From Babel to Babel Fish
There have been a number of books written recently about the history of translation.
What certainly is true is that as we move from the age of the tower of
Babel (where the Bible tells us different languages were first
introduced) to the age of Babel Fish (and other instant translation
services) there is a growing need for translation. As the internet
spreads, and globalisation moves on - the need for translation
increases. Language schools and courses, like St Georges language courses in London, may help you to learn Spanish in London
but theorists throughout the ages have insisted that a good translator
must not only know the language but understand the culture they are
translating.
Early history
The word translation itself derives
from a Latin term meaning "to bring or carry across". The Ancient Greek
term is 'metaphrasis' ("to speak across") and this gives us the term
'metaphrase' (a "literal or word-for-word translation") - as contrasted
with 'paraphrase' ("a saying in other words"). This distinction has laid
at the heart of the theory of translation throughout its history:
Cicero and Horace employed it in Rome, Dryden continued to use it in the
seventeenth century and it still exists today in the debates around
"fidelity versus transparency" or "formal equivalence versus dynamic
equivalence". The first known translations are those of the Sumerian
epic Gilgamesh into Asian languages from the second millennium BC. Later
Buddhist monks translated Indian sutras into Chinese and Roman poets
adapted Greek texts.
Arabic scholars
Translation undertaken by Arabs could
be said to have kept Greek wisdom and learning alive. Having conquered
the Greek world, they made Arabic versions of its philosophical and
scientific works. During the Middle Ages, translations of these Arabic
versions were made into Latin - mainly at the school in C�rdoba, Spain.
These Latin translations of Greek and original Arab works of learning
helped underpin Renaissance scholarship.
Religious texts
Religious texts have played a great
role in the history of translation. One of the first recorded instances
of translation in the West was the rendering of the Old Testament into
Greek in the 3rd century BC. A task carried out by 70 scholars this
translation itself became the basis for translations into other
languages.
Saint Jerome, the patron saint of
translation, produced a Latin Bible in the 4th century AD that was the
preferred text for the Roman Catholic Church for many years to come.
Translations of the Bible, though, were to controversially re-emerge
when the Protestant Reformation saw the translation of the Bible into
local European languages - eventually this led to Christianity's split
into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism due to disparities between
versions of crucial words and passages. Martin Luther himself is
credited with being the first European to propose that one translates
satisfactorily only toward his own language: a statement that is just as
true in modern translation theory.
Modern Theory and Practice
Whilst industrialisation has led to
the formalization of translation for business purposes since the
eighteenth century it is, perhaps, the internet and mechanical
translation that has really revolutionised the field. In terms of theory
Lawrence Venuti's
call for "foreignizing" strategies marks a call for fidelity over
transparency in translation. The two poles of metaphrase and paraphrase,
however, still set the terms of debate from the age of Babel to that of
Babel Fish.
www.languagerealm.com/articles/history-of-translation.php
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