Katherine Griffis-Greenberg Wrote:
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>
> This, to me, makes no sense. Explain.
>


Little errors in translations can make huge errors in interpretation.


Most words get their meaning from context and without referants it's
easy to lose meaning. We'll tend to try to put something in its place
to make the idea intelligible but this can entirely negate the original
meaning.

For instance if they're descibing a boat building process that involves
wrapping the girders to make them steady by saying the " the rope holds
fast the work of Khnum" our translation will be much more tentative if
we don't know that this refers to a boat. After the slight mistransla-
tion to something like "the work of Khnum is wound round by rope" then
the referant becomes increasingly less likely and the meaning can affect
not only this particular idea but the succeeding and preceeding ideas.

This all becomes more problematical when you consider that various auth-
ors over a long period of time wrote this material. What was true and
visible to the early writers may have already been misunderstood or not
fully comprehended by later writers. It's probable all the writers were
fmiliar with all the writing to date and their understanding would neces-
sarily vary.

Language expresses ideas so fluidly not because words have definitions
and language has rules but despite it. Translation is always a dicey
concept even where both languages share all the same reference points
and same assumptions. It gets far more complicated when the languages
are separated in time, space, and the normal way man has come to see his
world.

I personally believe every word in this sort of "distant" translation
should be taken literally unless it is obviously not meant to be or it
is shown not to be. These writings look different when literal meanings
are left intact. Of course most can show that these literal meanings
aren't the intent of the author.



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Man fears the pyramid, time fears man.