Who reads Greek?

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JimFoxvog
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Re: Who reads Greek?

Post by JimFoxvog »

Adam wrote: One quick example is the singular vs. plural you, which is almost never clear in English translations but is very easy to see in Greek.
I thought this was the value of the KJV using "thee" and "thou" or "ye" and "you". In my opinion it detracts from the naturalness of the language to the modern reader, but makes the singular or plural clear. I'm no expert; am I mistaken that this KJV language can be mostly trusted?
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Josh
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Re: Who reads Greek?

Post by Josh »

When translating into a language missing a feature in the source language, some other way to express it must be found. You're right that the KJV used those words for simplicity of showing this; by the 1600s thee's and thou's had largely fallen out of use in everyday speech in urban England.
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Adam
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Re: Who reads Greek?

Post by Adam »

JimFoxvog wrote:
Adam wrote: One quick example is the singular vs. plural you, which is almost never clear in English translations but is very easy to see in Greek.
I thought this was the value of the KJV using "thee" and "thou" or "ye" and "you". In my opinion it detracts from the naturalness of the language to the modern reader, but makes the singular or plural clear. I'm no expert; am I mistaken that this KJV language can be mostly trusted?
Yes, the KJV does a good job of differentiating in that way. The problem is that people who do not speak English as a native language have a hard time understanding the KJV. (Actually most native speakers have trouble too, including me.) Plus most native English speakers would have a very hard time explaining the difference between thee and thou and between thy and thine. So the usefulness of the KJV in the translation of minority languages around the world is quite limited.
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Adam
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Re: Who reads Greek?

Post by Adam »

Josh wrote:When translating into a language missing a feature in the source language, some other way to express it must be found. You're right that the KJV used those words for simplicity of showing this; by the 1600s thee's and thou's had largely fallen out of use in everyday speech in urban England.
Sometimes when the target language is missing a feature of the source language, it is not possible to express it and maintain any sort of naturalness in the translation. Sometimes you just have to accept a translation that is not 100% like the source. I'll give you an example:

Enga has three words that we would translate in English with those. The first dutupa refers to a group that has a specific number, the second dokaita refers to a group that is viewed more as a collective whole. The third dupa is a more general term that refers to groups that are not generally in view in the scene in focus. It is nearly impossible to maintain those distinctions in English without a very awkward translation.

Another example is that Enga has three past tenses: one for earlier today, one for yesterday, and one for two days ago or earlier. Again, it is nearly impossible to maintain those distinctions when translating from Enga to English because our verb system just has one past tense.

The hardest thing about learning another language, in my opinion, is learning to make distinctions like those that your native language does not make. I remember trying to learn the difference between kame singi and tatake pingi. Both of them can be translated by the English word forget, and it took me a long time to realize the difference.

kame singi is an intentional act of putting something out of one's mind (Example: Even though you stole from me, I have forgotten about it.)

tatake pingi is a memory lapse or inability to recall something (Example: How do you say 'chicken' in Enga? Oh, I forget.)
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Judas Maccabeus
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Re: Who reads Greek?

Post by Judas Maccabeus »

Bootstrap wrote:I know that Adam, Josh, Neto, and I read Greek. I think JM does too. Does anyone else? When questions about Greek come up, we usually weigh in. If there's disagreement, we usually discuss.

By "read Greek", I mean "can read a page of simple Greek, perhaps looking up some words". If anyone wants to claim just a little more, I recommend this test.
Not very well at all. Just picked up enough in grad school to understand what the profs were talking about in other courses. I do appreciate the difficulty of translation, having worked in a second language quite different from English.

J.M.
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MaxPC
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Re: Who reads Greek?

Post by MaxPC »

Neto wrote:
Sudsy wrote:
Not me. Imo, this would just add to my list of projects that I don't believe are Kingdom building.

