2. Les translittérations dans la version latine du Commentaire moyen à l’Éthique à Nicomaque d’Averroès

Abstract

The present discussion derives from a larger research project that concerns the medieval Latin translation of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics. The translation was carried out by Hermann the German in Toledo in 1240. I am concerned here specifically with nine passages that are distributed over three chapters of the Commentary (II.7; IV.1-3) in which the Latin translation is sprinkled with transliterations based on Greek and Arabic terms. These transliterations, which are not glosses, can be understood on several levels, and these, in turn, raise questions about the boundary between transliteration proper and translation that borrows from the source language a term which is then integrated into the Latin lexicon in the form of a calque or ‘loan translation’. Examining these transliterations makes it possible, first, to show that the translator does not follow a uniform method throughout the text, which could imply the existence of several translators or several collaborators with distinct and exclusive areas of expertise, and second, to advance the hypothesis that a Greek copy of the Nicomachean Ethics was available at the time the translation was being executed in 1240. Finally, the discussion of transliterations makes it possible to confirm certain emendations proposed by Ullman in the Arabic edition of the Nicomachean Ethics published by Akasoy and Fidora, as well as to suggest a primary classification of the surviving manuscripts of the Latin version of the Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics.