Introduction:
The Bible has been translated into more than 2000 languages. About
95% of the world’s population have access to the Bible through their
respective languages. The two parts of the Bible namely ‘The Old Testament’
and “The New Testament’ have been
translated. The Old Testament talks about man’s existence - about
his origin, his purpose and his end either in Heaven or in Hell. So men find an
emotional connection with the pages of the Old Testament. In fact, the
Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew language and then it was
translated into most of the world’s languages. The New Testament contains the history
of the birth of Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection and also his
teachings. Therefore, the New Testament also finds a special place in the
lives of people of the world.
History of the Bible Translation:
Third Century: In this period the
Old Testament was translated into Greek language from Hebrew language and was
known as the Septuagint.
Fourth Century: St. Jerome was
commissioned by Pope Damascus in 354 A.D. to translated the Bible from Hebrew
into Latin and it was known as Vulgate. The Vulgate was the first
translation of the whole Bible into Latin. It was a sense for sense
translation.
Fourteenth Century: The first English
version of the Bible (the New Testament) was made from Latin by John Wycliff.
Fifteenth Century: John Purvey
revised the first edition of Wycliff’s The New Testament and brought out the
second edition of it in an intelligent, idiomatic version.
Sixteenth Century: William Tyndale
translated the New Testament from the Greek. The 16th century saw
the invention of the printing press and Tyndale printed it in 1526. The 16th
century saw the translation of the Bible into a large number of European
languages.
Seventeenth Century: Coverdale
completed the incomplete version of Tyndale’s Old Testament and produced the
first completely printed English Bible in 1563. In 1538, Cromwell ordered that
every church should contain Bible for general use. To meet the demand a
revision of the Matthew Bible was made by Coverdale. It was known as the Great
Bible. The first Geneva Bible which was translated by William
Whittingham, John Knox and others appeared in 1560. The RC church produced
their own Bible which as known as the Douai Bible. Archbishop Parker disapproved with the
puritan notes found in Great Bible and Geneva Bible and appointed a panel to
edit the Bible. This was known as Bishop’s Bible and appeared in 1568. The
German Bible of Martin Luther gave top priority to meaning than grammar.
Eighteenth Century: The Authorized
Version of the Bible King Jame’s Bible of 1611 became the accepted Bible. It
paid more attention to the spirit and meaning of the original. Then revision of
the Authorized Version of Bible was made.
Nineteenth Century: The nineteenth century is often called the century of
missionaries. The Christian missionaries first prepared word lists and
grammatical descriptions of the languages of the conquered people in the
colonial empire. This helped them to translated the Bible into some hundreds of
languages.
Twentieth Century: The 20th
century saw the setting up of Summer Institute of Linguistics. It has 3700
members working on 675 languages in 29 countries. Linguistic research was
undertaken as a first step to Bible translation. An important organization
known as United Bible Societies came into existence. Eugene Nida served as its
Secretary and produced three books on translation: 1. Bible Translating, 2.
Towards a Science of Translating, and 3. Theory and Practice of Translating.
Function of Language in Bible
Translation:
The early translators of the Bible lacked the naturalness of the style
of the Receptor languages, slavishly imitated the syntax of the original and translated
the same word of the original by the same word in spite of the different
contexts in which it appeared. Hence Nida along with Taber goes on to underline
the three basic functions of the language: 1. The informative function, 2. The
expressive function, and 3. The imperative function. All these three functions
are necessary for an understanding of the Bible.
The Informative Function: It is not enough to understand the message. It
is important that the message should not be misunderstood. The translation
should convey the information in the simple unambiguous language. For example
the Bible expression ‘sons of Belial’ should be translated into ‘ wicked
people’ and not into ‘ the sons of a man called Belial’.
The Expressive Function: In this,
the readers should not only understand the meaning but also they should feel
about what is said. The translation should convey the feeling, mood, and the
tone of the speaker. For example:
“Thy money
perish with thee” (King Jame’s Version
[KJV])
"May you
and your money go to hell” (Good News Bible [GNB] by American Bible
Society)
“To hell
with your money!” (J.B. Phillip’s New Testament in Modern English [JBP])
In Hebrew the four lettered word YHWH is for God and traditionally known
as Jehovah. In English tradition, Lord is preferred to Jehovah. The English
Standard Version and American Standard Version used Jehovah but it did not
prove popular. The Revised Standard Version has come back to the use of Lord as
in the place of King Jame’s Version.
The Imperative Function: It assumes
that the SL text is not an ordinary document but mean to guide humanity. This
function is prominent in the translation of sacred texts not in scientific
texts. The functions of language and the priorities in translation should be
considered in Bible translation:
‘paraloka
samrajyam’ to ‘irai arasu’
‘cuvi
cesham’ to ‘narceythi’
‘thirkatharasi’
to ‘iraivakianar’
Many translators consider it as impious to replace the Sankritized words
by Tamil.
To avoid many problems, Nida makes a rather but practical suggestion
that we have three types of scripture:
An ecclesiastical translation for use in churches
A translation in the present-day literary language
A translation in the popular or common language which is at the same
time applicable to the publication.
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