The Biblical Key Word ḇêraḵ : What Does it Mean and How it Can Be Rendered in English, Arabic and Japanese?

THE SPHERICS OF THEODOSIUS Theodosius, Sphaerica: Arabic and Medieval Latin Translations. Edited by Paul Kunitzsch and Richard Lorch (Boethius, lxii; Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 2010). Pp. 431. euro64. ISBN 978-3-515-09288-3.Theodosius's classic treatise on the geometry of circles on the surface of a sphere, The Spherics, offered its Greek readers a systematic, logical development of all the basic theorems in spherical geometry as well as a number of theorems applicable mainly to spherical astronomy. Theodosius wrote the work, probably, in the first part of the first century b.c., and its adoption as a teaching text by Alexandrian scholars ensured its survival into the Islamic, and then Latin, Middle Ages. The numerous references to Arabic manuscripts of all or part of the work in vol. ? of F. Sezgin's Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums testify to its continuing study in the Islamic world well into the eighteenth century.In 2000, Claire Czinczenheim produced a definitive edition of the Greek text, together with French translation and commentary. Now, two noted scholars and long-time collaborators have combined their efforts to produce editions of Arabic and medieval Latin texts of Theodosius's Sphaerica. As a result, we now have reliable editions of a major scientific work in all languages in which it appeared while it was still of scientific importance.The editors begin with an account of the still-murky history of the Arabic translation of the Spherics. They point out that there were two different translations into Arabic, one represented by three mss (A, N, and H - the last-mentioned being Arabic written in Hebrew script) and the other represented by manuscripts F and C (both of these also in Hebrew script). FC specifically ascribes the translation to Qusta ibn Luqa, but this simple ascription is qualified, or contradicted, by other versions of the text. Other than giving what evidence there is, Kunitzsch and Lorch take no definite position on this matter.For reasons that they do not explain, the editors chose to edit the Arabic text represented by three manuscripts, denoted collectively as ANH, which was done by comparing manuscripts A (Istanbul) with N (private library) and, in doubtful cases, with the Greek text. (Only in such cases - most of which, it seems, occur early in Book I - have the editors recorded the reading of H.) The editorial work has been very carefully done. With the text and its critical notes it is possible to know exactly the readings of texts of A and N.The Latin text presented here is a transcription of the text found in one manuscript, P (Paris), the shorter of two that circulated in medieval times. It is an indication of the scholarly care that has gone into the production of this work that the authors collated P with ten other manuscripts. The editors note that P is clearly a translation of the ANH text, and they argue on stylistic grounds that it was done by Gerard of Cremona who, in any case, is known to have done a translation.As the editors point out (p. …

This article presents an analysis of yakuwarigo 役割語 implementation in the Japanese translation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Chrzest Ognia (Baptism of Fire). Focusing on the character Milva’s manner of speaking, the author analyses selected passages from the Polish original focusing on stylization (archaization, colloquialisms, vulgarisms). She compares them with corresponding passages from the Japanese translation by Yasuko Kawano, concentrating on the use of yakuwarigo in order to compare the character images of Milva in the two texts. Due to a weaker character image and the lack of linguistic markers indicating Milva’s background in the Japanese translation, the author juxtaposes those passages with their counterparts in the English translation by David French, which may have served as the source text for Kawano’s translation. Since Milva’s character image as presented in French’s work is the weakest and least distinctive of the three languages, this might explain the relatively low number of yakuwarigo expressions in the Japanese translation.

