[[The Tale of Genji#Modern readership|''Genji:'' modern readership]]"). Modern translation often involves literary scholarship and textual revision, as there is frequently not one single canonical text. This is particularly noteworthy in the case of the Bible and Shakespeare, where modern scholarship can result in substantive textual changes. [[Anna North]] writes: "Translating the long-dead language [[Homer]] used — a variant of [[ancient Greek]] called Homeric Greek — into contemporary English is no easy task, and translators bring their own skills, opinions, and stylistic sensibilities to the text. The result is that every translation is different, almost a new poem in itself." An example is [[Emily Wilson (classicist)|Emily Wilson]]'s 2017 translation of Homer's ''[[Odyssey]]'', where by conscious choice Wilson "lays bare the morals of its time and place, and invites us to consider how different they are from our own, and how similar."<ref>{{Cite web|last=North|first=Anna|date=20 November 2017|title=Historically, men translated the Odyssey. Here's what happened when a woman took the job.|url=https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/20/16651634/odyssey-emily-wilson-translation-first-woman-english|access-date=9 September 2020|website=Vox}}</ref> Modern translation meets with opposition from some traditionalists. In English, some readers [[King James Only movement|prefer]] the [[Authorized King James Version]] of the Bible to modern translations, and Shakespeare in the original of {{circa|1600}} to modern translations. An opposite process involves translating modern literature into classical languages, for the purpose of [[extensive reading]] (for examples, see "[[List of Latin translations of modern literature]]"). 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. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page