English language more comprehensive with certain terms

Just got this idea from my bible study attended tonight, which discussed among other things how the English language, in describing things in the Bible, is no way near as comprehensive or definitive as what the original Hebrew or Greek was- a key example being the term 'love', which in English translations of the Bible, as the blanket term used, fails to take into account the different Greek terms for love referred to- that is, PHILEO (brotherly), EROS (romatic), & AGAPE (totally selfless). Now, how could the English language be comprehensive enough to reflect these nuances from the original language, in the Biblical context ?
 

MrP

Banned
The language is capable of translating such terms properly - you just used it to do so. However, sometimes people screw up translations, whether because of inability or bias. Fiddling with English won't impact that.
 

Philip

Donor
Now, how could the English language be comprehensive enough to reflect these nuances from the original language, in the Biblical context ?

What is wrong with the two methods currently used by English?
1. Modify the 'love' with and adjective: Phileo -> brotherly love.
2. Adopt the Greek word as an English word, as has already been done with 'agape'.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Just got this idea from my bible study attended tonight, which discussed among other things how the English language, in describing things in the Bible, is no way near as comprehensive or definitive as what the original Hebrew or Greek was.
This is something of a linguistic fallacy. Every spoken language is just as "comprehensive" as the last, but some areas of the lexicon are more developed than others.

With reference to the language of the Bible, it is, for lack of a better word, unsophisticated. The entire Hebrew text of the Bible (which was committed to writing over a vast span of time by a large number of people) is written with no more than 10,000 words, of which 1,300 appear only once. Many words represent a wide range of things (such as qol "voice, noise, sound, etc.", which has no fewer fifteen meanings in my little dictionary). Compare this to Shakespeare, a single man writing during a narrowly circumscribed period of time, who made use of nearly 30,000 words, of which something between 2/5ths and 3/5ths appear only once (!).

The Greek of the New Testament isn't much better - in the original, it is very clearly the language of the marketplace, despite the best efforts of translators to dress it up. Few if any translations capture the rough quality of the original.

If anything, this rough quality is a bigger impediment to translating it into precise English than any of the distinctions made within the source languages but not in English.
 
I always thought English was amongst the most comprehensive languages going- it has the biggest dictionary afterall (just going off Europeans...I'd guess Chinese could be bigger).
I find with Swedish a lot of English words translate into just one Swedish word.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
I always thought English was amongst the most comprehensive languages going- it has the biggest dictionary afterall (just going off Europeans...I'd guess Chinese could be bigger).
Actually, the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal has even more entries than the OED--over 430,000.
 
Actually, the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal has even more entries than the OED--over 430,000.

Dutch?!?...Now that's unexpected. How strange.

I'm looking this up here....A lot does seem to suggest English has the most as far as anything does. But then its a silly and largely pointless question due to how incomparable totally alien languages are.
A bit of a problem exists too because there is no academie anglais and English just...uses whatever it finds.

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/389075
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061213120502AAT63vT
 

Hendryk

Banned
Yes, it would be nice to read Paul's epistles translated with more accurate words. Conservative Christians would realize that he doesn't condemn homosexuality as we understand the term, and it would save everyone a lot of trouble.
 

Skokie

Banned
This is something of a linguistic fallacy. Every spoken language is just as "comprehensive" as the last, but some areas of the lexicon are more developed than others.

With reference to the language of the Bible, it is, for lack of a better word, unsophisticated. The entire Hebrew text of the Bible (which was committed to writing over a vast span of time by a large number of people) is written with no more than 10,000 words, of which 1,300 appear only once. Many words represent a wide range of things (such as qol "voice, noise, sound, etc.", which has no fewer fifteen meanings in my little dictionary). Compare this to Shakespeare, a single man writing during a narrowly circumscribed period of time, who made use of nearly 30,000 words, of which something between 2/5ths and 3/5ths appear only once (!).

The Greek of the New Testament isn't much better - in the original, it is very clearly the language of the marketplace, despite the best efforts of translators to dress it up. Few if any translations capture the rough quality of the original.

Yep. One of the stumbling blocks that Christianity faced in finding acceptance among the educated in Rome was the embarrassingly shoddy Greek that the gospels were written in.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Dutch?!?...Now that's unexpected. How strange.

I'm looking this up here....A lot does seem to suggest English has the most as far as anything does.
You were using English language sources online, yes? Here's an English translation of the (originally Dutch) article that accompanied the publication of the online edition of the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. The translator claims that the OED has more entries, but this is in fact not true, as the Armenian Genocide points out.

But then its a silly and largely pointless question due to how incomparable totally alien languages are.
Dutch is an incomparable totally alien language?

It's a silly and a pointless question due to the fact that dictionaries forge a composite standard out of artificially merged written forms of language rather than anything actually spoken or written. "Standard" dictionaries such as these are just one more measure for the all-important comparison of national virility.
 
The Greek of the New Testament isn't much better - in the original, it is very clearly the language of the marketplace, despite the best efforts of translators to dress it up. Few if any translations capture the rough quality of the original.

Better to just type out the Greek or Latin phrase within a paper (and translate it, depending on your audience) rather than use squishy English words to explain concepts. In grad school we are told to personally translate all of our Greek/Latin quotes, so it is up to the writer to determine the best use of words for a foreign language translation and justify unclear situations through argument.

Early patristic Greek (ex. Apostolic Fathers) did not exhibit that much more literary sophistication than the Evangelists and Paul. But I don't buy the argument that Classical paradigms are the standard of comparison for other Latin or Greek literary periods. Who's to say that the Mass or the Greek Divine Liturgy are deficient since both are written in simpler language than their classical antecedents? From a Latinist point of view, the hymns and propers of the Mass have sort of a literary naivety about them that is a nice change from the wordiness of Augustan writers, for example.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
But I don't buy the argument that Classical paradigms are the standard of comparison for other Latin or Greek literary periods. Who's to say that the Mass or the Greek Divine Liturgy are deficient since both are written in simpler language than their classical antecedents?
Well, I for one would never use the term "deficient" to describe a language, and I've written at great length about the dangers of measuring one form of a language against a "classical standard".
 
Well, I for one would never use the term "deficient" to describe a language

Good point, "deficient" is not a good word but I have heard fellow students describe non-classical Latin as "deficient". Perhaps I shouldn't let such descriptions rub off on me. It's true that a semantically and syntactically "simpler" language does not mean a "deficient" language.

I've written at great length about the dangers of measuring one form of a language against a "classical standard".

Here on AH.com? Would be interested in reading them. I shouldn't have phrased the first message in that way. I have had to defend myself, unfortunately, for my greater interest in liturgical and medieval Latin versus the classical authors. I tend to be a bit defensive about it.
 
In think the bigger problem is that fully grasping the Hebrew Bible is simply difficult in translation. I assume the New Testament is similarly hampered by translation.
 
No, they are. They follow completely different rules to English. If you know them the case will only become even more apparent.

Not really. They have a non-Indo-European vocabulary base, which can throw people.

Grammatically, they follow different rules, tending not toward inflection of the IE languages, but that's hardly alien either. But there is a tremendous variety in IE grammars as well.
 
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