Sticky Moments of Translation
From Robert Douglas-Fairhurst's Victorian Afterlives: The Shaping of Influence in Nineteenth-Century Literature:
These grammatical patterns have a cognitive function, in that they shape our view of the world, as well as reflecting the shapes we retrieve from the world. Because there is no Eskimo word for "sheep", for example, Bible translators are denied "the lamb of God", and must make do with "the seal pup of God"...
Are you laughing too? Good, because I nearly fell off the sofa due to unrestrained laughter.
These grammatical patterns have a cognitive function, in that they shape our view of the world, as well as reflecting the shapes we retrieve from the world. Because there is no Eskimo word for "sheep", for example, Bible translators are denied "the lamb of God", and must make do with "the seal pup of God"...
Are you laughing too? Good, because I nearly fell off the sofa due to unrestrained laughter.
posted by Kandice | 6:31 AM
2 Comments:
Now that is funny!
Something along the same lines, although not funny, is this: in Papua New Guinea, bread is not a main staple in their diets. So, in order to portray the correct idea of God's word being the "bread of life," they use their main staple, which is potatoes. So, in the Pigeon Bible, God's word is the "potatoes of life." :) Which is they way I would prefer it anyway!!!
This is really funny and quite sad at the same time. Where did you get this material? I would like to check your sources if you don't mind.
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