Languages ( was : Yiddish translation of Gita

[winnie fellows]

> Language corresponds to culture and is able to express the feelings and
attitudes you find in a
given culture at any given time.

>> In MHO only if there already exists in that language the >>concepts which
the words are to match. There are many >>feelings, attitudes and also
concepts which the genius of a >>given language did not yet formulated. On
the other hand when >>you import concepts and feelings ( through literature,
for >>instance ) from another set of experiences and >>Weltanschauunge you
may find and use matching words but it >>will not have real soundness untill
they match inner >>corresponding experiences, both in feelings and ideas.


> Yet I would claim that a modern Norwegian
>could communicate without serious linguistic problems with a >Norwegian
>living 100 years ago (in terms of being understood semantically) in spite
of
>the fact that values and attitudes have changed tremendously since 1898.

>>Well some 100 years would more or less bring us back to time >>of Ibsen's
Ett Dukkehjem. The transformations which took >>place are not that
tremendous, are they?


>Obviously. Poetry is particularly difficult to translate. But I am not sure
>if this has to do with values.

>>I'm not using the word value in a moral sense, but rather closed >>to that
of Bedeutungsträger.

>This is definitely a different problem. I would claim that you >could
>translate correctly from Chinese if you have concepts available >to match
the Chinese...

>> That's the point. "If you have..." But you cannot have it just because
you found this or that word for matching. You've got to have also the
underlying cultural experience in order to have resonance. That was always
the problem with the purists. Victor Rydberg translated Goethe's Faust in a
quite ancient Swedish, full of words from Viking's times. It was a fiasko.

>... but in practical life, you would have to use footnotes to explain
>the Chinese concepts (which is a way of introducing new >concepts into a
language).

>> Well, that's indeed a useful device.

 >A number of texts that were incorrectly translated before, can
>now be translated correctly because ethics and atttitudes have changed.
They
>could have been translated correctly 50 or 100 years ago, too, but this was
>impossible for cultural reasons. The language was there, but not the
>tolerance for what the texts actually had to say.
>
>> Not only the tolerance, but also the cultural predisposition and
possibility for that.

>You seem to be surprised that Yiddish speakers should have >other interests
than what
>goes on in their shtetl, but given that Yiddish was spoken by a >very large
>group of people, there should theoretically be at least a small >group with
>unconventional interests.

>> That's truth and I fully agree with you.