![]() This is a dire predicament, as it prevents the woman from getting married. Aguna (עגונה)Īn Aguna refers to a woman whom the whereabouts of her husband are unknown. This word is inflected using standard Hebrew grammar rules. So if someone buys a 10 Million dollar house, has a fancy car, or lives an otherwise charmed existence then someone who is a true friend would express Firgun. This word expresses a feeling of satisfaction that someone takes in the success of others. Here is a list of ten Hebrew words which have no equivalent in the English language. Not bad for a language that was nearly dead. Today, Hebrew is spoken by over 10 million people in Israel and worldwide. This revival necessitated the formulation of new words for things that did not exist prior to the 19th century. The Hebrew language was revived about 200 years ago by people in the Zionist movement and was a precursor to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Hebrew was pretty much a defunct language for over one thousand years and was not used anywhere in the world outside of Jewish prayer and in Talmudic literature. ![]() ![]() But for exactly this reason, it is also one of the most evolving languages. Hebrew is one of the most ancient languages in existence. This can also pose a challenge to people who are non-native speakers of a language, since second language speakers tend to process spoken language through internalized translation. These hyper-literal "calque translations" end up sounding alien when compared to normative speech, using prepositions in extraordinary ways and twisting grammatical forms to more closely reflect the original Hebrew.įor literature lovers: In your opinion, what should be the top priority for a translator? Does your opinion change when the text is considered sacred?įor critical thinkers: Why do you think traditional Jewish translations emphasize accuracy over accessibility? Do you think this was the right choice? Why or why not?įor anyone: Find one translation choice you wouldn't expect.One of the problems that face translators is that some words have no equivalent in other languages. Traditional Jewish translations of the Biblical text, as can be seen in the image, often choose the latter. So when translating the Bible into other languages, one must ask: accessibility or accuracy? This means that any Biblical text in another language is necessarily an interpretation of the original. Nowhere is the dichotomy of meaning versus form more acute than in the translation of sacred texts. To translate, one must balance the need to be understood and represent the target language authentically with the need to convey the original meaning precisely. As the old Italian expression goes, Traduttore, traditore - translator, traitor. The Ladino, Judeo-Greek, and Judeo-Persian translations from the sixteenth century are some of the earliest printed Jewish works. An English translation following the same principles might read “Ahead created God with the heavens and with the earth.” You can hear how odd that sounds!Īll of the translations depicted here are from traditional Jewish sources, and they span several centuries. This causes these translations to use what linguists call “marked forms,” meaning that they sound strange to the native speaker. For instance, the Judeo-Persian consistently translates it as mar (‘on’), while the Ladino translates it as a (‘to’). All of the translations directly parallel the syntax and terminology of the original Hebrew, as opposed to reflecting the normative grammars of their respective languages.Īspects of Hebrew that are difficult to translate directly - for instance, the direct object marker את et - are translated using awkward one-for-one correspondences. Above is a series of hyper-literal translations, or calques, of the first verse of Genesis into multiple Jewish languages - Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Greek, Baghdadi-Judeo Arabic, Halych Karaim (Karaite Judeo-Turkic from the Ukrainian city of Halych), and Hulaulá (Jewish Neo-Aramaic from the Kurdish region in Iran).
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