The First Translations of Machiavelli's “Prince” from the Sixteenth to the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Critical Edition of a Fragment of Ramon Llull's Centum Formae in the Introductorium Magnae Artis Generalis Ilil Baum This appendix accompanies the essay by Ilil Baum, "Jewish Lullism around the Expulsion A Spanish-Catalan Fragment in Hebrew Characters from Ramon Llull's Introductorium Magnae Artis Generalis," JQR 110.3 (2020): 553–573. The following critical edition presents a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century fragment from the Vatican Library (MS Vat. ebr. 375, ff. 50r–51r), written in Catalanized Castilian in Hebrew script. It contains seventeen philosophical definitions that I identify as part of Ramon Llull's lists of centum formae (hundred forms) in his Introductorium magnae artis generalis (Introduction to the great general art; also known as Liber de universalibus, The book of universals). The edition is meant to make this material accessible to researchers interested in the study of Jewish-Christian intellectual relations in the Iberian Peninsula, particularly with regard to the reception of the work of Ramon Llull. It includes a reproduction of the Hebrew text, a transcription and critical edition with comparison to the known Latin manuscripts in the footnotes, and an English translation. Editorial Criteria I have interfered with the texts as little as possible. I have also tried to represent the visual appearance of the manuscript as closely as possible. Hence, I have tried to maintain the spaces between the rows and parts of the sentences. I have marked the definitions in bold, as these are highlighted in the original fragment by a stretched line between two arrows ←→ above each definition (except that of infinity). In order to facilitate [End Page A1] the reading of the translation, I have preferred a consecutive form of translation, wherein the rows of the original fragment are separated by a sign. The English translation is quite literal in order to maintain the original language as much as possible.1 The purpose of the transcription into Latin characters is to reflect the rendition of the Hebrew text as closely as possible, without making it unreadable. Some evident mistakes by the copyist that could confuse the reader are corrected in the edition, followed by an explanatory footnote. In other cases, I have preferred to maintain the original "errors," while commenting on them in the footnotes. Graphic signs used in the edition of the text: • [abcd] Square brackets mark doubtful readings. When the reading is even less clear a question mark is also added abcd[?]. • (abcd) Parentheses include some interpretative proposals lacking in the text, including the elaboration of abbreviations. In the English translation, these are used for additions that improve the sense of the text. • Additions in the manuscript above the line are inserted as \bcd/. • Hebrew elements are marked with italics. • Forms that are exceptional for medieval Catalan and medieval Castilian or that might cause reading confusions are indicated in the footnotes. Among these are the forms with initial h-. No accents are added. Capital letters are added according to modern Spanish. All punctuation signs are my own additions, as the Hebrew text generally lacks any punctuation marks. The Hebrew manuscripts, like other medieval Catalan and Castilian manuscripts, in many cases agglutinate words or else misdivide them. The agglutinated words are separated by the interpunct sign (·). Some concrete remarks regarding the transcription of the consonants are due: Since the matrix language seems to be Castilian rather than Catalan, [qwa] and [qwo] are transcribed as cua, cuo (for example, cual, cuando etc.), and not as qua, quo as in Catalan texts. The sound [g] is transcribed as g before a, o, u, and gu before e and i. Since the use of the apostrophe (or rafe) with gimel and peh is not systematic, I have interpreted it either as g, p or rather j, f, according to the context. Bet and consonantal vav are transcribed as b and v, respectively. Samekh is transcribed as c (before e, i) and ç (before a, o, u). Tsade is attested only in a couple of occurrences at the end of the word. These are also transcribed by ç. Shin is generally transcribed by s (equivalent to s [End Page A2] and intervocalic -ss-in medieval Castilian and medieval Catalan). The text supplies many...

Trilingual Glossary of Demographic Terminology: English-Japanese-German/Japanese-English-German German-Japanese-English

