When I was at uni I did an essay for Hebrew called “How can figures of speech be effectively translated?”. (I wrote a similar one for a Linguistics subject but can only find my Hebrew one.)
Figures of speech (FOS) include similes , metaphors, idioms.
“…(FOS) present problems for translators because their meaning is context dependent. Just knowing the language is not enough to understand the authors intended meaning.
As well as decoding the language audiences need to have knowledge of the context that the metaphor was created in. If there is little or no knowledge of the context the image may be unknown.” (I’m quoting my own essay, do I have to reference formally?)
For example a Western may know “break a leg” means someone is wishing you good luck. But if you translate it literally into another language I’m pretty sure they won’t get the meaning!
Christians read the Bible which was originally written in other languages, and in other times to people of other cultures, so how did the translators of our English Bibles translate figures of speech?
“ problematic to translate FOS into another language and culture. The Psalms have been translated into many different languages. They were originally written in Hebrew in Israel. They were written from 1440- 586 BCE. As well as being written in a language other than English they were written by and to people of another time and place.
How have these ancient Hebrew figures of speech been translated into the English spoken today? What did they mean in their original context? If translated literally is there a difference between what they meant to their original audience and what they mean to contemporary English speakers ? Assuming the intention is to express the original meaning, how has this issue been dealt with? How can this problem be overcome?”
In my essay I looked at a few examples from Psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament. I looked at different English translations, and asked my peers what they thought the literal translation meant. Now I’m looking at the 2 main Khmer translations of the Bible as well, as a fun way to do my language study. Who knew a Hebrew essay could help me learn Khmer?
Here I’ll share with you one example.
“An example of where a figure of speech is usually not translated into English literally is in Psalm 12 verse 2. If it were to be literally translated from Hebrew, it would read ‘with heart and heart they speak’.
It seems this is an almost meaningless phrase to English speakers. When forced to guess a meaning most people said it may mean talking openly, from the heart, with emotion. According to English translations , and in the context of the Psalm it actually means the opposite of that.
‘They utter lies to each other; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak’ New Revised Standard(NRSV)
‘All of them lie to one another; they deceive each other with flattery’ Good News (GNB)
‘Everyone talks in lie language; Lies slide off their oily lips. They doubletalk with forked tongues.’ The Message (MSG)
Everyone deceives and flatters and lies. There is no sincerity left. The Living Bible(TLB)
Everyone lies to his neighbour; their flattering lips speak with deception. New International(NIV)
insincere heart NJB
It seems some of these completely reworded the verse to get across the meaning (TLB, NIV, GNB) while others tried to keep the form of the words (NRSV, MSG). This example is representative of how these different editions translate the Bible. The NRSV is known for being close to the form of the original languages. Whereas editions like the GNB can be called a paraphrase. They do not try to translate word for word, rather they concentrate on conveying the meaning, even if this means compromising the form of the language.
As shown by the survey results, the phrase ‘heart and heart’ does not give the intended meaning in English. Although correct interpretation is possible from the immediate context the paraphrase editions certainly seem to make the meaning clearer.
There is a variety of ways in which the Psalms have been translated into English. In the translation of poetry there is often elements lost, changed, or even added. In trying to be faithful to the text there is a struggle to adhere to the form of the language and to translate in a way which expresses the author’s intended meaning. Some editions of the Bible are more successful than others, however, all translation are just translations and translations are always different from the original.”
So that was my essay, what about the Khmer Bibles? The old version of the Khmer Bible is literally something like this:
“They all speak deception to their neighbours. They speak with flattering lips and with double heart.”
One of the new translations is something like this:
“Everyone only thinks/says bad things (malign) to each other. They say only flattering things , their hearts aren’t upright/honest.”
So this verse the old version seems to be like the NRSV, keeping some of the form with the “double”. The new version doesn’t say anything about double, I guess the translates chose to just go with the meaning.
If you want to look at multiple translations online see BibleGateway.
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