[Lexicog] When Semantics Doesn't Matter

[Fritz Goerling]

Bill,

 

>From my experience in Bible translation I can say that many meaning-based
translations are clearer than the original. It cannot be supposed that what
was understood by the original receptors will be understood by modern
readers who come from a totally different cultural and linguistic
background. I have grown up with fairly literal translations of the Bible in
German, but when I started reading meaning-based (functionally equivalent)
translations, I began to understand many passages which I had not understood
before.

 

As far as Shakespeare is concerned: He is certainly not "a white dead male"
(as some ideologically-minded claim). He communicates in the original, in
translations and modern adaptations.

 

Fritz

I have been told by people whose knowledge of both
Shakespeare and German is better than my own that
Shakespeare is better in German translation.
It seems odd that anything would be better in translation,
but I suppose that the English of Shakespeare is sufficiently
different from Modern English that this may be like saying
that Shakespeare is better in Modern German translation than
in Modern English translation, which is not so implausible.

Bill

 

 

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