The Japanese Translation of the Hebrew Bible: History, Inventory and Analysis (Leiden: Brill, 2013) is the first of its kind, that is, the first English scholarly book focusing on the history of translating the Hebrew Bible into the Japanese language. It compares and analyzes 12 full translations (A-1…A-12), 16 partial translations (B-1…B-16), 13 fragmentary translations (C-1…C-13), and 6 further editions of the Bible (D-1…D-6). The book consists of two main parts: part one (History and Inventory) and part two (Analysis and Translated Verses). Part one has three chapters. Chapter 1 is introduction which deals with The Bible in Japan (1.1), Christianity in Japan (1.2), Translation (1.3), and Scope and Method (1.4).<BR> Chapter 2 talks about a historical review of Bible translation according to several periods: the Kirishitan Period (2.1), the Bible in China (2.2), the 19th Century and Early Meiji (2.3), from Late Meiji until World War II (2.4), and the Post-World War II Period (2.5). And Chapter 3 introduces various kinds of Japanese Bible in four categories: full translations (3.1), partial translations in book form (3.2), fragmentary translations, early digests and partial translation in magazines (3.3), and some further editions of the Bible, using previous translations (3.4).<BR> Part two has four chapters. Chapter 4 focuses its study on Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and compares and analyzes 12 different full Japanese translations. In each translation, the author gives a Japanese translation of two verses and their transliteration. However, he does not give the English translation of the given Japanese translation of the verses. Unless the reader is fluent in Japanese, he/she could not understand what the Japanese translation means. With only the Japanese verses and their transliteration, the readers are unable to see what the author explicates.<BR> Chapter 5 deals with Psalm 23 in various translations as well as the analysis of words and expressions like YHWH ro‘i, mizmor ledavid, and many others. Furthermore, the author touches on the issue of faithfulness in the process of translating Psalm 23. In 5.5, he also talks about the three early versions of Psalm 100 and the identity of the translators. Chapter 6 chooses several examples of translation and compares them. Some passages from Genesis, Proverbs, and Job are picked and analyzed. In 6.4, Hebraism in the Japanese translations are discussed in two categories: Hebraism retained and Hebraism avoided. Chapter 7, the last chapter mentions several issues including faithfulness and new translation or revision. It ends with the author’s personal perspective appreciating the enormous efforts of the missionary translators and the Japanese assistants.<BR> Although there are some weaknesses in this book, the beneficial aspects are much more than enough. I hope someday this kind of study is published on the Korean translations of the Hebrew Bible.

Reviewed by: La Biblia Escorial I.I.6 by Enrique-Arias, Andrés Steven N. Dworkin Enrique-Arias, Andrés, ed. La Biblia Escorial I.I.6. Transcripción y estudios. Logroño: CiLengua Fundación San Millán de la Cogolla, 2010. 98 pp +1 CDROM. ISBN 978-84-937654-6-0. A rich tradition of vernacular renderings (romanceamientos) of the Bible flourished in medieval Spain. At least a dozen different manuscripts have preserved Romance versions of the Bible, the largest number in any medieval European vernacular. All but two of these translations are based on the Hebrew Bible and thus exclude the New Testament. In some of the versions derived from the Hebrew text, the Deuterocanonical books follow the text of the Vulgate. These texts were prepared by Jews for the use of both their co-religionists, and for Christian patrons who commissioned and sponsored some of these translations. Although some may reflect earlier originals, the majority of these versions date from the fifteenth century, a time when the Church was not strictly enforcing its prohibition on private ownership of vernacular Bibles. The negative attitude of the Church in the Iberian Peninsula toward vernacular Bibles may explain in part the paucity of Romance Bibles based on the Latin Vulgate. The surviving manuscripts may be but the remnants of a much richer tradition of Romance Bibles in medieval Spain. In addition, vernacular Bible texts constitute lengthy sections of such works as the early thirteenth-century Fazienda de ultra Mar and the Alfonsine General estoria (the latter based on the Vulgate). Romance biblical fragments also turn up in several fifteenth-century texts. Three recent studies by Gemma Avenoza provide an informative description and analysis of the manuscripts that have preserved medieval Spanish Bibles. The Biblical text contained in Escorial Manuscript I.I.6 (also known as I-J-6 and E6; hereafter E6) is one of the two medieval Spanish vernacular Bibles translated directly from the Vulgate (the other being Escorial MS I.I.8 or E8) and is the oldest Castilian vernacular Bible. This copy was executed ca. 1250 and, consequently, is the longest extant pre-Alfonsine Castilian prose text. It is a treasure trove of early Castilian linguistic forms. Its 358 double-columned [End Page 291] folios contain the Old Testament starting from Proverbs, and the entire New Testament. Escorial Manuscript I.I.8 (E8) contains most of the Old Testament material missing from E6, a situation which has led some experts to suspect that both go back to a common Vulgate-based original. The Gospel of St. Matthew as transcribed in E6 was edited by Thomas Montgomery, who subsequently joined forces with Spurgeon Baldwin to publish a well-received edition of the remainder of the New Testament. Over the years various scholars have edited individual Old Testament books from E6, often in journals of difficult access or as unpublished dissertations. Enrique-Arias identifies these editions at page 16 of his Introduction to the book under review, which offers its readers the first edition of the entire Biblical text preserved in E6. Andrés Enrique-Arias is one of the leading specialists in the study of medieval vernacular Spanish Bibles. He is the creator of the website Biblia medieval (www.bibliamedieval.es), which offers, among other features, a transcription of all extant medieval Spanish Bible manuscripts as well as those portions of Biblical books reproduced in other texts, accompanied by the text of the Vulgate and the Hebrew Bible (the latter both in Hebrew script and in transliteration). Enrique-Arias has designed a parallel corpus, which allows the researcher to compare at one glance how a given Biblical passage is rendered in all the relevant Romance versions. Such a tool is invaluable to the textual critic and to the historical linguist who wishes to compare the choice of, say, orthographical and morphological variants, syntactic constructions, or lexical items. Enrique-Arias himself has authored a number of studies of Spanish morphosyntax based on the data found in the Biblia medieval corpus (e.g., Biblias romanceadas, Lingua eorum). In addition to a Prologue by Claudio García Turza and a brief Introduction by the editor, four studies accompany the transcription...