My curiousity on the subject is for those who have learned Greek: what advantage has it been to Kingdom building (i.e. is there something important with knowing Greek that gives some advantage of following Jesus over those who don't ?) Perhaps it could be argued that learning Greek could become a disadvantage.
It is a very important knowledge set for anyone who wants to do Bible translation. Here's why I feel this way: Languages deal with even common concepts differently. Sometimes in the translation process it is imperative that the translator add a word or two (sometimes even more) in order to have the wording make good sense, and demonstrate natural discourse structure. If you are translating from a translation, then you may be adding some more words which are not even necessary in the third language, to convey the meaning of the original. In other words, the original language (Greek, in this case) may present the ideas in ways which are more similar to the third language than to English. So you can end up going around the barn a few times just to say something that is not even in the text in the original language.
Some languages are also more "economical" than others. An example in the language we worked on is that body parts can stand for the person, such as when the English text says that "the soldiers spit on Jesus' face", the Indian language requires a passive sentence (to maintain proper discourse structure, where the topic of the discourse is always the subject of the sentence), where 'face' is the subject, and it says "Face was spit on by the soldiers." (Also a reason why I am not impressed with claims that a given translation is "more literal" than another. Literalness can literally obscure or confuse the meaning.) Also, if the Indian language where we worked was the second language text (the one you were translating from, into English, for example), you would face other problems. This language has what linguists call Inclusive & Exclusive 1st person plural pronouns, in addition to both dual & plural markers. So 'we' must specify if the hearer is included in the 'we', and also if the 'we' is only two people, or three or more.
(Incidentally, this is also why I don't care for the Funk translation of The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, because it is an English translation of the German translation, and it does not read naturally, in my opinion. I don't read or speak Dutch, so I cannot verify the accuracy of it against the other version, which is a direct translation of the Dutch text.)

Bible translation is not a part of "kingdom building" for everyone, but it has been for me.
Sudsy and Neto. :clap:
I'm concerned that this thread feels a tad on the bragging side. Why the roll call of those who know Greek? If there had been a project underway in which input of Greek knowledgeables was requested, the request could have simply been made to contact offlist via PM and carried on from there. I'm concerned that those who've never had the courses may be made to feel inferior with this kind talk. Knowledge of Greek doesn't make one a good disciple. It's the life lived in obedience to God that makes it so.
My two cents.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Who reads Greek?

Post by Bootstrap »

MaxPC wrote: I'm concerned that this thread feels a tad on the bragging side. Why the roll call of those who know Greek?
This thread was originally a direct response to an exchange that was dragging down another thread. It started when Adam mentioned some authoritative Greek references, and you said the following:
MaxPC wrote:
Adam wrote:I love the Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Frederick William Danker. It is one of the few New Testament Greek lexicons that actually gives definitions for words and not just glosses (i.e. one-word translations). The layout is really easy to use. This is the Danker who represents the letter D in BDAG, which is the standard Greek-English lexicon for New Testament studies (a great resource in itself but very bulky and way more information than is helpful for quick reference purposes). But for a quick reference the Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament is by far the best in my opinion.
Catholic academic world prefers these sources as well for Greek courses. Prior to that they used Bauer and a few others.

It gladdens my heart to see excellent scholarship still being produced to maintain translation integrity: great work, Adam! I've encountered too many "self-taught, self-appointed experts" who think they can read Greek without being formally trained in it.
That went on to trash the whole thread. Too bad, it was a good thread.

If it's important to know who knows Greek, and how well, I thought the most constructive way to do that was to start a new thread. I think we have identified people who can evaluate each other's opinions on Greek here. And that's important, because on an internet forum, we really do need to guard against self-appointed experts, as you point out.
MaxPC wrote:I'm concerned that those who've never had the courses may be made to feel inferior with this kind of talk. Knowledge of Greek doesn't make one a good disciple. It's the life lived in obedience to God that makes it so.
On the whole, Mennonites don't care about formal credentials, and we stress life in obedience to God.

We really need to be on guard against exalting ourselves by stressing our own knowledge or credentials. We also need to be on guard against putting other people down by attacking theirs. I've seen too much of that on the forum, and only a few people do that.

Usually, the best way to do that is to discuss the topic in a thread and avoid bringing in opinions about ourselves or others.
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ken_sylvania
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Re: Who reads Greek?

Post by ken_sylvania »

FWIW, I didn't feel like any of the Greeks on this thread were coming across as bragging, I thought that input was shared in a gracious manner.
I think it would be interesting to learn to read NT Greek, but so far in life it's not high enough on my priority list for me to invest the necessary time, so I simply enjoy listening to the hobbyists and experts discuss it.
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