[gothic-l] Genesis Translation (was: Your opinions on this site...)

[M.]

Hails

Thanks for your suggestions.
Justin, your comments are wholly valid. Were it not that the Septuagint
greek were so much older and hebraized and so utterly different than the
koine, I would agree with the fully literal approach. However, I have to
agree with Magnus in this case with the definite article. My latest version
will show this. I amended it yesterday before reading his suggestion,
surprsingly enough. Seeing it only confirms it in my mind. Struggling
through the LXX is a much harder and other task than chapter one of Matthew,
for example (aside from the fact that half of the latter is genealogy).

In any event, I have gone back and forth between the maximum and minimum
usage of the article throughout the translation process, but I find this
happy medium to work best and to be most euphonic and most harmonizing with
extant manuscripts. I think you'll find that the newest version (from
yesterday) uses the article in a way similar to Magnus' suggestion, i.e. it
is used with nouns previously mentioned, sometimes also for clarification.

this lack of the article you mention, Magnus, seems to me a leaning somewhat
toward the latin vulgate. notice how it even more rarely uses the definite
article. the definite article I use with nouns which have genitive
attributes but not with the genitive attribute itself (e.g. to the fish of
the sea > thaim fiskam saiwe).

the next question would be concerning the redundant sounding "jah"
(reflecting 'w' of the hebrew and 'kai' of the greek). the latin vulgate
seems to use synonyms here and there for the sake of euphony. i wonder
whether Wulfila would have alternated jah with than, thanuh, swa etc. in
some places perhaps the enclitic -uh? but looking at the codices ambrosiani
shows abundance of the jah introductory.

cheers,
-Matþaius


on 10/6/00 9:06 AM, Magnus Hreinn Snaedal at hreinn at ismal.hi.is wrote:

> First:
> Gothic 'sa' is NOT an article, but a demonstrative, cf. Braune/Ebbinghaus
> §153.
> 
> The word 'himins' NEVER takes the 'sa' in the entire Gothic corpus. (If
> there is only one can be disputed, cf. 'und þridjan himin' in 2 Cor 12:2.)
> In Matthew 'himins' occurs 21 times as a translation of Greek 'ouranós'; in
> 16 instances the Greek article is left untranslated; in 5 there is no
> article in the Greek text.
> 
> In Gothic 'airþa' takes the 'sa' once: 'ana þizai godon airþai', Lk 8:15.
> In Matthew airþa occurs 11 times as a translation of Greek 'gê'; in 10
> instances the Greek article is left untranslated; in 1 there is no article
> in the Greek text.
> 
> Indeed, when one compares the Gothic and Greek word for word, one of the
> most striking feature is how often the Greek article has no representation
> in Gothic.
> 
> M.Sn.
>> 
>> However the Greek (which Ulphilas would have been reading) and the Hebrew
>> itself DO have articles. As does the English. Since there is (in every day
>> experience anyway) only one heaven and one earth it's not really confusing
> if 
>> they are introduced as something we've heard of before.
>> 


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