This paper takes deep learning as the background of researcher design, combines the relevant cutting‐edge research results in recent years, addresses the linguistic characteristics of Japanese and the problems faced by completing Japanese machine translation system, and determines the neural network structure of encoding‐decoding for Japanese translation based on the characteristics of high similarity between Japanese and Chinese and after referring to the neural network architecture of English translation, and the basic structure and the corresponding improvement of the hidden layer unit calculation are carried out. The training model is optimized and an integrated Japanese machine translation system is implemented. Finally, the translation models of Japanese and Chinese intertranslation and Japanese and Chinese intertranslation are tested, and the optimal model fusion achieves a BLEU value of 39.52.

This chapter contains list of Greek text with English translation. The book equally contributes to Graeco-Arabic studies as ancilla of classical studies, and includes the first critical edition of the Arabic translation with an English translation and commentary, a detailed excursus on the editorial technique for Greek texts which medieval Arabic translations are extant as well as for the Arabic translations themselves, and a complete Greek and Arabic glossary as a blueprint for future lexica.Keywords: English translation; Greek text

Grimms’ Fairy Tales were first introduced in Japan through English textbooks. Likewise, the first Japanese translation in book form by Ryoho Suga was not translated from the German original, but from H.B. Paull’s English translation which contains many changes in line with Victorian values. By introducing German writings via English translations, influences of English culture and society were unavoidable.

This exploratory research investigates linguistic and cultural challenges in English and Arabic translations of Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho’s novel, Eleven Minutes, which was originally written in Portuguese. This study raises the following questions: (1) How does the functional-pragmatic model of House prove to be advantageous to the contrastive analysis of translations of Eleven Minutes? (2) To what extent are the translators whose work is examined in the current research faithful to the ST? (3) How intensely are linguistic-textual elements prioritized over cultural aspects in the conveyance of the ST message in either translation? This work employs Juliane House’s model of translation quality assessment to make a comparative analysis of the source text with both translations and to highlight the relationship of linguistic components with the relevant communication process. Furthermore, the techniques adopted in both translations are examined through excerpts taken from each of the three versions of the book. The registers of the source text and those of the target texts are analyzed and compared based on the register analysis of House’s model. Consequently, the study demonstrates how the conceptual and interpersonal functions of language are affected in the target texts. The outcome of this qualitative analysis leads to the identification of the methods adopted by the translators, mainly referring to overt and covert translation methods. Overall, it is concluded that the English translation is significantly linked to the source text by pragmatic equivalence, in contrast, the Arabic translation is connected to the source text by significant functional equivalence that highlights the cultural filter used in the text.

It is inevitable that Bible translators come to their task with theological assumptions about what translation is and how translation of the Bible should be done. Bible readers also have their theological assumptions which establish what they expect of translations and what they will accept in new ones. This article attempts to identify a number of theological issues involved in the decision and reception of Bible translation. Theological assumptions about language, about communication, about translation, and about the Bible, will be examined respectively. This raises the question of theological distortion of ”literalism”, which will be discussed in the last section, and I propose that it is more adequate to think of translations according to the interplay between the ”accessibility” they provide and the ”distortion” they create.

In the third century one part of elite of the ancient Japanese society adopted Chinese writing and began to learn it. It is assumed that at the beginning Japanese read Chinese characters following the sound patterns of the ancient Japanese language approximating the Chinese sounds. However, Japanese sounds applied the Chinese characters, and at the same time the word order was changed into Japanese word order. This was the beginning of kanbun kundoku, or Chinese writing with Japanese readings. The term ‘Japanese readings’ is used here in the sense of both: to read each individual character as a Chinese character, or, to read them replacing the word order of Chinese writing into a Japanese translation. When Chinese characters were adopted for use in Japan, they were at first read as Chinese sounds with a Japanese pronunciation approximating that of the Chinese reading. Thereafter, this type of Japanese translation for individual readings of Chinese characters known as ‘kundoku’ began. ‘Kundoku’ (reading characters with their Chinese pronunciations) is still used today along with ‘ondoku’ for reading Chinese characters used in Japanese, i.e. in ‘kanbun kundoku’. This first reading is important in the history of modern Japanese translation. The reason is that when Japanese first encountered western languages, this method of Chinese translation readings was used for English translation, French translation, and so on. In short, Japanese people created another style of written Japanese for translation, dating back to Chinese writing system, apart from the traditional ancient Japanese language system. In Japan, however, after Chinese characters were introduced from China, Japanese created a style of native Japanese readings. Japanese translators have translated naturally according to their own logic and style.

This study investigated the relationship of attitudes and cultural background to reading comprehension in the second language (L2) of eighth‐grade students in three different social contexts: Israeli Arab students (n=73) learning Hebrew as their L2, Israeli Jewish students (n=83) learning English as their L2, and Canadian Arab students (n=52) learning English as their L2. Eighteen stories were selected for reading, six for each of the three groups, as follows: Israeli Arab – three Arab stories in Arabic and in Hebrew translation, and three Jewish stories in Hebrew and in Arabic translation; Israeli Jewish – three Jewish stories in Hebrew and in English translation, and three western stories in English and in Hebrew translation; Canadian Arab – three Arab stories in Arabic and in English translation, and three western stories in English and in Arabic translation. The results showed that the motivation of the students to learning their L2 was instrumental rather than integrative, regardless of social context. Furthermore, in the two Israeli groups, Arab and Jewish, students better comprehended their own culture's stories regardless of the language of the story. By contrast, the results for the Canadian Arab group showed that text language, not text content, was the strongest factor affecting reading comprehension.

This chapter concentrates on the introduction to Book Three of the Rhetoric, contrasting the Greek source text with the Arabic translation and an English rendering of the Arabic version. This English translation aims to reflect the structural and terminological features of the Arabic text as closely as possible. The chapter introduces a comparative perspective by contrasting the first half of Book Three of the Rhetoric and a number of other translations spanning several phases of the Greek-Arabic translation movement, examining several terminological and lexical issues across the texts. Before focuses on the Greek and Arabic texts it point out some of the factors influencing and sometimes impeding the extraction of a coherent set of arguments from the Arabic translation. The chapter presents the Greek text according to the edition prepared by Rudolf Kassel, followed by the Arabic translation edited by Malcolm Lyons and English translation of the Arabic text.Keywords: Rhetoric; Arabic version; English translation; Greek source; Malcolm Lyons; Rudolf Kassel